By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)
As India’s growth – 8% last year, measured by GDP – quickly outstrips its supply of talented workers, the country will need to focus on better educating its huge population, particularly its girls and young women. According to a new report by Catalyst, India is facing a severe projected talent gap – more than 5 million – by 2012. The report adds, “Women’s labor force participation, at 36 percent, is less than half of the labor force participation rate of men (85 percent).”
But keeping up with labor demand is only one reason to focus on educating girls. As Sheetal Mehta, Trustee and Executive Director of Project Nanhi Kali, explained, when girls are educated, they have more opportunities, and a better chance in life. In many areas of India, girls are seen as an expense, not an asset. While educating girls can lift entire families from poverty, Mehta explained, the impact of an education begins with each girl herself. She said, “When girls get educated, the earnings go back to their families. All of that is wonderful, and it does happen. But more importantly, it’s for their own self esteem.”
Education, Mehta said, keeps girls safe. She continued, “If girls are not educated, they are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. They could fall prey to other possibilities (like getting involved in terrorism or sex trafficking). If a girl is educated, she becomes independent and able to make her own decisions. She need not reach the level of poverty where she has to earn money by selling her body or risking her life. It’s about self respect, and those benefits are huge.”
Ask for More Now, Ladies – Here’s How to Get That Raise
Money TalksWhen was the last time you negotiated a raise? If it’s been a while (or perhaps, if your answer was ‘never’), chances are you could be making more. According to Matt Wallaert, lead scientist at GetRaised, “The research shows that women don’t ask for raises as often as men do, and when they do, they’re not as successful at it.”
Carol Frohlinger, co-author of Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success, agreed. She said, “The challenge for women is that not only are we reluctant to ask because of socialization, but the reality is that both men and women expect women to negotiate differently than men. So when we ask, we get push-back, or we heard about someone else who asked and it didn’t go well, so we don’t try.”
But that’s no reason to be discouraged – research and planning can help you ask for and get more.
GetRaised, for instance, shows women how much they could be making, based on its extensive database of market-based compensation research, and then provides women with a tool to help frame the negotiation conversation. According to Wallaert, tens of thousands women have now used GetRaised – and 75% of the women who have used it have gotten a raise. On average, the site’s users receive a raise of about $6,000.
This is about confidence. The success of GetRaised’s users shows women just aren’t asking. It’s time for women to start negotiating with the confidence that they can get more.
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Getting to Gravitas: The Business Sweet Spot
Expert AnswersJoan Steinberg, Morgan Stanley’s Global Head of Philanthropy, was quoted in The Glass Hammer recently emphasizing the importance of projecting professionalism and leadership when seeking advancement.
“You have to be at the next level,” advised Steinberg. “Be the role you want to be, so that it’s easy for others to see you that way,” she said.
Excellent advice, but do women really know what she means, and how to achieve it? I haven’t met Joan, but I know what she means, and she means gravitas.
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Ask-A-Career-Coach: Let’s Get Political!
Ask A Career CoachLike many summa cum laude graduates, I started my career with confidence in my talents and abilities. So much so that I refused to get involved in anything that smacked of “office politics.” I believed that work and career were all about merit, not about backroom bartering or Happy Hour schmoozing. Today I look back at my younger self with amusement and affection, recognizing that what she considered integrity was actually a tangle of naiveté and arrogance.
Oh, how I wish Linda A. Hill and Kent Lineback had been around to set me straight.
In their new book, Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader, Harvard business prof Hill and business exec Lineback make an argument for office politics to which even the indignant Ms. Daly would have conceded. Here’s how I imagine such a conversation might have gone:
Q: Office politics are a waste of my time, and I don’t want to deal with them. Why should I bother?
A: Well, for one thing, your organization, like all organizations, is inherently political. Where there are people, there are power relations. If you ignore that reality, you’ll miss out on an essential tool you need to get your work and your team’s work accomplished—because your ability to obtain necessary resources often depends upon the intelligence you gather and the partnerships you’ve established. Even more, you’ll miss out on the opportunity to influence (read: lead) the direction of your organization.
Q: But what about that old saying, “power corrupts”?
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Sharing Best Practices to Boost Senior Female Leadership
NewsLast week Catalyst presented its annual awards for companies going the extra mile to advance and retain women. While the winning companies – Kaiser Permanente, Time Warner, and McDonald’s – boasted strong results for promoting women across the board, they each took an interesting approach to getting more women into senior roles.
