Office Romance: A No, No For Your Career?

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office loveHalf of us have done it, according to the latest Office Romance Survey by Vault, and if we have, we’re likely to be up for it again (64% would).
 
We’re also much less likely to hide it than ever before. Sound like a yes, yes to office romance?
 
Office love affairs are no fringe incident, though relatively less common in biotech, accounting and law, according to Vault. If roses by the dozen start popping up on desks from admirers this week, there’s no telling if they’re coming from across town or around the corner. The 24/7 work culture means there’s a lot of opportunity for relationships to build and sparks to ignite.
 
Any dalliance in love brings both reward and risk. But when it comes to pursuing a love connection at work, you may want to take a moment to mind the career risk.
 
Who and Just What Kind of Affairs?
 
The longer you’ve been in the workplace, the more likely you’ve been romantically involved with a co-worker, and likely more than once. While only 44% of Millennials have been involved (18-34) in office romances according to the Vault survey, this increases to 59% for Gen X (35-49) and 66% for Baby Boomers (50+).
 
However, experience may lessen the desire. Baby Boomers are also most likely to have avoided an office relationship (43%) compared to their younger counterparts (34% of Millennials). Among those who have been involved in office romances, Baby Boomers are least likely to want to do it again (54% vs. 67-68% for Millennials and GenX).
 
Office romances range from casual ongoing relationships (42% have had one), random hook-ups (36% have had one), serious long-term relationships (29% have had one), and even finding a spouse or partner (16%).
 
Beyond romantic connections between single employees, 46% of respondents said they’d known a married co-worker to have an office affair. 24% of those involved in an affair found it ended another long-term relationship in their life.
 
Men, Women, and Hierarchy
 
Women are more likely to report having been involved in an office affair then men (52% vs. 50%) and it’s more likely to have become a long-term serious relationship (17% vs. 13%). Women are less likely to have a random hook-up than men (15% vs. 22%), though the classification of romance is a very subjective thing.
 
But here’s the real deal – “hierarchical romances”which involve power differences are more frequent than “lateral ones.”Women are much more likely to date a supervisor than men (20% vs 13%). Men are much more likely to date a subordinate than women (32% vs. 12%). Previous research has even indicated that 10% of mentor-protégé relationships become sexually intimate, which reflects a clear power imbalance.
 
Office romance too often mirrors the uneven power dynamics between genders and women may pay a price, especially when it comes to how others perceive the affair.
 
Office Love Is Always a Triangle
 
You. Him or her. The rest of the office.
 
The inevitable thing about office romances is that it’s hard to keep the feelings between two people. Research shows that office relationships often foster negative feelings among co-workers, and these feelings tend to be targeted disproportionately at women.
 
While, only 6% of us find it totally unacceptable to get into office romance, we are more resistant to certain relationships. 33% feel office romances between co-workers of different levels are unacceptable. 30% disapproved if the co-workers are assigned to the same projects, and 27% if the lovers are in the same department.
 
Vault found 26% of people reported feeling uncomfortable because of co-workers’office romance. 32% felt a co-worker “gained a professional advantage”because of their office relationship.
 
One survey participant noted, “People just take more interest when they feel like their love interest is getting slighted, and it is hard not to feel like that is favoritism, even if they are the supervisor and have to get involved anyway.”
 
Studies have shown that hierarchical office relationships can result in hostility, where gender bias rears its ugly head. Women are more likely to be judged negatively for office affairs by other co-workers and female subordinates are more likely to be suspected of career-climbing motives, rather than love or ego motives, which ruffles more organizational feathers.
 
Previous research has found that subordinates in hierarchical office affairs are more likely to lose their job or be relocated, especially if female, and co-workers are also more likely to feel they should.
 
Play Smart at Work Love
 
The best strict career advice might be “just don’t do it”, but at a human level, nobody is immune to a rewarding and fulfilling relationship finding them at work.
 
Most importantly, Business Insider advises to steer clear of any relationships that are with your direct supervisor or subordinate, as this raises substantial career complications.
 
Know the company’s policies, if any. A bit of distance at work (another team, another department, another floor) may make for a better love match. Also, play out the scenario and consider the implications and ripple effects, whether love were to go sweet or sour or your roles changed.
 
