The Gender Agenda

The Power of One Word

Very recently I attended the Womensphere Europe Summit in London.  This was an inspiring event, with many exceptional men and women sharing the story of their career journeys and their views on diversity.  I left the summit feeling two things:

1. Reinvigorated in my passion for what I do.  It never hurts to have purpose.
2. What a shame more people who don’t yet get the business case for diversity weren’t in the room. I feel it would have changed their minds.

I took a nugget from each presenter (there were many, with brief ten minute time slots each).  But some of these nuggets connected, and have manifested into the concept of this blog: the power of one word.

Part of the summit focused on STEM industries, which is not at all surprising when we consider that less than 25 percent of STEM jobs in the U.S. economy are held by women, despite women holding nearly half of all U.S.  jobs.   At points the discussion moved in the direction of understanding why these disciplines don’t appeal more to women.

This gets one thinking about how these subjects are ‘packaged’;  historically they have often been articulated in a manner that makes them appear boring, uninteresting, too challenging, dull and masculine to females, in particular school girls.  Yet, at the same time we know that women in these industries can excel – think Ada Lovelace or in more modern terms Marrisa Mayer.  

This certainly resonated with me.  I remember getting the results of aptitude tests I had to complete during my penultimate year of secondary school (high school). The career advisor informed me I had an excellent aptitude to become an engineer.  When I asked her what such a job would entail, I soon switched off – it sounded anything but interesting to me – and engineering aspirations I did not pursue.  With hindsight, I know that engineering is  anything but dull and uninteresting.  I wonder how many others girls had the same experience as me?

Dr. Oliver Oullier a Professor of behavioural and brain sciences referenced some research during his session.  The reference sparked my interest so I found it, and read it.  The research involved an experiment whereby school children ranked as both high and low performing geometry students were asked to learn a complex geometrical figure and reproduce it.  One group was told they were completing a geometry task, the other group was told they were completing a drawing task.

The results: both groups of students performed equivalently in the drawing task, while the low achievers underperformed in relation to the high achievers when the task was presented as a geometry task.   Low achievers in geometry performed better on the exact same task once it was labelled a ‘drawing task’; many reasons including stereotype threat were identified as the antecedents for such results.  At its simplest what you can take from this research is that the power of one word can enhance performance.  This certainly is thought provoking when we consider how these disciplines are ‘packaged’.

Next I move onto Phil Smith CEO, Cisco UK and Ireland.  Phil spoke of an apprentice programme Cisco had introduced recently to target school leavers.  Year one, they advertised for Programme Services Apprentices.  Their intake was 60% female and 40% male.  Year two, they went to market with a System Engineer Apprenticeship programme – they had 19 applicants, but only two were female.  In response, they took note of the ‘packaging’ and rebranded seeking ‘Business Technology Specialist’ apprentices for the exact same roles. Guess what happened?  They recruited 60% female and 40% male.

Cisco has taken this concept from ‘thought provoking’ to ‘practice’, and from a gender perspective has reaped the reward.  And when it comes to thinking about how we ‘package’ STEM, how about the fact that women with STEM jobs earn 33 percent more than comparable women in non-STEM jobs.

Moving beyond STEM to business more broadly, it’s hard not to talk about ‘the power of one word’ without mentioning the HBR Heidi/Howard case-study.  For those of you that have recently read Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In you’ll be well familiar with this research, which was aimed at testing the perceptions of men and women in the workplace. 

Groups of Harvard students were provided an identical case-study with one exception – a name change – one group’s case study referenced Heidi, the other group’s referenced Howard.  Both groups equally respected Heidi and Howard, and rated them equally competent.  However, Howard was considered to be the more appealing colleague while Heidi was considered selfish, and not the type of person you would want to work for or hire.  Let me reiterate the case was identical; Heidi and Howard are the exact same person with the exception of the name change.  The case reinforced a plethora of research that finds success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women in business.

Ultimately, if you are in the business of seeking objective talent and development strategies for your entire workforce no matter the industry, or attracting talent towards STEM disciplines or careers, there is a lot to be considered when we think about the power of one word (or in Cisco’s case three words!). 

Aoife

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Vital Signs: Understanding - and Impacting - Your Talent Pipeline

Earlier this year, our ‘Diversity – it is a business issue with a clear business case’ blog issue shared some of the Global D&I activities that are keeping Dale and I busy.  One such initiative is the launch of our Global D&I toolkit.  A clear message delivered through this toolkit is that before creating a D&I business case it is critical our D&I SMEs across the globe first understand the demographic fitness of their member firm.  In this regard internal data and benchmarking is integral.

