Asking boss to consider hiring women

[Pineappleskies]

Hi All

I'm pretty upset about this although will try to keep to facts. Disagreement and challenge is fine and welcome.

I have always worked in male dominated industries.

At age 45 I'm frustrated nothing has changed.

I have a strong relationship with my boss, the CEO, and deliver on my targets.

Last week I asked if we have a strategy to hire more women. Less than 10% of our staff are women. I made some realistic suggestions, acknowledged the challenges and offered to help.

I was told this was nowhere on the company agenda.

In the same meeting I was asked to support a male colleague who is underperforming. I get on very well with this colleague. He's technically on the same level as me. He earns twice as much me.

How should I approach next week at work?

Thank you xxxx

Where do you work? Or if you don't want to say, which industry?

Thank you @NoOnKnows . I work in the software industry in the UK. I accept hiring women is a challenge. I just think a strategy to tackle this challenge would be good. Thanks x

I'm in a heavily male dominated industry and altho not going out of their way to recruit women they try to make their ads female-friendly and regularly monitor applicants v appointments.

The main issue in my place is that it needs a degree that historically hasn't been taken by women, I'd say my workplace is representative of my degree gender split. It is getting better at more junior grades but once you get past a level which needs aporox 10 years experience it's 10 men for each woman.

Anyway, how enlightened is your boss? Do they understand that team design is a thing and that a team where the mindsets are diversified will be stronger than one where they are all similar? This dies not necessarily mean men v woman but its an obvious start. Can you educate them?

And get a performance evaluation and a significant pay rise. Ask HR to investigate the gender pay gap.

YANBU.

I work for a Global company. Our CEO is a woman, strong believer in women succeeding.

We get audited by an external body to make sure women are fairly represented in the workplace.

We also have a mentor programme where women in senior management positions "mentor" younger women in the business to excel.

One of our HR KPIs is % of women working for the company.

It's very refreshing and can be done!

I think there's 2 things to address- the pay gap, if your under performing colleague earns twice what you do for a similar role that he is not performing in then id definitely be bringing that up.

The gender split is harder, although with so much publicity around womens under representation it really should be something they are looking at. Can you push it with HR also?

I'm so heartened by your replies and perspectives @DoodlePug and @Eeiliethya

I know that the gender split on degrees is now almost 60/ 40.

The problem is we don't recruit at the junior levels. The women there are are senior.

This was my boss' point. He says "I'm surrounded my powerful women like you."

We also have been very bad at ethnic diversity. Recently some hires have made the on paper ethnicity better....but I'm not sure that diversity is valued and I wonder also about these new staff members experience.

I don't wish to be a problem maker. I feel my company is backward and that this could be better for us all.

I also mainly feel I need to "get back in my box".

You are not wrong to encourage more females.

I’ve reported to several CEO’s in a commercial/strategy capacity. Other CEO reports have been CFO, COO, HR, CTO etc. which has easily been £100-200k pay difference in roles so gender pay gap is you are both doing the same role, same experience and qualifications. Both reporting to the CEO alone is not comparable.

Thank you @CoopersChase . I do a similar role to you and had not planned to press the pay disparity because I believe it is done on a "cost to hire" basis and I accept your point and thank you for sharing it.

Well in that case you need to be at the higher end of the exec pay scale.

Oh!! Well that shows how not straight my head is because I have come to think I should be paid less.

I manage a large budget and I've been told this is generous because other colleagues don't.

But obviously this budget is not my salary.

I've been happy in this job. But i feel a bit strange about this.

Or to put it differently, roles that generate value (CTO, CCO) tend to get paid more than those that enable (COO, HR), except usually the CFO.

For transparency with everyone I am CMO.

I think you need a mentor.

Managing a budget and it’s size is just one factor of the responsibility of a ‘manager’. If your role is ‘strategy’ of product, people etc. this is very different. Are you responsible for sales, marketing, product development, M&A etc. in your commercial role? I’m getting a sense this is a small company.

X Post. We have similar backgrounds. Please don’t tell me the other guys is in Sales.

If you're the same level as the guy then there needs to be a 'genuine material factor' for them paying you less. Google it. I bet there isn't.

Why aren’t you demanding the same salary as your male colleague? It’s outrageous that they’re getting away with that.

It sounds like a very backwards place to work.

@CoopersChase yes he is. The CEO doesn't like his win ratio so has told me I need to step in now to work on sales presentations. I very much like and admire the Head of Sales. I'm not sure how to tell him what my boss wants.

@OperaStation the simple answer to your question is that I think they'll fire me if I demand more money. I'm always very grateful and pleasant. I'm not sure how to stop being so. I know that doesn't sound good. I think this is a moment I need to learn from.

I was asked to support a male colleague who is underperforming. ... He's technically on the same level as me. He earns twice as much me.

Why does he earn twice as much as OP? Has he been at the company twice as long?

What’s the HoS view of all this? Let me guess, pricing and rubbish leads?

If I were you i’d be taking a much more strategic CMO-like view of the HoS win rate and share your analysis and recommendations with the CEO (only) once you’ve done your homework. I would bet a shit presentation has v little to do with overall win rate. I’d assume you have much of this already:

Product offering and competitive positioning
Customer segmentation
Pricing strategies
Cost/channel attribution of leads all that good stuff
Sales cycle timelines and attrition including loss reasons
etc.

This is how you ask for a pay rise. Problem identification, recommendations and actions. I’d expect a junior sales & marketing exec to suggest tweaking a sales deck.

If you think they’ll fire you, well you go somewhere else as you’re not valued there.

I understand your point OP. I am a female in a male dominated industry (construction) every office I've ever worked in I've been the only female. However, I would hate it if I was only employed based on my gender rather than my qualities for the role. If a male was also running for the same position and didn't get it because they were male? I just don't understand where we draw the line at "equality"

Thanks for the tips @CoopersChase x