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!?

I'm a middle aged woman who's digital skills are fine.

Not least because, in the past I've had mangers who thought to provide training in Office/ other software, instead of blaming my lack of macro skills on my having boobs.

@Anotherviewtoyou

To be honest those workers sound like ‘lifers’ who are commonly found in the public sector across both men and women.

As someone who is has worked in the public sector for 20 years and therefore also a lifer I was going to say exactly the same. The lifers who come in, have a brew, go for a shit, have lunch and leave every day at the same time like clockwork

I would spend a day with them and see what their job entails. Ask them what could be improved. These people earn less than a shelf stacker. Their wages haven't gone up in real terms in decades. Ime; they will be running their area. Many of them never take their unpaid lunchbreak, as there's too much work to cover. They know what needs doing and they do it well. They'll diffuse angry, unreasonable people without causing complaints. They'll ensure all bases are covered and deadlines met. They probably have a good knowledge of policies and the law and all the in house systems. If they don't need to make graphs in Excel, they won't want to take the time out, as nobody else will do their work while they're training. What you need is their cooperation. If you heed some of the "these people have never been managed" advice, you won't last. If they're menopausal of course they have. Ask them, what was your last manager like, how long were they here? They'll have seen a host of them come and go through coming in with ideas to "shake the place up" and instead fuck it up through lack of experience. Find out why they can't stand to stay there any longer than they have to.

You've got 5 examples. 5. You could equally have come on here and moaned about people with brown hair being shit at excel

Ok you and their manager are actually failing them. You need to clearly set expectations- both the spirit and the letter.

Their line manager needs to be specific with their goals for excel, tell them (in individual one to ones) they are failing in this area, provide training (again) and let them know they will not meet expectations if they do not show expertise in a core skill required for their role. If you do not explicitly tell them what they are doing wrong, how can they correct it?

@Mouseonmychair

Come on op you know you can make sweeping negative generalisations about men at will here. But of course you cant do the same about women.

I despair at it skills in the UK. I write software in both c++ and python but am amazed at the lack of basic coding skills in the UK.

Why are you amazed? What use do you envisage a lot of jobs have for knowing a coding language?

As everyone has said YABU to call it a women at work problem. Please give your head a wobble and then try to come up with a less discriminatory way of identifying why these people are underperforming.

Surely the people who report in to you must have some suggestions beyond "they're women therefore useless". If not maybe you need to upskill your middle management team as well

I despair at it skills in the UK. I write software in both c++ and python but am amazed at the lack of basic coding skills in the UK.

Since there's zero need for me to learn or use coding in my job or home life I'm not going to take time learning it. How many skills you will never, ever need or use do you take time to learn? Bricklaying, perhaps - or scaffolding?

Yabu its not a gender problem it's a public sector problem of the type of team you have.

I work in a team of 2/3 women 1/3 men, led by a woman. The woman are equally skilled in the technology we use, one woman is better than all of us.

Also I work in a senior finance role & we have zero use for coding. The coding part of any project is the easy bit you outsource to cheap people in other countries. Its the design of the solution, the understanding of the problem, mapping out what we need, that's the where the smart people work.

I despair at it skills in the UK. I write software in both c++ and python but am amazed at the lack of basic coding skills in the UK.

But not everyone needs coding skills 🤷🏼‍♀️
I've got pretty good IT skills but I've no need for coding skills.

Middle aged female senior manager here working in a highly specialised technical finance role with many other middle aged females.

I I find your post really depressing. If women are so discriminatory against other women then what hope do we have. Perhaps you need some diversity training.

As others have said it is more likely a public sector lifer problem.

(I used to code but don't get to do that anymore. Which is a shame as I really enjoyed it. I have teams of people to do that for me now. )

[quote Anotherviewtoyou]@notstacysmum I’m afraid I just don’t believe you are good at your job. After all you are a woman so it doesn’t seem possible.[/quote]
Oh my god great point and so funny

You are not a feminist...not sure if I even believe you are a woman.

And this is not a gender issue. I do recognise the mentality you are talking about as it is prevalent in the low paid admin jobs where I work. Those jobs do happen to be mostly done by women, but that's because the pay and conditions are such that men don't want/ need these jobs.

@Thunderandrain

Your brave OP

I own by own business, female, have three dds, been a single parent. All the issues I have at work are over childcare. When they are here they are fantastic but getting them here can be a nightmare.

As a business owner ( and feminist) I have to stop myself going down the rabbit hole of why they have been left with the childcare management - but ultimately, it effects my business and their child care issues are not my problem. ( which always end up my problem)

But I can see why employers pick men over women. ( I know, terribly unfeminist of me)

You see why it happens and have been there. You'd think your find a way round it by now without the women losing out (again). The personal is political after all

Sounds like the public sector, also sounds like your team is more woman heavy so more likely to have unproductive women on it. Get their managers to manage them!

i used to code but don't get to do that anymore. Which is a shame as I really enjoyed it. I have teams of people to do that for me now

Wild concept but you can also do things you enjoy outside of work!

I work in a hybrid team, employed by two different organisations (Health/University). There are two managers, a data analyst, an administrator and 10 researchers. All have Masters, most have PhD's, all have a vagina. I'd say a third wing it and do the bare minimun, a third occupy the middle ground, get stuck in when needed and a third work their arse off.

It is a numbers game, rather than sex, life course or public versus private sector.

They're probably not paid enough to give a shit. What does menopause have to do with competency in Excel? You can't seriously be generalising half the population based on 3 women? Are you sure you're brighter than them?

@MogsBestestFurball

You are not a feminist...not sure if I even believe you are a woman.

And this is not a gender issue. I do recognise the mentality you are talking about as it is prevalent in the low paid admin jobs where I work. Those jobs do happen to be mostly done by women, but that's because the pay and conditions are such that men don't want/ need these jobs.

Yeah I don't believe the OP is a woman either.

@Whitefire

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?

I'd echo this point. There's no money for proper training in my place of work anymore. Instead one member of the team will volunteer/ be voluntold. They will attend a training course and then be expected to come back and 'train' the rest of the team. Except it's not actually training for the rest of us, it's someone desperately trying to learn how to use a new system and show other people the bits that they remember. I just wish they'd invest in proper training for us. We'd be much better equipped to do our jobs if we were.

So give them training plans and developmental reviews with daily, weekly, monthly targets. Review weekly to start. Tell them they need to produce evidence for these reviews

You have a problem with specific people, and you are also acting like an an arsehole who cannot tell the difference between offensive stereotypes and real human beings.

Go into any software development company and look at the developers. Count the number of women as a percentage (and yes it is improving) you can't blame that on career breaks for childcare because you can make the same call looking at graduates from computer science courses at university before children come about. There is a massive digital skills deficit amongst our female population.

They leave on the dot every day

Well, yeah. They probably have kids to pick up. I leave "on the dot" too, otherwise I'd be owing my childminder more money. And I refuse to apologise for that to anyone.