So when I saw Catalyst release their Vital Signs series I just had to take the opportunity to enable the sharing of this message more broadly and I am very pleased to bring you a guest blog from Jennifer Kohler on the topic.

Enjoy

Aoife

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For years, we at Catalyst have catalogued the progress (or lack thereof) of companies pursuing greater gender diversity and inclusion. Our Census has shown consistent gaps between the numbers of women and men in leadership positions. Our research has explored common myths for why women lag so significantly in obtaining leadership roles. And companies often approach our consulting practice concerned about gaps, “drop-offs,” or ceilings women face as they move through the pipeline. Combining our foundational research with on-the-ground insights from this consulting, Catalyst now offers a new approach to moving the needle and building a stronger, more diversified talent pipeline: Vital Signs.

Reports and numbers alone don’t generate answers for why the needle is stuck, so we are asking companies to shift from seeing their workforce data as points of awareness, to real drivers of change. It’s also about more than the numbers—it’s about your talent and, importantly, understanding the experience of that talent within your company. This internal benchmarking is fundamental to making progress: we call it understanding your diversity and inclusion “health.” Only with an accurate picture of your health can you secure the right prescription for getting better; and in this case, more talented women advancing means stronger, more sustainable business results. 

At Catalyst,  we guide organizations to an elevated understanding of their workforce, and Vital Signs turns this into a self-directed exercise, with easy-to-use tools, short exercises, and key questions that focus you on what to track, and why. Once you have an understanding of where you’re losing women, we then help you think about the root causes. It’s only with these insights that you can identify actions specifically suited to your organization, department, or region – actions that have the best chance at having impact. 

For those who aren’t steeped in the data, we invite you to test common assumptions that hurt women’s careers, and to replace them with facts.  For example, many companies claim they can’t find senior-level women. To counter this, we offer leading-edge practices and steps to take to circumvent this “excuse” and find the talented women you need.

We also want individuals across organizations—from line leaders to talent management professionals—to ask critical talent-related questions, such as “Who received the last three high-profile assignments?” These questions yield critical information that can provoke more thinking than any pie chart, and ultimately can help change the shape of your workforce—without tons of numbers.

Globally, we know workforce data can pose a challenge, so we encourage companies to monitor policies and programs in place and their impact on talent—for example, tracking the assignments of those returning from parental leave.  We also share ways all organizations can better monitor, and prevent, the loss of valuable talent—for example, looking at time in position. 

These insights can support a business case, help companies set goals, and focus on the right key performance indicators to track – but the benefits go beyond this. From our experience with leading organizations, many have been “stuck” for some time – struggling to close gaps in representation from the entry-level to senior leadership ranks – and don’t know what to do.  We know the exercise of challenging assumptions about women with data, asking targeted, talent-related questions, and understanding the full story behind the numbers leads to the breakthroughs necessary for getting past “stuck.” We know companies are ready to move on from talking about diversity and inclusion to doing something that has impact on their talent and their business—and Vital Signs is here to help. 

Jennifer Kohler is a Director and Consultant, Global Member Services, at Catalyst, and also leads Vital Signs. 

Find out more about Jennifer.

Evolve or die: workplace flexibility and the next generation

PwC’s NextGen: A global generational study, which was conducted in conjunction with the University of Southern California and the London Business School, represents the most ambitious research into the Millennial generation, or ‘Generation Y’. The study included responses from 44,000 employees throughout PwC’s global network of professional service firms, with almost one quarter of the responses coming from Millennials.

This two-year research undertaking finds that the Millennial generation, those born between 1980 and 1995, seek more workplace flexibility, better balance between their work and home life, and opportunity for overseas assignments as keys to greater job satisfaction.

The research study both confirmed and dispelled stereotypes about Millennials.  While younger workers are more tech savvy, globally focused, and willing to share information, the study found they did not feel more entitled or less committed than their older, non-Millennial counterparts, and are willing to work just as hard.  The global survey also found that many of the Millennials' attitudes are consistently shared by their more senior colleagues.

The study sought to measure factors relating to workplace retention, loyalty and job satisfaction. It compared responses among Millennials to those of non-Millennials at the same stage of their careers to assess generational differences between the two sets of employees.

