By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)
A few months ago, a friend of mine wrote a post on Facebook about something that had frustrated her at work. My friend, who works in a technology role for a federal contractor, had received an email from a male colleague, asking if she wouldn’t mind helping to set up the office kitchen for a team party. All of the other women on the team got the email. None of the men did.
This may seem like a small thing, being asked to set up some refreshments for an office party. But, when you add up the consequences of being asked throughout your entire professional career to do these small chores, it’s not. Microinequities like these are the building blocks that make up a workplace culture that positions women as the helpers, the cleaners, the fixers, the note-takers, the coffee-makers, the party planners, the support staff to the “real” workers – even if their job description is the same as everyone else’s.
The second shift sees women in dual career households coming home at the end of the day, and doing the majority of housework and childcare compared to their partner. Even women in full time jobs who make more money than their husbands do the same amount or more at home, a recent Simmons College study [PDF] showed.
But the second shift is not simply a phenomenon that takes place after work. It’s a symptom of a broader cultural expectation that women clean up messes wherever they are. Women are getting stuck with the second shift at work too. And doing all that extra work, work that’s not considered mission critical in the least bit, can be a drag on your time and your power.
My friend did something brave. Rather than sigh heavily and just go help set up, she chose not to ignore the sexist slight. She replied to the email, pointing out that none of the men on the floor were asked to help out with the party, and it’s not appropriate to expect only women to.
That’s another factor – it takes a lot of courage to stand up to microinequities. Since they’re so small, the perpetrator may not even realize he or she did anything wrong. It’s easy for them to laugh it off as a joke, or worse, accuse the aggrieved of overreacting. And in the immediate sense, the payoff is small.
But calling out this kind of behavior is a long game, and ultimately it makes the work environment a more equitable place where women will be taken seriously. In the short term, at least you won’t be fuming later over what you “should have said.”
New Recommendations for Strengthening the UK Pipeline for Executive Women
Featured, Managing ChangeA recent report [PDF] released in July by the UK’s Conservative Women’s Forum and sponsored by Microsoft provides a robust group of recommendations for strengthening the pipeline of female executives. According to the report, in recent years, the proportion of women in executive roles in the UK has decreased dramatically.
For example, only three percent of CEOs in the FTSE 100 are female – down from five percent in 2011. Similarly, only 5.8 percent of executive directors are female, down from 6.6 percent just last year. And perhaps most distressingly, the pipeline of women for top jobs like CEO and executive director – women on executive committees – has shown a marked decline over the past few years, sliding from 18.1 percent in 2009 to 15.3 percent today.
The authors of the report, Mary Macleod MP and Dr. Thérèse Coffey MP, believe that this decline can be turned around by implementing a number of targeted initiatives in the business sector, encouraging women to be more strategic about advancement, and instituting government programs designed to level the playing field for women in business.
They also suggest that the key goal set by the Lord Davies report – to increase the percentage of women board directors in the FTSE 100 to 25 percent by 2015 – should be extended to the public sector and professional services. They write:
Here are Macleod and Coffey’s suggestions for plugging the leaky pipeline of women to executive roles.
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Voice of Experience: Deborah Hammalian, Chief Compliance Officer, ING U.S. Investment Management
Voices of ExperienceAccording to Deborah Hammalian, Chief Compliance Officer of ING U.S. Investment Management, setting career goals can help propel you forward. “Select a few goals and map the path for each. Identifying the path is a very powerful advantage toward reaching a goal.”
But, not everyone starts their career with a clear goal in mind – Hammalian included. Even still, she says, don’t stand still. “Have a clear goal, but don’t stop if you don’t.”
Hammalian began her career as a product support specialist, and her desire to grow and learn brought her to the legal and compliance world. Then, within a few years of starting out, her industry was in turmoil and her company was facing a huge round of layoffs. Nevertheless, she stayed flexible, and found a niche that suited her well. “My ability to adapt to and manage change has been a key to my professional growth,” she said.
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Lesbians Who Tech
PartnersWomen In The Boardroom
PartnersiRelaunch
PartnersToigo
Partners“The Toigo Foundation is committed to ethical leadership and broader diversity of thought and experience in business. Our mission is to foster the career advancement and increased leadership of underrepresented talent by creating mechanisms for greater inclusion from the classroom to the boardroom.”
WeAreTheCity
PartnersWeAreTheCity.com was founded in April 2008 with the aim of providing information to women who wish to progress in their careers via networking and events. The concept of the website is to provide services that not only help women develop themselves both personally and professionally, but also contributes to a wider strategy of supporting working women in the UK more broadly by bringing together the charity sector and potential entrepreneurs on to one common platform.
WeAreTheCity’s core pillars are as follows:
WeAreTheCity in numbers (Sep 2015)
Core service and programme offerings aimed at corporate clients
WeAreTheCity provide the following services & programmes to a number of organisations who are seeking to support and enhance the careers of their female workforce
For more information about our corporate services, please contact Info@wearethecity.com
In 2012 WeAreTheCity was recognised by both Mumprenuer and the Good Web Guide for our work in the female community.
In 2015, WeAreTheCity was awarded the Company of the Year Award by RBS Focused Women
WeAreTheCity also has a sister site in India, www.wearethecity.in.