Bottom line – if you’re going to play at love at work, then play it smart.
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Having a baby? Why choosing the right employer will make your life better

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returnersOff the back of Facebook and Google’s announcement that employees will get financial assistance if they want to freeze their eggs, we look at what happens if you decide to take the plunge and have a child now. As any woman in the workforce or with a family can attest, there is no such thing as perfect timing when planning a baby but if you are thinking of doing it you need to choose your employer wisely. All employers are not created equal with leave and benefits especially in the U.S. where is the only one offering no paid compensation for maternity leave out of 21 high-income countries.

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Four Ways to Balance Motherhood with a Career in the C-Suite

iStock_000014255993XSmallGuest Contribution By Neela Seenandan

The debate on working mothers is usually framed in “you can’t have it all” terms and often pits working mothers against their stay-at-home counterparts. Typically, the discussion focuses on middle-class mothers in mid-level jobs. But what about balancing motherhood and work in the C-suite? Are the issues appreciably different for mothers who are top executives? Can executive moms find the right balance?

Tellingly, male CEOs are rarely asked how they manage to find the right balance between work and fatherhood. Even in 2014, women are assumed to be the primary caregiver for children, and mothers who take on demanding, high-level executive roles are often scrutinized and found wanting as either parents, leaders or both, as the controversy surrounding Marissa Mayer’s hiring at Yahoo demonstrated.

But the fact that the terms and framing of the debate are often unfair doesn’t mean there aren’t real challenges involved in striking the right balance between the role of mother and CEO. Here are a few methods women executives have used to successfully handle both roles.

1. Define your priorities – and recognize that they will change. As a top executive, you’re ultimately responsible for all aspects of company operations, and you understand the commitment it takes to successfully manage your enterprise. To handle another all-consuming role – parenthood – simultaneously means you have to set priorities and make compromises. This is true for any parent, male or female. It’s also important to acknowledge that your priorities will change over time. Parenthood is a life-changing event, and as children grow, the demands of motherhood evolve.

2. Develop a strong, dedicated team. Some CEOs find it tough to delegate important tasks, which makes it extremely difficult to achieve work-life balance. “Difficult” can quickly become “impossible” when you’re attempting to balance two extraordinarily demanding roles, chief executive and mother, without delegating key tasks. To pull it off successfully, you’ll need to surround yourself with a team you can trust to handle critical negotiations and client relationships. Give your top people a chance to shine, and mentor them to hone their leadership skills. When you have a trusted team in place, you’ll have more options when you need to prioritize your time.

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Career Breaks: the good, the bad and the ugly

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iStock_000004107649XSmallBy Nneka Orji

Do you dream of hitting the pause button on your career? You don’t necessarily want to hit stop but you want just enough time to pause and reflect without the day-to-day pressures of a demanding career. But how many of us are willing to take a career break and at what cost?

About 90,000 people take career breaks in the UK every year, 60% of whom are women. Recent surveys have found that while the reasons for career breaks are similar across both genders, the imbalance has a clear reflection on the current and future talent pipeline. According to a 2013 YouGov survey, 58% of women take career breaks to care for children or elderly family members and 9% use career breaks as an opportunity to travel. This contrasts with the reasons men cited; 11% opt to pause their careers for family and 29% for travel.

If more women take career breaks, is it right to assume that we look forward to them? According to the results of a recent survey by London Business School, the simple answer is no. Of the over 2000 female survey participants, 70% stated that they felt anxious about taking a career break. It turns out that the bad and the ugly aspects of career breaks can lead women to opt out altogether.

Embracing the Good
Taking a step back from our careers means that we are able to see challenges and opportunities from a different perspective, which indirectly drives innovation. The skills we develop while on career breaks – learning a new language, working in a different culture, raising another human being – all contribute to our wider personal development, making us more rounded and experienced employees when we return.

Organisations that offer career break programmes realise direct benefits, including talent retention and increased productivity. According to the Great Places to Work Institute, 34 of the “100 Best Workplaces in Europe” in 2007 offered sabbaticals. Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2012 found that almost 25% of the companies offered fully paid sabbaticals. Formal career programmes, such as that recently introduced by Morgan Stanley, clearly contribute to an organisation’s attractiveness rating and companies benefit by attracting top talent.

