wtf are work thinking?

[LadyRainicorn]

I work for a financial services firm. It's usually run by a group of old white men but the current CEO elect (or whatever the title for the incoming leader the UK leadership board is) is a woman.

They produce a lot of reports. Coinciding with international woman's day, they did a report on women in business globally.

At the end of the report they made 12 recommendations on how to get more women into business. All well and good. Except 3 were for women. They were basically, act like men. Why? After a report saying that changing the old structures would be beneficial you just want people to mold themselves to perputuate it?!

And the final recommendation was to 'challenge discrimination in your workplace'.

Yes of course. Silly me. All these men discriminating against me because I forgot to ask them not to!

No fucking recognition of the work women put in to get any where in businessin the first place then. Or in some parts of the world, educated.

Below are some of the things I advise firms who are bothered about getting this stuff right:

1. Get rid of your culture of presenteeism by measuring and rewarding actual out put, not bums on seats.

1. Make sure women on maternity leave are included in your employee opinion survey.

1. Have a robust process for supporting managers who have new and expectant parents reporting to them.

1. Conduct equal pay audits and then take positive action to address any discrepancies

1. Consider changing your pay and reward structure so you pay the majority of your employees the anchor for their role and a process so that anyone paid below anchor but performing to the required competency is paid at anchor within two years. Reduce the banding for all jobs so pay is more consistent. Reward excellent performances with a robust and transparent bonus scheme for individuals instead of consolidate awards. Make inflationary pay rises a flat rate (percentages are fine) applied to the job, not individuals.

1. Conduct regular role audits and evaluations. If you're a big company get someone in to do this impartially.

1. Give fathers/co-parents the same entitlements to leave after the birth of a child. ie Don't give women 6 months off on full pay and men just 2 weeks.

1. Modify your recruitment process to make it as blind, impartial and merit based as possible.

1. Allow all employees to apply for flexible working (I know this is now law but for a long time it wasn't) and consider all requests fairly and have a process to evidence this.

10. Talent and succession planning - who owns this? How are results measured? Who audits it? How do you ensure it is fair/recognising the right people/meeting your business objectives? - Just asking those questions does a lot of good if the business then does something about it.

Eurgh the old "emotional" barb.

"You say that like it's a bad thing. Why is that?" you retrograde dick

Cailin, any ideas about what? Your question at the bottom of the last page, or something else? If it's the former, nothing is scary about competent, smart women. I know plenty.

I'm wondering if you have any insight into why other men find competent, smart women scary.

The scary thing was mentioned by me, actually - not sure if Yops is particularly meant to have any insight into the use of that adjective?

Yops is a man so I was wondering if he had any insight.

Is Yops really a man? If so that means I could recognise his gender from just a single post

A combination of things, maybe. Some are plain old sexist - a woman just isn't competent enough/doesn't think the same way/should be barefoot and pregnant. I think/hope they are a dying breed.

Some of it may also be an easy way of removing a lot of the competition in one fell swoop. There is so much selfishness within the capitalist business model. People will use any excuse to put their rivals down, and if they can use sexism, well that's just another way of getting ahead. There is a lot of shitty, unethical, back-stabbing behaviour in business. Somebody suggested earlier that the public sector has better examples of senior women.

Do you think women need guidance to succeed Yops?

Well, there's a loaded question

I am in no way, shape or form a corporate animal, despite having worked in a big company for a very long time, so in terms of climbing a career ladder, I am not best placed to advise.

If I had wanted to succeed, I would have had to be mentored where I work. The women around me - my manager, her manager - are both mentors to those below them and have mentors senior to themselves. So, I think to be a corporate animal, you need that guidance (certainly where I work). It turns you into a twat, though, regardless of gender.

I agree mentoring tends to be important. But do you think women need lists of recommendations in order to help them to improve their career chances - recommendations that don't apply to men?

I don't know. Are we differentiating between 'do they' and 'should it really be necessary in the 21st century'? Because it's probably yes, and no, respectively.

So you believe there are things women need to do in order to get ahead? Do you have an example?

Be more aggressive. Lie. Shaft people around you. Overestimate your abilities. Work longer hours. Don't see your family so much. Die earlier as a result.

Great advice Yops.

Well, it was based in what actually goes on amongst high-achieving men in corporations. They do all those things. And yet our society deems them a success. So, if you want to get on in the current environment. it's what you have to do. You asked 'what do women have to do to get ahead'. There is the answer. It might not be very appealing.

The alternative is to change corporate culture. But that isn't what you asked me, and I didn't want to reply to a question I had not been asked.

I was wondering why you were asking the OP to post the recommendations in the report - you seemed to think they would be helpful for us women to read about. I doubt they were much like your advice.
BTW there is plenty of evidence that even when women behave like the stereotype you've referred to they still don't get on. Also success doesn't just mean corporate success.

I was referring to corporate success as that was what prompted the OP - she was talking about an appointment referenced on Bloomberg, so I assume it's a corporation. I know it isn't the be-all and end-all, but it was the starting point of the thread.

You said the OP should post the recommendations as 'there might be son good stuff in there.' I was trying to get at what those 'good things' are. I doubt it related much to the advice you gave.

I'm not sure Yops has done anything wrong. He seems to be talking sense

Change the corporate culture

That is entirely the solution in a nutshell. Stop rewarding people who behave badly, stop rewarding people just because they are visibly in the office and start rewarding people for WHAT they do, not WHEN and WHERE they do it.

If we had cultures where we expected everybody to work flexibly, everybody expected to take a few years out in the middle of their career and everybody treated others with respect and valued their abilities we'd all be better off.

So much of our working culture is historically rooted the way work evolved with the industrial revolution and it needs bringing into the 21st century where technology and social and economic drivers are so very different.

Yop, are you skim reading? I said I worked for a financial services firm. I also said that it talked about getting women into business so yes, corporate?

I said the report was a news item on bloomberg (allegedly it was also on bbc worldwide).

Your disdain for the corporate world is clear and while I can sympathise to some extent with your antipathy do not assume that this is a problem affecting just say, the financial services world.

This is something that effects every sector, something, for all its silly flaws, this report points out.

It was also myself that mentioned the public sector. Things are a bit better in the public sector but don't be fooled into thinking this means 'fine'. It's all a relative grade of shit - for example, ~53% directors of social care (a very senior position, on the board etc) in english councils are women. Amazing? - no, it's shit cos 80-90% of the people in the grades below them are women.

The problem is endemic, it is not a 'city boy' and 'spiv' problem.

There was something along the lines of 'step out of comfort zone and push for more challenging work'

That is perfectly sound advice for any one wanting to get on in private sector industries.

Markets and opportunities change; if anyone can't adapt and take advantage of opportunities, or identity potential opportunities they have no grounds for complaining if they are passed over for promotion in competition with someone who does.

It's bog standard career development advice applicable to anyone wanting to get on in any bloody industry.

why not recommended 'have faith in your own worth'? Instead of piling on more work women have to do to be better?

I think if you're going to give advice to women it should be

a) specific to women
b) within their current power to achieve