Innovation is a Significant Driver of Corporate Growth: Sharpen Your Innovation Skills Using These 3 Helpful Tips
Managing ChangeInnovation is a word that is often used in association with business growth and competitiveness, but what does innovation in action look like and how can you make sure you are flexing your innovative muscles at work?
Recently, Harvard Business Review reported that the lack of innovation was one of the biggest mistakes Steve Ballmer made as CEO of Microsoft. He didn’t necessarily do anything wrong. After all, he did manage to keep Microsoft’s stock price steady during his time as the company’s leader. But, he didn’t really create a “wow factor” around Microsoft or its product lines either. As a result, Ballmer has been the topic of much media debate over whether or not he led the company with enough attention on innovation.
While Microsoft has not met the same demise as former tech giant, RIM, the message to companies is pretty clear: innovate or die. Julia Kirby, author of the HBR article writes, “Despite two decades of seeing the problem, very few CEOs have thought seriously about how their organizations should be reinvented if innovation matters more than anything else. Well, guess what: it does.”
As a recent Deloitte report suggested that innovation is not limited to a select few within a company’s org chart. Instead, companies need to start recognizing the value of institutional innovation, which Deloitte describes as, “redefining the rationale for institutions and developing new relationship architectures within and across institutions to break existing performance trade-offs and expand the realm of what is possible.”
Where do you fall on the innovation spectrum?
If innovation is becoming the cornerstone of competitive businesses, innovative people will become even more valuable. If you want to remain an asset to your company, you need to continue to sharpen your innovation skills, so that when the opportunity arises to turn ideas into actions, you will be ready. The following tips will help you keep innovation on the top of your to-do list each and every day.
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What to Do If You’re Sick of Taking on the “Second Shift” at Work Too
Office PoliticsA few months ago, a friend of mine wrote a post on Facebook about something that had frustrated her at work. My friend, who works in a technology role for a federal contractor, had received an email from a male colleague, asking if she wouldn’t mind helping to set up the office kitchen for a team party. All of the other women on the team got the email. None of the men did.
This may seem like a small thing, being asked to set up some refreshments for an office party. But, when you add up the consequences of being asked throughout your entire professional career to do these small chores, it’s not. Microinequities like these are the building blocks that make up a workplace culture that positions women as the helpers, the cleaners, the fixers, the note-takers, the coffee-makers, the party planners, the support staff to the “real” workers – even if their job description is the same as everyone else’s.
The second shift sees women in dual career households coming home at the end of the day, and doing the majority of housework and childcare compared to their partner. Even women in full time jobs who make more money than their husbands do the same amount or more at home, a recent Simmons College study [PDF] showed.
But the second shift is not simply a phenomenon that takes place after work. It’s a symptom of a broader cultural expectation that women clean up messes wherever they are. Women are getting stuck with the second shift at work too. And doing all that extra work, work that’s not considered mission critical in the least bit, can be a drag on your time and your power.
My friend did something brave. Rather than sigh heavily and just go help set up, she chose not to ignore the sexist slight. She replied to the email, pointing out that none of the men on the floor were asked to help out with the party, and it’s not appropriate to expect only women to.
That’s another factor – it takes a lot of courage to stand up to microinequities. Since they’re so small, the perpetrator may not even realize he or she did anything wrong. It’s easy for them to laugh it off as a joke, or worse, accuse the aggrieved of overreacting. And in the immediate sense, the payoff is small.
But calling out this kind of behavior is a long game, and ultimately it makes the work environment a more equitable place where women will be taken seriously. In the short term, at least you won’t be fuming later over what you “should have said.”
Read more
Movers and Shakers: Karen Catlin, Developing powerful women leaders in the tech industry
Movers and ShakersAfter a successful career working as a senior executive in the technology industry, Catlin is now focused on making sure women working in tech today have the resources to be successful. “I want to make sure women in tech are not opting out of the industry for the wrong reasons,” explained Catlin. “I want women to feel empowered, educated, and encouraged to have the career that they aspire to.”
Highlights in Catlin’s Career
After graduating, Catlin accepted a job at Brown researching hypertext, which was an innovative function at the time. “This was a great opportunity for me get involved with this research that was growing at the time,” explained Catlin.
Catlin moved to London with her husband, who is originally from England. Here she had the opportunity to work at a Hitachi Research Lab that was based in the UK. “It was a great experience not only working in the UK, but also working for a Japanese firm,” Catlin said. “I highly recommend that everyone gains some international experience if they can. It teaches you the skills that you need in order to be effective in different environments and different cultures.”
Although her experience working abroad allowed Catlin to gain valuable knowledge and add essential skills to her toolkit, she and her husband, who is a software developer, both felt like if they were going to work seriously in the technology industry, there was only one place for them to be. So, they packed their bags and headed back to the US with their sights set on Silicon Valley.
Catlin immediately found a job working for Go Corporation, a company that was working on tablet technology long before anyone else. She recalled being intimidated at the time even though she had a great technical background and education in technology. “If I knew the term ‘Impostor Syndrome’ at the time, I would have definitely said that I had it,” said Catlin. “I wasn’t sure I was up to getting an engineering job, so instead I got a job writing software and documentation that would teach other engineers how to write code.”
While she loved teaching other engineers, Catlin also discovered that she also enjoyed the challenge of getting things organized. She explained, “At the time Go was experiencing a lot of changes to their software specs, and they needed someone to guide the development team through this process. So I become involved in technical project management. I transitioned from being a software engineer to a manager at that point.”
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