In the US, 24% of small businesses and 14% of large businesses allowed their employees to take career breaks of 6 months or more (paid or unpaid). However, the 2014 National Study of Employers indicates that since 2008, organisations in the US have reduced the number of provisions in place for enabling extended time away from work; down from 64% to 52%.

If there are net benefits to the employee and employer, why are we seeing this downward trend?

The truth of the matter is that career breaks are still seen as “interruptions” rather than continuums of self-development. This misperception is directly shaping the global workforce.

Dealing with the Bad
McKinsey’s 2007 Women Matter report stated that today’s model “presupposes a linear career path, with no space for career breaks” when in fact 58% of the survey participants stated their careers would not be linear. Company leaders need to recognise this in the way they shape their workforce initiatives.

45% of the women reported in the survey cited “need more time for the children” as the reason for their career break. Despite wanting to return after the break, only 74% successfully got jobs and only 40% found full time work. Sylvia-Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce found that 5% of mothers wanted to return to their previous employers, however barriers such as perception mean that they are not always successful which in turn leads to reduced retention.

Views such as that expressed by a UK politician earlier this year – that women who take time out of work to have children are “worth less” to their employers than their male colleagues – are clearly barriers for returning mothers.

Eliminating the Ugly
The ugly reality of career breaks, mainly the manifestation of “the bad”, is that there can be a direct impact on earning power and career progression.

A 2004 study found that “for each year of interruptions to employment for childcare and family care work, hourly wages decrease by 1% (again, in addition to missing out on the 3% gain for each year of full-time employment)”. Despite picking up new skills and demonstrating the ability to work with multiple demands, returning mothers are recognised as financially less valuable than their peers who have chosen not to take family-related career breaks. Another study, based on work by Waldfogel, found that the “family penalty”, a 10-15% reduction in income for women with families compared to those without (and therefore fewer “interrupted work histories”), exists for women but the opposite – a “marriage premium” – exists for men.

These consequences of career breaks have a direct impact on the talent pipeline and need to be addressed by company leaders and policy makers. While policy changes such as maternity (and more recently paternity) leave entitlement in the UK, have provided more options for returning mothers, there is much more to be done to improve gender representation at executive level.

We need a shift in attitudes towards career breaks; rather than seeing them as interruptions, they should be seen as an opportunity to shift focus and develop addition skills which build our careers.

Employers: This is not just a nice to have so don’t get left behind. The 2013 “100 Best Companies for Working Mothers” required applicants offer at least one fully paid week of leave to new mothers. In many cases it can be an enabler to a firm’s strategy; for example SAP, the global software company, launched a formal Social Sabbatical Programme in 2012 which provides employees with global opportunities but also enables SAP to meet its emerging markets strategy. Not only do such programmes provide structure, they drive a change in culture and perceptions across genders.

Employees: Some of you will see a career break as an inevitable part of the professional and personal growth, so planning ahead for the break is critical. It is important to clearly articulate the case to your employer (what skills will you be gaining during your time away), identify a mentor and also identify those who will make up part of your support network during your break.

Encouraging career breaks is a long term strategy; to think differently and become more innovative we need a change of scenery. As Albert Einstein famously stated: Insanity: doing the same thing over & over again & expecting different results.” Why then would we not encourage our people to do things differently?

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Finding Balance between Work and Family – How to Avoid Missing Out

wroklifebalancescale.JPGBy Kelly Tanner

The long-standing struggle to find balance between work and family has left many women wishing for an easier path.

When asked about their primary reasons for leaving jobs in Corporate America, women state concern that they are missing out on quality moments and milestones with their children. This absence is made more poignant when they feel that their job is not meaningful or has stalled. A recent study by Elle Magazine and the Center for American Progress revealed that both men (46%) and women (51%) think that family is the main reason why there aren’t more women business leaders. A lack of mentors and contemporaries within an organization can contribute to this dissatisfaction and create a sense of isolation, though in truth this predicament is quite common.

Stella Compiseno, who after 12 years in institutional equity sales and trading, left to start a lifestyle blog, said that her initial impulse to leave was a desire to balance work and family.

“The tipping point came [when] I had a two-year-old son and was pregnant with my daughter. I was spread too thin across all areas of my life. I was also preparing for a four-month departure from day-to-day client contact, which can be a tough setback,” Compiseno said. “Personally, I was missing out on my son’s milestones due to the demands of my job. Between early morning commutes and meetings, and late night client engagements, I felt my personal priorities were slipping away.”

