Equality in the workplace - Women at the top
This article was originally published in the MJ on 26th July 2007.
Thirty years after the first legislation, there is still not enough equality in the workplace, when it comes to the top jobs. Heather Jameson recently tried to find out why at a seminar.
'Male, pale and stale' is the latest phrase to
be bandied around in an effort to describe the crisis
in councils, with elected members failing to
reflect the communities they serve.
Middle-aged white men have dominated the
world of local government so much that former
communities and local government secretary,
Ruth Kelly, set up the Councillors Commission in
an effort to attract a more diverse range of people.
But, while the commission is focusing on the lack
of women councillors, 30 years after the first
equalities legislation in this country, the problem
is just as real for top jobs in the sector. So, here we
are, in the very bastion of male domination, in an
effort to discuss the issue. At Old Trafford, home
to Manchester United Football Club, some of the
top women in the public sector – and a few sheepish-
looking men – have gathered for the first
Women in Leadership conference.
Set up by one of the rather less-sheepish men in
the room, Andy Ball, business director at recruitment
firm Veredus, the event is an opportunity for
women to get together and discuss what has gone
wrong, and hopefully, some thoughts of where it
can go right.
Leadership guru, Professor Beverley Alimo-Metcalf,
from the Real World Group, explains the current
situation. Even in the best industries, in the
best countries in the world, the best that can be
hoped for is around 10% of the management to be
women. And that is not all. In the past few years,
progress has slowed to a virtual standstill.
At the current rate, it would take 20 years to get
equality in the civil services, and 40 years to see an
even gender balance in FT-SE 100 firms.
Perhaps most shockingly, at the current rate of
improvement, getting equality in the UK parliament
would take 200 years.
For those who think councillors are unrepresentative,
that makes for fairly dire reading.
The picture is equally bleak for local government
and the rest of the public sector. While the latest
figures from The MJ’s sister publication, the
Municipal Year Book show that only one in five senior
officers in local government is a woman. The
figure looks bad – but it gets worse when we
realise that around 70 of local government staff are
female.
As we hit the 30th anniversary of the Equal
Opportunities Act, it begs the question, Where did
it all go wrong? Perhaps the ‘girls’ are just not up
to it? More interested in staying home with the
kids than entering the boardroom?
Prof Alimo-Metcalf claims there is no evidence to
suggest this is about performance. She point to figures
which show that companies with more
women at the top have an average 35% higher
return on equity than their male-dominated counterparts.
Instead, she claims the glass ceiling is far more
complicated. On the whole, men are more transactional
in management style, while women are
more transformational.
‘The people looking for staff are more likely to be
men. If men are looking for someone, they are
more likely to look for someone transformational,’
says Prof Alimo-Metcalf.
What they look for in appraisal, recruitment and
selection is the qualities they themselves use to
manage their own staff.
And even academics are not exempt from this
institutional sexism, it would seem. All the personality
tests used by HR departments are created by
men, apart from Myers-Briggs, and most of the
research on this subject in the past was male-dominated.
But the problems go even deeper. It would seem
that even women can be guilty.
When we attribute our successes and failures,
men are far more likely to see themselves and each
other in a positive light. Their successes will be
judged because they are good at their jobs. Their
failures will be put down to bad luck and other
external factors.
When they judge women – and, more worryingly,
when women judge themselves – they are more
likely to attribute their success to luck, and their
failures to a lack of skills or ability.
Prof Alimo-Metcalf cites the case of a job advertised
for £50,000 a year, for which there were few
female applicants.
When the same job went out with a £30,000 pay
deal, it was women who applied – but not men. But
Mirriam Lawton, assistant chief executive at Tameside
MBC, says the picture is not all bad.
Her experience in local government has not been
one of sexism in the workplace. ‘That may be
because I have worked to the same organisation for
30 years, and we just don’t have that culture,’ she
says. ‘I work in an organisation where the intuitive
skills that women have are valued. But we definitely
need to have a mix – I would hate to work in
an all-women management team.’
Even so, she says there are still problems getting
women into the top posts. ‘Sometimes, women
just don’t aspire to get there.
‘On the whole, they are the main carers in their
families and are just not able to give the big roles
the kind of time commitment they need.’
Things are changing again in the workplace, and
a new style of management is coming to the fore –
the 360-degree system. The skills of women are
increasingly valued.
Prof Alimo-Metcalf believes institutional sexism
could be drawing to a close.
Under the system, women tend to be scored
lower by their peers and managers than men.
Staff, on the other hand, judge each gender fairly –
and in addition, they also tend to be a more accurate
judge of ability. ‘Someone will one day bring a
case based on the evidence produced by the 360
assessments,’ she says. ‘The whole judgement is
now open to challenge.’
More importantly, she claims local government
should focus on addressing this problem itself,
before it faces the legal challenge, in order to ‘be
more effective’ and to avoid wasting all the talent
we have.