There are a number of key lessons at the heart of the PwC NextGen study findings. 

Millennial employees want greater flexibility…and so does everyone else.

Millennials and non-Millennials alike want the option to shift their work hours to accommodate their own schedules and are interested in working outside the office where they can stay connected by way of technology. Employees across all generations also say they would be willing to forego some pay and delay promotions in exchange for reducing their hours.

Millennials put a premium on work/life balance.

Unlike past generations, who put an emphasis on their careers and worked well beyond a 40-hour work week in the hope of rising to higher-paying positions later on, Millennials are not convinced that such early career sacrifices are worth the potential rewards. A balance between their personal and work lives is more important to them.

These findings are important for business leaders who need to understand, and diversity practitioners who need to deliver, the business case for diversity.  For too long flexibility and work/life balance have been associated with female talent.  This NextGen research report does more than dispel stereotypes related to the Millennial generation, it also goes some way towards dispelling some gender stereotypes. 

Flexibility is not just about women; for Millennials, it is a talent wide imperative.  In fact, the study finds that given the opportunity, 64% of Millennials and 66% of non-Millennials would like to occasionally work from home, and 66% of Millennials and 64% of non-Millennials would like the option to occasionally shift their work hours.  15% of all male employees and 21% of all female employees say they would give up some of their pay and slow the pace of promotion in exchange for working fewer hours.  What is critical here is that work/life balance is more important to a much broader subset of Millennials – Millennial women and Millennial men. 

Likewise, work/life balance, while more important to the Millennial generation, is valued by non-Millenials as well; in fact, 71% of Millennials vs. 63% of non-Millennials say that their work demands significantly interfere with their personal lives.

When leadership and organisations understand that flexibility and work/life balance are not just Millennial- or women-focused challenges, but are indeed about everyone, and begin to consider them with strategies and policies targeted at the whole talent population, then we will continue to see a shift toward more truly diverse and inclusive work cultures and organisations.  

So please, let’s start talk about flexibility and work/life balance as a talent wide proposition! Find out more on the PwC’s NextGen Study at http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/hr-management-services/publications/nextgen-study.jhtml.

Aoife

How the light gets in

We had a phone call from The Institute of Arts and Ideas (IAI) recently and we have to admit, they were not a body we would have intuitively linked with our strategic efforts here in PwC on diversity.  However, reading their brand statement ‘realising the potential of the 21st century intellectual landscape’ gave us pause for thought; as part of our diversity strategy is undoubtedly about realising the potential of our PwC intellectual and talent landscape.  

So it turns out, some of their team are avid readers of our Gender Agenda blog (which is always nice to hear) and they wanted to bring our attention to their upcoming How the Light Gets In festival, which it turns out it is the world's largest philosophy and music festival, and appears to have a wonderfully eclectic programme of thought-provoking debates, music, and comedy. 

As diversity practitioners we keep ourselves informed of current research, legislation, best practice and dialogue on all things diversity. 

This festival made us think we need to start thinking in more broad and diverse terms as to how we keep abreast of developments in such areas beyond our usual sources.   So when Zoe Willox Dunant of the IAI encouraged us to look at the programme for How the Light Gets In festival because she thought some of it may be of interest to us, we couldn’t have agreed more. 

The programme includes a number of relevant philosophy sessions: The World after Men, Revolutionary Women, More than Equal, After Feminism, United in Difference.  And one that particularly piqued our interest entitled Thinking Differently. 

This Thinking Differently debate brings together a diverse mix of experts including Scottish feminist linguist Deborah Cameron, feminist psychologist Carol Gilligan and Cambridge philosopher Simon Blackburn as they embark upon a quest for new ways of thinking.

A rather enticing session description is outlined…

Thinking differently
Have we made a mistake in the way we think? Some believe our very language and thought are inherently male, and that this is a serious shortcoming. Can we create a new way of thinking that is not masculine, and as a consequence create a new world, or is this a misguided fantasy?

…which already has us thinking. 

Encouraging new ways of thinking is part of our role.  We aim to get leadership, management, the whole talent population of our organisations to think in new and different ways, including thinking about diversity itself differently.  To understand that diversity is a business issue with a clear business case, and harness the creativity and innovation of our workforce.

