What glass ceiling?

Where are all the women? Why are blue-chip companies haemorrhaging female talent? Is it really all down to female rivalry and having babies? We explode some of the myths about inequality
9 December 2013

Where are the women? When you go to events with senior business leaders — and see a single Roksanda Ilincic dress in a sea of Savile Row suits — that is often the question. Somewhere along the line, companies are haemorrhaging female talent.

When you point this out, someone usually proffers a familiar line in explanation. “It’s because women have babies,” man number one may say. Or perhaps: “You can’t scale a mountain in a day — just wait until the next generation of women come through.” But are these just gut feelings regurgitated as though they are truths?

Helena Morrissey, chief executive of Newton Investment Management and a tireless campaigner for equality in business, is on a mission to determine what really holds women back. Opportunity Now, which she chairs, has teamed up with accountancy firm PwC to ask 100,000 British women of all ages and from all industries and levels of seniority to share their experience of the UK workplace. The campaign is called Project 28-40 because those 12 years are “the danger zone” where many women fall far behind male peers in their careers.

“We want to get more nuanced answers,” Morrissey says. “We need to listen to what women say and then perhaps recalibrate initiatives or scrap them and come up with new ones.” Early data from the study suggests a few myths will be busted along the way.

On a smaller scale, that’s what Catalyst — a global research firm trying to advance women in the workplace — has been doing for many years. Its research challenges many of these slices of received wisdom. As Deborah Gillis, Catalyst’s chief operating officer, notes: “There are not enough white men to go around. So we need to address the real reasons we’re losing female talent and not keep perpetuating the myths.”

IT’S BIOLOGY, STUPID

The myth: Women lag behind men simply because they choose to put family first: they have a career hiatus to have children and are less ambitious than their male peers.

The reality: According to research from Catalyst, women have three hurdles placed in their way: they are shut out of informal networks, they suffer due to stereotyping and they lack sufficient role models. So the issue is not explained away by our having wombs. As Morrissey notes, there are many childless women wanting places at the boardroom table — and they’re not getting to the top in the numbers men are either.

Nor do women lack ambition: the Catalyst report, Leaders in a Global Economy, found that a similar number of women aspire to top jobs as men. “What we do find, though is that men are much more likely to get ‘hot jobs' and international assignments,” says Gillis. “Whereas women have to keep stating what their aspirations are, and that they’re happy to travel, say. Otherwise companies often don’t ask women with children.”

However, early findings from Project 28-40 suggest companies need to do more to combat prejudices against working mothers, though: only 34 per cent of respondents believe the chances of promotion are equal between women who have children and those who do not. As Gillis says: “It’s about fixing workplaces, not fixing women.”

THERE’S JUST A GLASS CEILING

The myth: The problem lies only in jobs at the top — men and women climb the career ladder equally fast before that point.

The reality: It isn’t so much a glass ceiling women hit, as a lead weight holding them back from the start of their careers. The playing field is never level. According to Catalyst’s report, Pipeline’s Broken Promise, if you control for education, experience and family circumstances, women start off in more junior roles and earn less from day one. Female MBA graduates are paid $4,600 less than men in their first job out of school.

After that, male salaries increase faster than female as each salary is negotiated with regards to the last and men get more promotions than equally-qualified women. And promotions are more rewarding for men: in 2008, that meant pay increased by a fifth for men but just two per cent for women. And it isn’t a case of women just failing to do the right things to get ahead: men benefit more from adopting the get-ahead tactics than women do.

QUEEN BEE SYNDROME

The myth: It’s your fellow females you need to look out for in your career: as soon as they climb to the top, they’ll kick away the ladder beneath them and undermine other women to stay ahead.

The reality: Blame Working Girl and the monstrous boss played by Sigourney Weaver for this false caricature. In fact, the Leaders Pay It Forward study showed women execs are more likely to develop new talent — especially female talent — than men are. The research suggests that almost three-quarters of the women who are “developing new talent” are helping women, compared with 30 per cent of men. High-profile businesswomen are now often among the loudest advocates for supporting other women in the workplace.

When I interviewed Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg this year, she said women should stick together. And Tamara Mellon said recently in an interview with the Guardian: “I’ve got to a position where I can speak up. I think any woman who has got to that position should speak up and pull other women up behind us.” In short: you can’t blame a few women for our whole sex being held back in careers.

ANY MENTOR WILL DO

The myth: Mentors — usually senior people outside your organisation who steer you career-wise — are the elixir women need to get to the top. There aren’t enough for women.

The reality: Catalyst’s research shows women tipped for business greatness actually have more mentors than their male peers. The difference is men’s mentors are more senior on average and have more clout, and that is what increases the chances of promotion. Around 62 per cent of men had a mentor at senior executive level, compared with 52 per cent of women. That isn’t because men held more senior positions on average — it’s more a reflection that people tend to associate in the way they appoint: in their image. So men choose men to mentor, women choose women.

Since in most places there are more senior men, that means women get a smaller pool from which to pick. Gillis says women should replace mentors with “highly-placed sponsors” — allies in your own company who will help you get to work on or manage big projects or get your name bandied about for promotion.

JUST GIVE IT TIME

The myth: Women have only been in this game a short while. Change takes time. If we stop meddling, we’ll get there in the end.

The reality: While the number of women on boards has risen sharply in the past three years, that is largely through non-executive appointments. There are still only three female chief executives of FTSE 100 businesses. “Fifty years ago, there was an assumption the best would rise to the top. It’s not happening — it assumes this is a meritocracy,” says Gillis.

Morrissey adds: “We’ve made progress in the boardroom but we haven’t got anywhere on the pipeline recently. I’ve been working on gender equality [in business] since 1991, and we haven’t got past the tipping point. Eventually, my hope is that we reach a point where I never need talk about this again.”

To fill out Opportunity Now’s survey, go to project2840.com

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