Compesino’s employer attempted to provide benefits to support work-life balance, providing a generous maternity leave policy and a job sharing program. What looks good on paper within an organization often doesn’t really work as designed in real life, as Compesino found out.

“Likewise, job sharing is equally challenging for me and the company. Large institutional clients appreciate consistency and relationships are crucial to building the business. If you’re not around a few days a week, you miss out,” Compesino said.

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Tackling Pregnancy Discrimination is Good for the Bottom Line

pregnant at workBy Nicole V. Rohr

In November 2013, the Equality and Human Rights Commission in the U.K. launched a major investigation into the discrimination faced by pregnant women in the workplace. According to a press release, the new project intends to investigate workplace practices and explore the causes and effects of pregnancy and maternity discrimination.

Equality and Human Rights Commission Chief Executive Mark Hammond said in the release, “It is very concerning that in 2013 a number of women are still being disadvantaged in the workplace just because they are pregnant. That would be unlawful discrimination and needs to be tackled.”

Discrimination at Senior Executive Levels
How does pregnancy discrimination apply to women working at senior executive levels, or for Fortune 500 companies? Clearly, women can face discrimination in office settings and it often takes shape in the form of a lack of pay raises, promotions, and recruitment.

Stephanie Mizzell Gossman works for Georgia Power under the Fortune 500 company Southern Company and she says she’s witnessed men in the workplace working hard to understand what a pregnant employee needs, though it’s her belief that a study would be needed to better understand the reason for pregnancy discrimination.

“I do think a study in the U.S. would be beneficial,” she said. “My opinion based on my experiences is that any discrimination against pregnant working women probably stems from a level of awkwardness, since most men feel awkward even when their wives or partners are pregnant, let alone a coworker.”

Susie Sheehey, who previously worked for Fortune 500 company Owens & Minor, says she experienced discrimination from clients, but was treated fairly and generously by her employer.

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Flexibility Stigma: The Unspoken Problem Facing Working Women and Men

iStock_000008472982XSmallBy Tina Vasquez, Editor

According to Professor Victoria Brescoll’s June 2013 study, “Ask and Ye Shall Receive? The Dynamics of Employer-Provided Flexible Work Options and the Need for Public Policy”, managers are most likely to grant flexible work schedules to men in high-status jobs who request flextime to pursue career advancement opportunities. Women in both high and low status jobs, on the other hand, are unlikely to be granted flextime for either family or career reasons.

Flexible work options include telecommuting, compressed work weeks, and sharing jobs, among other things. According to the Yale School of Management’s Yale Insights, to study the circumstances under which managers are willing to grant their employees flexible work schedules, the researchers behind “Ask and Ye Shall Receive” asked managers to react to scenarios of employees requesting flextime in the form of a shift in work hours. The scenarios varied in whether an employee was male or female, in a high-status managerial job or a lower-status hourly wage job, and the reason for the flextime request—either for childcare or to take professional development classes. The cruel irony is that researchers found that women in high-status jobs requesting flextime for career advancement were the most likely to think their requests would be granted, though they were the least likely to have their requests granted.

When speaking to Yale Insights, Brescoll said, “Workers most in need of flexible scheduling… are among the least likely to receive accommodations from their managers. All women workers, regardless of their status or the reason for their request, face a gendered wall of resistance to their requests for flextime, while men face status-specific resistance.”

Denied & Stigmatized
Not only do women struggle to obtain the flexible work options they so desperately need, they’re stigmatized when they take advantage of the flex options available to them – and interestingly, so are men. According to Work-Life Law, studies spanning 30 years have consistently verified that employees who use workplace flexibility statutes suffer career detriments. When speaking to the New York Times last summer, Joan C. Williams, founding director of the Center for Work-Life Law, said she invented the term “flexibility stigma” to describe the recent phenomena of companies having flexible work policies on the books, though it’s known to employees that they’ll be informally penalized for using them.

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Can You Bring Your Whole Self to Work?

iStock_000018133371XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Are you the same person at work as you are at home? For many women, especially those working in male-dominated industries like the financial services, law, or technology, the answer is no. Whether that means feeling pressured to conform to outmoded gender stereotypes or to leave family concerns at the door, in some organizations or teams, there is an expectation that workers fit a certain persona.