The importance of language and thinking differently was at the crux of Dennis Nally’s recent PwC CEO Insight’s blog entitled Stop talking about diversity.  Dennis shares why he believes that discussing diversity implicitly  at the global level (as opposed to explicitly) will sustain momentum in the face of uncertain markets and help tap into talent.

One thing is for sure: just thinking about ‘thinking differently’ in itself is a positive step.  Be that through broadening the scope of our subject matter sources on diversity, or through evoking new ways of thinking about diversity in our leaders and peers.

We can’t wait to see how these fascinating philosophy sessions take form at How the Light Gets In festival, which runs from 23 May-2 June. 

For those who can’t attend, the IAI will make the philosophy sessions available on line at http://iai.tv/ - we’ll be sure to let you know when, so that we can all tune in. 

Aoife

Women in work – Nordic countries lead the PwC rankings

By Yong Jing Teow and John Hawksworth

New PwC research reveals that the Nordic countries lead the OECD countries in advancing equality in gender pay and opportunities in the workplace.

Our new PwC Women in Work Index shows that women in OECD countries are gaining ground in the workplace (see figure below). This is based on a weighted average of five key indicators of female economic empowerment: the equality of earnings with men; the proportion of women in work both in absolute terms and relative to men; the female unemployment rate; and the proportion of women in full-time employment.

The Nordic countries have consistently remained in the lead. In 2011, Norway was in pole position, followed by Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand and Finland. Though Spain’s performance in 2011 remains below the OECD average, its improvement over the years is striking: Spain saw a 15 percentage point increase in female labour force participation rates and a 9 percentage point reduction in the gender wage gap (find out more on Women as Leaders in Spain here).

Women in OECD countries are generally closing the wage gap with their male peers and are more likely to go to work compared to a decade ago. However, the share of women in full-time employment has declined and female unemployment has increased slightly on average.

One striking result from our research is that the overall progress of the average OECD country has slowed since the great recession, but it hasn’t stopped countries like the Netherlands, Germany and Israel, which nevertheless made significant gains between 2007 and 2011.

[Click the image to view a larger version]

Source: PwC analysis of data from the OECD, Eurostat, Australian Bureau of Statistics and Statistics Bureau of Japan

Our index makes clear that though improvements have been made in the past, much more needs to be done. Women account for the majority of university graduates in OECD nations, and yet the transition from education to paid work reveals the inequalities that women face in the labour market. Female labour participation rates have remained 17 percentage points lower compared to men for the average OECD country in 2011. Women still find it challenging to climb the career ladder and this is most apparent in the lack of visible role models: only 10% of board members in the OECD are women, and female top-earners are paid 21% less on average than their male peers.

There is a clear business case for diversity, and perceiving it merely as a moral imperative risks missing the big picture. Research by Catalyst – a diversity think tank – shows that higher levels of female boardroom representation in Fortune 500 companies is associated with better financial performance, as indicated by return on sales, return on invested capital and return on equity. These findings are corroborated by a study by Eversheds, which show that companies with more female directors experienced better performance during the financial crisis.

Businesses and policymakers have a critical role to play in addressing the needs of female employees in areas like flexible working, childcare, female promotion pipelines and diversity goals. Clear targets and goals need to be set, and businesses must monitor and publish their progress. However, it is also important to reflect on the effect of corporate culture and working practices on all employees, not just women. Though family-friendly work practices are often targeted at women, there needs to be a shift away from the notion that women alone are responsible for familial responsibilities. Policies that enable employees to reconcile both work and family commitments will work only if both men and women take advantage of them.

Change will not come easy, but only by putting diversity at the heart of the business and policy agendas can the potential skills and talent of the  complete talent pool be harnessed.  Dennis Nally, Chairman of PwC International, Ltd. explores how discussing diversity implicitly – as an integral part of business and growth – will sustain momentum in the face of uncertain markets and help us to tap into the talent we desperately need.

For more information on the PwC Women in Work Index, please visit http://www.pwc.co.uk/the-economy/publications/women-in-work-index.jhtml

Yong Jing Teow is an economist in PwC's UK Economics and Policy team, with experience in macroeconomic research and analysis.  Find out more about Jing

John Hawksworth is Chief Economist for the UK and editor of the Economic Outlook publication, and many other reports and articles on macroeconomic and fiscal policy issues.  Find out more about John

They both contribute to our Economics in Business blog and have previously collaborated on the Women in work – UK slides down PwC rankings article (March 2013).