Women @ work

[notstacysmum]

Name changed for this in case it becomes a bun fight. I have my hard hat on.

I am a senior manager within a public sector org- I've been in my current role for 4 month and I lead a corporate service; think HR, finance, business improvement etc. I am a massive advocate for women at work and have two daughters... BUT...

I absolutely despair at the vast majority of women at work who don't have basic digital literacy skills and have no enthusiasm for learning them. In the few months I've been in post three members of my team - all female- have failed to grasp basic excel skills needed to manipulate and present reports. They don't have any interest in doing things differently or thinking on their feet. We've implemented a new system they can't get their head around, they give advice on policies from 2 years ago because they "forgot" there was a new one. They leave on the dot every day - which isn't an issue really but they spend the last 15 minutes of every day getting ready to leave and clock watching! I feel like I'm constantly banging my head against a brick wall and I'm at a point where I'd rather replace them all with apprentices because I have to hand hold them on simple tasks. I have two men in my team who take everything in their stride and lead on every project. My department has a long standing reputation of being a bit shit that I've been tasked with turning around- their performance is part of the negative feedback.

These women aren't all menopausal (I accept some are) and this isn't just my team- I hear it from other management colleagues, from friends who don't know how to use even basic office software, I've worked for a long time and it's only ever been female colleagues who behave like this (don't get me wrong- there's been some shit men too but they tend to be over promisers!).

I feel like such a shit feminist to say this but if I could swap them for a team of men I would.

AIBU to think this is probably a gender specific problem (#notallwomen)? WIBU to raise their mediocreness with them?! They haven't done anything differently to the last 15 years and I don't think anyone has ever told them so it's not all their fault but I can't see how else they will change!?

This isn't a women thing, this is a culture at work thing. They've been able to get away with this for a long time and unless there are clear steps from management they aren't going to change.

YABU.

I'm sitting through a whole team training at the moment.

35 members of staff. Fairly even split male/female.

Fairly even level of issues with technology/people skills/literacy etc.

Also, am a woman and am, to quote a Pp, shit hot at my job.

Also, all the management above us, if female and they're also shit hot.

You're not just being crap at "feminism" you're being a crap department head.

I really hope you’re a troll. Otherwise that’s some ingrained misogyny and a love of the patriarchy you’ve got going on there, alongside some wild generalising.

They've had training, and support. They just don't get it - and don't want to.

Have they had proper training or public sector training?

Some of the worst sexists I've met are women towards other women. They see themselves as honorary men and special because they aren't like that

OP, didn't you get the memo? You can't post as the employer/landlord/manager without being told you're the problem.

You aren't wrong. Anyone who has sufficient experience with the public or charitable sectors has known employees like this (and I agree with you that the kind of person you describe tends to be mostly women - male employees can be equally shit but in a different way).

Your issue is that you are blaming them for being poorly managed. That isn't really their fault!

They've had training, and support. They just don't get it - and don't want to.

What about pissing about for the last 15 minutes of every day? Have they been spoken to about that?

Have you discussed them struggling and next steps with their managers?

Misogyny and ageism is rampant in local government.

Well done for adding to it.

I know plenty of men like this. We have a (male) colleague at work who as soon as they let the children out on the playground; they leave! It's ridiculous.

@MedusasBadHairDay

Digital literacy is gendered, because men are more likely have been encouraged to learn how to use computers (eg. Games consoles seen as a boy thing), especially if you aren't talking about young people. And I say this as a woman working in IT, in a majority female team.

But unwillingness to learn new things, and half arsing the work is not gendered.

IME trying to get people to move to a new IT system it's 50/50 which sex is going to be a pain about learning new stuff.

Men will not have had a long career break and got left behind by technological advancements either.

During the explosion of the internet, emails, databases, spreadsheets, Windows, MS Office products and the like between 20 and 30 years ago, many women (including myself) would have been out of the workplace for a number of years for childcare or domestic reasons. They (and I) missed out on the enormous speed with which computers took over office work, and missed out also on the training that went with it (I thank my lucky stars that I was well-versed in spreadsheets already). Not all that many people had a computer at home then either. On their return to work, which was probably part-time, they would generally have had only the most basic training in how to use the software necessary for their specific job. Technology moved on so fast that for many in that age group, it has been almost impossible to catch up, let alone forge ahead and become an expert.

And that age group of women? Funnily enough, it just so happens to be the age group that the OP is complaining about here. Menopausal/post-menopausal women.

And just when they finally at long last get it cracked, some eejit comes along and introduces a whole new IT system yet again. That they have to learn all over again.

Not my experience at all. Also, in all my years, I have literally never heard anyone compare women unfavourably with men in the workplace. Your experience is certainly unusual. So much so, I expect its untrue.

@iklboo

mediocreness

It's mediocrity.

Hahaha. Love it.

You sound like a bit of a smug arsehole OP.

"I've got yet another thread about how shit women are! Oh, I totally don't mean to cause offence! In fact I feel guilty about doing it and saying how much I'd rather work with men and bringing menopause into it! What? Why would you say that? Are you menopausal? Oh, aren't women shit and isn't my very real and true observation just so unfortunate!"

Men will not have had a long career break and got left behind by technological advancements either.

That's a fair point. It moves seriously fast, I know I used to be up to date on coding for web but couldn't keep up with the changes while my kids were little, I just didn't have the time to devote to it.