We’ve heard many times the exhortation that we should bring our “whole selves” to work, that we should be able to bring our whole selves to work. But what happens when it’s clear our “whole selves” aren’t welcome in the office?

A new paper, published in the Academy of Management Review‘s fourth quarter issue, describes the ways people navigate identity expectations at work. The authors, Lakshmi Ramarajan, Harvard Business School, and Erin M. Reid, Boston University School of Management, explain the pros and cons of different coping strategies for employees and for organizations.

According to Ramarajan and Reid, when people feel their work and non-work selves are harmonized, they are less stressed out and more productive. That’s why companies should push the inclusion agenda, rather than trying to force out differences of personality and passion that bring true diversity to the workplace.

Increasing Tension Between Selves

Ramarajan and Reid article is called “Shattering the Myth of Separate Worlds: Negotiating Non-Work Identities at Work.” They say the tension between work and non-work personae have become more fraught over the past 20 years for three reasons. First of all, job security has decreased over the past two decades, meaning people are relying more on their personal networks to find and keep jobs – which means there’s more mixing of work and personal relationships. Second, they write, diversity has increased in the professional realm significantly. They write:

“Although women and minorities are making their way into previously homogeneous roles and occupations, organizational and occupational entry, socialization, and promotion processes are often based on the images of previous successful workers… Not fitting this image might heighten workers’ attention to their disqualifying nonwork identities…”

Meanwhile, those accustomed to homogeneity may have never had reason to consider difference before. “Heightened diversity may also make nonwork identities more salient for all workers simply by placing people more frequently in interactions with demographically different colleagues,” they explain.

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Be Happy – It’s All About Autonomy

iStock_000004699538XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

According to recent research out of Northwestern University and Stanford University, it is possible to make yourself more happy. In fact, the study suggests, there may be a connection between happiness and personal empowerment. That is, acknowledging that you have the power to change your own level of happiness is what drives happiness to increase.

The researchers, Kelly Goldsmith, Northwestern University; David Gal, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Northwestern University; and Lauren Cheatham, Stanford University, set out to find whether thinking about happiness is enough to make people happier. What they found was that simply pondering the nature of happiness wasn’t enough.

Over the course of three experiments, the researchers found that people who merely thought about happiness in general didn’t really report any increase in their level of personal happiness. But they did see a significant boost in the reported happiness of people who were prompted daily to think about what they did that day to make themselves happier.

It seems that happiness is all about autonomy – a reminder that we can change our happiness level is what actually makes us happier. If you really want to make a difference in how happy you feel, instead of saying daily “I want to be happier,” your mantra should be “What have I done today to be happier?” Here’s why.

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What Does “Having It All” Mean?

BusinesswomanBy Hadley Catalano

How do professional women measure success? What does it mean to “have it all”? These questions have been dissected time and time again, with the most discussed addition to the conversation coming from Ann-Marie Slaughter’s now infamous 2012 Atlantic article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” The gist of Slaughter’s take on the issue: women (and men) can have it all, but not in “America’s economy” or in the current way society is structured.

The truth is there are no easy answers. There is no simplistic way to address the desires, needs, and concerns of half of the workforce. Why? Because all women are individuals with differing personalities and differing levels of ambition. Just like men. We all want different things at different points in our careers.

Citi and LinkedIn are the most recent contributors to the “having it all” conversation, with their third annual “Today’s Professional Women Report” providing a more nuanced take on what was quickly becoming a cliché topic. The report surveyed 1,023 male and female respondents who weighed in on topics spurred by conversations on Citi’s Connect: Professional Women’s Network on LinkedIn. The study’s findings shed light on the contradiction of what women have been assumed to want, and data detailing what women actually want at work.

Is The Corner Office The Goal?
According to Citi and LinkedIn, the average professional woman expects to have eight different jobs over the course of her lifetime and will make several transitions throughout her career.

Interestingly, many women surveyed are currently employed in industries that differ from their major or the field they intended to enter after college and they don’t expect that they will be in the same job long term. (According to the Citi survey, 30 percent of women think they will be at a different company or in a completely new industry in 10 years.) Educators and statisticians would agree. According to the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the top ten jobs of today did not exist in 2004. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today’s high school graduates, by the age of 38, will have 10-14 different jobs.

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