Do recruitment processes discriminate against senior women?
According to The Independent on Sunday, the way to shatter the glass ceiling is to change it. They quote ongoing research by Egon Zehnder International (EZI) which looks set to confirm that the selection processes used to find senior executives, particularly board directors, discriminate against women.
To be fair, the article doesn’t actually say ‘discriminate’, using the more diplomatic ‘works against promoting women’, but you get the thrust.
The argument runs that the tools and techniques companies use to measure, assess and evaluate candidates for senior posts are out of date. It is claimed they are based on experience-based competencies in a world where a lot of women lose out on experience because they tend to take time out in their 30s to have families. Talent management programmes tend to focus on precisely that age group to groom the top directors of the future. And women in their 30s with young families often buy into the idea of flexible working, which EZI describes as the ‘mummy trap’.
Other European countries who offer flexible working do a lot better than the UK as far as numbers of women on company boards are concerned – particularly the Scandinavian countries. So I find myself wondering why UK companies don’t look at how the Finns, Danes and Norwegians do it. Is it the infamous English old-boys’ network getting in the way of progress? Or are men unaware of the problem? Certainly many men I talk to, including some fairly high powered coaches, question the existence of a glass ceiling (to which I am inclined to respond: ‘ welcome to OUR world, mate’.) As long as that view of things prevails, it’s going to be hard to budge that glass ceiling.
One of the challenges we are going to have to deal with is the loss of opportunity which is likely to come in the current economic climate. As a coach and trainer I have seen companies and government organisations alike cutting back on people development. Secondments and other good career development tactics don’t come cheap (although I can see a great future for intern programmes for people fresh out of college or university). Cut-backs are likely to affect promotability, so if things are difficult for women now, they are likely to get worse in the next couple of years. There are likely to be fewer opportunities to gain experience, more intense competition from both men and women for the opportunities that are available, and higher levels of stress for all concerned, and there’s likely to be a knock-on effect in the private sector as more people chase fewer opportunities across the board.
However, redundancy (or lay offs) bring opportunity: if you can’t break through the glass ceiling, why not create your own compay, where there IS no glass ceiling. According to the CEO of the Small Business Task Force, speaking in 2005, a pound invested in developing women’s enterprise provides a greater return on investment that a pound invested in developing male owned enterprise. A nice little tit-bit of information when you’re building the business case for that elusive bank loan!
And, hey, who said your boss had to pay for your training and development? Some of the most successful women I know have put their hands in their own pockets and invested in themselves, for example by gaining additional qualifications or deliberately taking a pay-cut to get a job which offers valuable experience.
Now, more than ever, is the time to be thinking laterally about your career success.
Parent-Care Can Impact Your Career
In UK, at least, there’s a growing acceptance that people need time for their child-care responsibilities, but what about parent-care responsibilities?
The Yummy Mummy brigade are giving us great examples of women who juggle career and family (i.e. kids), but when it comes to care of elder family members, it seems to me there is still a veil of silence, or even embarrassment. Yet caring for an elderly relative, especially a parent, can be draining – and expensive! And it can impact on your career, particularly if the relative in question lives some distance away.
Time and again I hear of women (and so often the care responsibilities seem to fall on daughters, or daughters-in-law) who have made 6 hour round trips to deal with some crisis facing a parent with dementia. My own mother spent 10 years trundling back and forth between UK and Brazil to support my grandparents – her parents-in-law.
From a career perspective, parent-care is potentially a real career killer. It tends to come when we are in our late 40s or 50s. The likelihood is that you have greater responsibilities at work. You have probably worked hard to get where you are, and are looking forward to the fruits of your labours. The last thing you want is to be distracted by one or both of your parents becoming your children. Most of the people I know want their parents to be independent and living in their own homes for as long as possible. They don’t want to put them in a home. But sometimes that is the only option, and it can lead to feelings of guilt and shame.
One of the things that has supported me in dealing with my mother’s dementia (and current sojourn in a psychiatric unit) has been the Hawaiian practice of Ho’oponopono – forgiveness. Forgiving my mother, in my heart, for the things she is saying to me, and forgiving myself for my reactions to her situation and the actions I have taken to keep her safe.
If you want to know more about the Hawaiian practices for dealing with the emotions that can come up when you face issues such as parental demetia, take a look at The Empowerment Partnership‘s website. You can get a free MP3 download to start you on your way.
Keys to Career Success: Mastermind Groups
One of the challenges in creating success in anything in life, including your career, is the pain of doing it on your own. It can be hard to stay focused, motivated and self-disciplined. It can also be very lonely. One solution is to create a Mastermind Group – a mutual support group of people who come together from time to time to help one another achieve their dreams.