I am in a senior management post and working in a female dominated field. Every day I am (metaphorically) surrounded by a team of 72 nearly all women who are incredibly intelligent, passionate and hardworking. You cannot blame the fact that they are female for the fact that they are underperforming. Have you considered the demands you are making of them, the support/training you provide them/your own management style?

Alternatively I do wonder whether you are talking about relatively low level positions where people may feel more comfortable coasting i.e. administrative. The fact that you find more women in these posts is correlatory; not causative.

I think you have been U not to raise it in the last 4 months! You need to be more candid for your sake and for theirs.

It hasn't really been my experience but I work in private sector and have a fairly young team so a different demographic. The women working for me as markedly better than their male counterparts.

@DrSbaitso

"I've got yet another thread about how shit women are! Oh, I totally don't mean to cause offence! In fact I feel guilty about doing it and saying how much I'd rather work with men and bringing menopause into it! What? Why would you say that? Are you menopausal? Oh, aren't women shit and isn't my very real and true observation just so unfortunate!"

Depressing isn't it?

I think yabu to think poor employees are always women!

I've had male employees who have been just as bad for clock watching and not being interested in learning new techniques/procedures/policies

YANBU to tell them they are not doing their jobs adequately and they need to do better!

Being public sector I would imagine (was the case when I worked public sector similar roles) that it's possible to insist and enrol them onto courses to learn/update their excel and other skills

The clock watching is a disciplinary issue

If you're 2 levels above their direct manager in your shoes I'd be pulling the manager in for a meeting to ask basically wtf THEY have been playing at! (In more diplomatic terms of course)

I've been a direct manager in workplaces like this it's very much max management that seems to be the issue. As soon as employees learn the tide has changed the majority tend to pull their socks up! And the ones that don't - manage them out (it used to be easier to sack shit employees but I gather it no longer is! Especially in public sector - although that was always a "job for life" type area)

I think this is a public sector culture problem, not a women problem.

I agree

Even as a service user now I'm shocked at how terrible some employees are! How the hell they keep their jobs is a shocker!

I have come across women like this in offices and it does seem to be teams of them. Individuals get moved on faster, perhaps because it’s easier to manage them out? While I didn’t experience it when I worked in the public sector, I did in small business and, in particular, in the charitable sector in the US. Usually when there had been a history of poor management for an extended period of time. Poor practice had become embedded and people weren’t required to perform.

I don’t think it’s a particularly female thing, but I think men who are like that tend not to go into office jobs as much. So you are less likely to find them there.

@MedusasBadHairDay

Men will not have had a long career break and got left behind by technological advancements either.

That's a fair point. It moves seriously fast, I know I used to be up to date on coding for web but couldn't keep up with the changes while my kids were little, I just didn't have the time to devote to it.

It is impossible to keep up if you've missed several years of new software upgrades.

At the point I stopped working, almost everything was DOS-based. By the time I returned to the workplace the whole lot was Windows-based. A massive culture-shock.

The other thing is that software always used to come with an inch-thick manual, so if you so desired, you could read the whole thing from cover to cover and learn how to do things. My old Excel and Sage manuals were brilliant. Or you could simply flick through it until you got to the relevant section and just find what you needed. Then they did away with proper manuals and introduced the 'Help' function instead. Fine. Except you need to know what you are looking for, what it is called, and ask the right question.

Training sessions given by people who started using a computer from birth are staggeringly unhelpful, because the trainers are incapable of understanding that you don't always comprehend what they are wittering on about. What is (literally) child's play to them is not easily grasped someone who has never even heard of it before.

You don't want to fanny about endlessly learning how to navigate new software, you just want to get the bloody work done and go home.

Leaving on time isn't an issue, I expect most of them do nursery or school pick up and their children are rightly their priority. If all are struggling then I'd suggest looking at whether the support and training in place is adequate.

Agree with others, this is a public sector problem. Unfortunately public sector is full of people like these, both men and women.

@notstacysmum

PP who suggests it's a public sector problem may be right. Most of my experience is in private sector.

They've had training, and support. They just don't get it - and don't want to.

If they don't get it, then perhaps it is simply because they can't rather than they won't. Once you get past a certain age, it is far more difficult to pick up new things easily. Your brain is too full of stuff already. I know this because for many years I have been training people in how to use accounting software. You can't just show somebody something in a training session and expect them to remember it first time. They need constant practice and it has to be continually reinforced, with ongoing training if necessary.

It takes a while to unlearn something you've been doing, and re-learn something else, and it can be very demoralising.

For avoidance of doubt, I have not criticised the OP's management skills. I don't know anything about them.

As PP's have mentioned she fundamentally has a middle management problem. Also curious, like PP's, as to whether women's direct managers over the years have been mostly women or mostly men? And the current one? I am a STEM PhD who has gotten along well with many women in admin positions and know that the way men in STEM treat female peers need have no bearing on the way they treat female admin staff. The way your male employees relate to you, OP, need have no bearing on how they treat these women.

If any of these women were to show sufficient growth on the job would there be a realistic prospect of advancement or do they realise, with some being menopausal and all, that management have rendered them invisible and effort will not be rewarded? Again, not excusing the problems that prompted your post but doubt these exist in a vacuum. Good luck.

It's a public sector problem and, for me specifically, an NHS problem.

Some of the admin staff cope admirably but there is no innovation and no streamlining of systems. It's very much an attitude of this is the way we've always done it.

Unfortunately, the admin jobs in our Trust are so badly paid for the area that we will never attract decent candidates. We advertised a B3 admin role a while back. We received in the region of 125 applications and the standard of those was dire. I honestly despair.