Talking Talent

It would be impossible to talk about labour shortages and not comment on the appalling lack of women in many of the high technology professions.  For example, a quick scan of almost any IT department, IT conference or vendor environment from the trenches to the corner office confirms that women who embrace technology as a life long career remain a rare breed.

There is no doubt that the opportunities for women in technology have advanced in the past few decades as have education initiatives aimed at leveling the playing field and attracting women into the industry. However for every woman rising to prominence or embarking on a career in IT or undertaking an IT course at university, as my daughter is, there is another opting out.

The number of women in the industry continues to decline and the reasons women give for leaving are the same ones I heard two decades ago; they are the micro inequalities such as wage discrimination, the boys club and the lack of work/life balance.

Restricting women’s job opportunities costs the Asia Pacific region up to $47 billion each year.

This startling figure was revealed in a report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, released last year, which also suggests that, as a nation’s female employment rate rises, so does its GDP.

With that in mind, Australia’s industries have a golden opportunity to increase our productivity by increasing the participation rate of women.

The “glass ceiling” (where women feel they have to work harder than male colleagues to achieve success) and the “old boys club” (with its informal male networking) contributes to the perceived or real exclusion of women from many high performance job opportunities.

So, what can we do to turn the tide?

I’m a strong advocate of providing women with the skills to succeed in a male-dominated working environment.  Some of those skills are:

1. Negotiation. Women employees across Australia’s economy earn just 83 cents for every dollar their male counterpart earns, so clearly, women can benefit from enhanced skills to enable them to negotiate salary packages and working conditions.
2. Self-promotion. Women often take the modest approach where they believe they will be rewarded for good work without self-promotion. Instead, they need to learn to not just “stand there” but “stand out”.
3. Work/life balance. The fast pace of life has become frantic for many women. We need to provide skills and training to help women gain and maintain work/life balance.

Is all this effort designed to get women into the workforce just for the sake of getting women into the workforce?

As the UN study shows, women are extremely valuable contributors to economic growth. As we confront rapidly changing patterns of paid work opportunities and work time arrangements, it is often those companies and industries perceived to care about the “people” aspect of business - such as work/life issues - that attract and retain the best talent.

A new Australian study has found that women are more suited to senior executive and management roles.

Researchers at Peter Berry Consultancy surveyed more than 1,800 Australian male and female executives and managers, using the Hogan Assessment System to rate the leaders in eight profile areas known to contribute to successful business leadership: strategic drive; risk taking; people skills; emotional stability; hot buttons; innovation; control and command; and bottom line dollars.

According to the report, Female leadership in Australia: What does it look like and how does it differ from their male counterparts?, in both groups of leaders, females scored highest in five key areas, while males scored higher in two areas and scores were even in one.

The key findings include:

• Female executives scored higher than males for being ambitious, bold, mischievous, colourful and imaginative;
• Males scored higher for commerce. “For men, money rules. Males measured success in financial terms. Females are driven by motivations other than money,” the report says;
• Female executives also scored higher in the area of people skills for their sociability, interpersonal sensitivity and affiliation, but lower for being reserved;
• Females come up in top when it comes to building emotional connections, trust and loyalty with others, the report says, making them a better choice than male executives for organisations that want people to feel valued; and
• Males are out in front when it comes to control and command.

The report adds: “If you are looking for hard nosed, ‘take no prisoners’ performance, then males have the stronger profile… Males have scored higher on ‘control and command’ and ‘bottom line dollars’. Because they dominate executive positions, these two factors will set the tone of the culture for the whole of the organisation.”

So, what do you think?

Men may still lead most of our professional industries in Australia, but it is women who hold the key to their collective future.

A report issued last year by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific concludes that restricting women’s job opportunities costs the region up to $47 billion each year.

The same report suggests that as a nation’s female employment rate rises, so does its GDP.

At the same time, the fast pace of life is taking its toll on women across the economy. While one in six Australian women reported feeling rushed in 1974, by 1997, seven out of eight women felt like life had become more frantic. Women are not returning from maternity leave or resigning because they are unable to combine work and family demands.

The cost to industry is high. NRMA estimates that it costs $48,000 to replace a manager, $29,000 to replace senior specialists and $12,000 to replace other staff.

So, how we support women at every stage of their careers?

When push comes to shove, women just aren’t as ambitious as men.

Right?

Wrong.

Generation F, a report released by Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) and Hay Group, reveals that women are just as likely as men to want promotions, pay rises and careers. 

The findings reveal that myths, assumptions and biases continue to prevent Generation F - all women in the Australian labour force aged between 16 and 65 years- from fully participating in rewarding careers and contributing to our nation’s economic growth.

“Like their male counterparts, the majority of Generation F, whether single, married, with or without children, aspire to a role involving either more or equal responsibility over the next few years,” the report found after analysing data from an online survey and focus groups held in 2006.

A similar study in the US presented the same results, revealing that female and male executives aspire to occupy the most senior role in an organisation in almost identical numbers (55 per cent of women and 57 per cent of men).

The EOWA report found that women who do leave a difficult workplace are more likely to find it convenient to say they lack ambition or simply want to focus on the family.  This perpetuates age-old stereotypes that contribute to the difficult working environment in the first place.  And of course, it lets organisations off the hook.

Business is not delivering for a large percentage of our workforce.  We need to embrace flexible work environments and recognise that our female workforce is skilled, but ready to move on quickly if an employer fails to satisfy their needs.