The idea goes back to Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich. Bill George, the Authentic Leadership man, talks about a group that he has been in for years. The great things nowadays is that you can meet your mastermind buddies virtually – you don’t have to all be in the same city at the same time.
Different people run their groups in different ways. I was a member of a Mastermind Group for a number of years. (We called it an Action Learning Set, but to be honest the purpose is the same). It was so helpful for me in developing my coaching business, particularly the way I think about what I do, how to deal with challenging issues, and how to market my business. In this case all the members of the group were coaches, but we could have had a mix of small business people.
Here’s a really excellent article I came across which cover the topic in some depth. How To Run a Mastermind Group Says it all, really.
Why You Should Keep Your Knowledge Up-to-Date
When you are applying for a new job, it’s really important that you can demonstrate that you keep your knowledge up-to-date. With some professions, it’s mandatory. Most professional bodies make annual training a condition of membership, and offer a range of courses to help you.
But what if you aren’t a member of a professional membership organisation? Why should you bother? Isn’t that your employer’s responsibility?
Well, firstly, it’s your employer’s responsibility to ensure you have the knowledge you need to do the job you are doing. Usually they do this by sending you on training courses, or giving you a mentor, or getting you to work alongside someone who knows what they are doing. They may have you do the work, which someone then checks until they feel you are fully competent (often known as ‘on-the-job training’). It’s in the employer’s interests that you have the skills and knowledge you need in order to do your job well.
Many employers understand the benefit of expanding the skills and knowledge of their employees, so they will invest in career development, whether it’s sending you on a training course, or paying for a course you want to go on, or allowing you to ‘shadow’ someone doing a more senior job, or a different job from yours.
The problem comes when you want to get promoted, or to find a new job some where else, and you don’t have the skills and knowledge required. In the case of promotion within the organisation, your boss might be persuaded to provide the training you need. If you are looking outside the organisation, then it is down to you.
The most successful people tend to be those who are willing to pay for their own career development if they can’t get help from their employer. It’s one of the keys to landing your dream job or dream career. They may pay with time – for instance taking on a volunteer role where they can develop a missing skill-set. One client of mine wanted to develop her finance skills, so, after reading some books on the subject, she volunteered to help the treasurer at her local church to give her some practical experience.
Other people pay with money. For example, when I knew I wanted to have my own business, I took holiday and paid for my own NLP training. It wasn’t cheap, but it certainly paid off over the long term. Most of my private clients pay for coaching out of their own pocket, because they understand how it can help them get where they want to be more quickly.
If you’re about to go job-hunting, look at the adverts to see what skills and knowledge employers are wanting in the field you are interested in. Take some time to assess yourself honestly. If you haven’t got the right mix of skills and knowledge, or they are out-of-date, think about how you can upgrade them. Be willing to be really creative in thinking about how you can get access to the training and/or experience you need.
The Value of Practice
As a kid, words like ‘practice’ and ‘dedication’ left me cold, but I have recently I have re-discovered the value of practice, focus and dedication.
One of my hobbies is playing the ‘cello in folk sessions. A friend had a gig and asked me if I would like to join. The event is uniquely British, it’s called the Tweed Run, and you can see the general photos as well as a wee photie of the band. I didn’t know most of the tunes, so I had to sit down and learn them in a fairly short space of time (at least the shape of the tunes, what with the ‘cello being a bass instrument).
This involved Practice – a lot of it in a short space of time. I nearly backed out, as my first attempts at doing anything with the 22 tunes were hideous to the ear. But I stuck with it, and actually practised, and it eventually I started to notice the difference. So did other people at other events. And because I’m now playing better than I have in years (I haven’t practised in years) I feel motivated to do MORE practice, and get better still.
When you’re working on finding a new job or career, there are somethings you can practise, and some you can’t. Writing application forms can be a fairly tedious job, but the more you do, the more practice you have, and the more you improve, particularly if you’ve got someone to give you feedback. Likewise interviews. If you have an interview coming up, write out a list of questions you might get asked and practise with a friend.
The trick with interview practice is this. Don’t try and learn it off by heart. Just practise coming over across as motivated, and interested in your listener. Think about what you can offer them, not what you want from them. Our thoughts drive our behaviour, so if, deep down inside you’re thinking ‘I really don’t want this job’, that’s probably what will come across. Attend some jobs interviews for jobs you don’t really want. They’re great for practicing. And you won’t need to feel disappointed if you never wanted it in the first place.
