Peer into the power suites of most corporations and inevitably you’ll see the stage still dominated by men.
95% of senior managers are men and women earn, on average about 72% of what their male counterparts take home. Less than 1% of top CEOs in the US are women and more than 90 companies of the Fortune 500 don’t have any female corporate officers.In France, fewer than 5% of top executives are women and there are fewer than 20 female directors in the FTSE 100 companies as compared to 400+ men. Out of all published companies, 65% have no women on the Board at all. Interesting then, that over 44% of the UK workforce is women.
The usual suspects emerge as reasons. Workloads and family commitments; career interruptions for child-rearing; travel demands that make it impossible to have a work-life balance and of course, exclusions from the old boy networks. Yet some of the professional service firms in the accounting, legal and consulting sectors have shown that these issues can be dealt with using job-sharing, flexitime and other policies. So how has the IT industry fared in the UK?
Well, not great as it happens. While many firms have introduced personal and family friendly policies (SAS, for example where staff turnover is always low because the company puts family as a priority), its more the unspoken culture of working that presents the real problems. The agreed policy in the HR handbook rarely matches the reality at the desk.
Whilst it may appear perfectly reasonable to ‘take time off in lieu’ os some other such accomodation, actually, it’s the grumblings of colleagues and middle-management, the gossip and the back stabbing, ladder climbing behaviours that put paid to working in any way that is less than dog-eat-dog. Driving growth and creating demand mean that the niceties of accomodating the work force will have to wait until another day, with some notable exceptions, of course.
Melvin Day, Marketingmoves Director said:, “We are in a unique position to advise both candidates and clients about the right ‘fit’. We work to ensure that our candidates have the right environment to succeed and we can only do that by completely understanding the culture of the company/client. This also allows us to influence company culture, for the better.” Mel continued, “We have a new initiative specifically designed to offer really flexible working conditions for both clients and candidates, which goes some way to alleviating the problems faced by both parties – it’s called Marketingmoves Hub. On the other hand, there is a much bigger strategy needed to ensure that women have equal rights and opportunities, so we’ve also set up Marketingmoves Inner Circle to address this and other industry issues.
For more information on The Marketingmoves Hub and the Marketingmoves Inner Circle, contact Melvin Day at mday@marketingmoves.com.