Each of the winning companies recognized the business value of employing more women. After all, women traditionally make the majority of healthcare and nutrition related decisions within the family. And women are also a huge market for news and entertainment. It makes sense that these companies would benefit by improving the gender balance of their workforce in general, as well as key leadership and decision making roles.
As Julie S. Nugent, Senior Director, Research, and Chair, Catalyst Award Evaluation Committee, remarked, “diversity and inclusion is an important business imperative that deserves our attention, and it’s not just a nice thing to have.”
The conference enabled business leaders to learn from the winning companies’ best practices, and hopefully implement the gender diversity strategies at their own companies. Here are a few of the key takeaways that the conference participants shared.
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Voice of Experience: Laura Yunger, President, Cheevers & Co.
Voices of Experience“I always think about how people get jobs in this industry,” said Laura Yunger, President of Cheevers & Company, Inc., a woman-owned brokerage firm founded in 1982. “Schools generally don’t have classes or programs specifically designed to teach you about trading or derivatives.”
Falling In
Like most of her colleagues, Yunger “fell in” to the financial industry. After graduating with a journalism degree from the University of Maryland, she initially had plans to move to Berkeley to study public health policy and nutrition. Her friend’s father had offered her a part time job at Rydex Investments, while she completed pre-requisite courses.
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Catalyst Honors Companies Making a Difference in Gender Diversity
NewsThis week marked Catalyst‘s annual awards celebration to honor companies that are making progress in the advancement and retention of women. This year’s honorees included Kaiser Permanente, McDonald’s, and Time Warner.
Each of the winning companies was commended for its ongoing work to improve gender balance – as Julie S. Nugent, Senior Director, Research, and Chair, Catalyst Award Evaluation Committee, explained, the awards honor progress – not perfection. Plus, Nugent explained, winners of the award were careful to back up their success with metrics. “We do love our results, being a research organization,” she said.
Whether it was the growth of women on boards at Kaiser Permanente, an increase of women in senior management at McDonald’s, or an improvement in the retention of women at Time Warner, each of the companies had the numbers to show that their programs were working.
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Project Nanhi Kali: Educating Girls for a Growing India
Women and PhilanthropyAs India’s growth – 8% last year, measured by GDP – quickly outstrips its supply of talented workers, the country will need to focus on better educating its huge population, particularly its girls and young women. According to a new report by Catalyst, India is facing a severe projected talent gap – more than 5 million – by 2012. The report adds, “Women’s labor force participation, at 36 percent, is less than half of the labor force participation rate of men (85 percent).”
But keeping up with labor demand is only one reason to focus on educating girls. As Sheetal Mehta, Trustee and Executive Director of Project Nanhi Kali, explained, when girls are educated, they have more opportunities, and a better chance in life. In many areas of India, girls are seen as an expense, not an asset. While educating girls can lift entire families from poverty, Mehta explained, the impact of an education begins with each girl herself. She said, “When girls get educated, the earnings go back to their families. All of that is wonderful, and it does happen. But more importantly, it’s for their own self esteem.”
Education, Mehta said, keeps girls safe. She continued, “If girls are not educated, they are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. They could fall prey to other possibilities (like getting involved in terrorism or sex trafficking). If a girl is educated, she becomes independent and able to make her own decisions. She need not reach the level of poverty where she has to earn money by selling her body or risking her life. It’s about self respect, and those benefits are huge.”
Read more
6 Ways Transparency Can Boost Women in Leadership in the Financial Services
Featured, Office PoliticsThis month the Financial News released the results of its fourth annual survey of women in the financial services. One of the most surprising findings was that 90% of the women surveyed want banks to be required by the government to provide greater transparency on compensation data.
The research, which surveyed 200 of the most senior leaders at twenty investment banks and corporate and investment banking divisions, showed that women represent only 8% of leaders in the industry.
The fact that almost all of them named compensation transparency as a policy of key importance is revealing. Even the most senior women in the financial services feel the wage gap is a hindrance to recruiting and retaining the best and brightest female employees – that is, half of the best potential workforce.
But based on the research, compensation isn’t the only area where transparency could be useful. Shining some sunlight in other areas of the workplace could benefit both women and the firms that need to employ them.
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Voice of Experience: Laura Liswood, Secretary General, Council of World Woman Leaders, and Senior Advisor, Goldman Sachs
Voices of Experience“Try to speak out – have a voice,” advised Laura Liswood. “Claim your accomplishments, and ask for and know what you want.”
Liswood, now Secretary General of the Council of Women World Leaders and a Senior Advisor at Goldman Sachs, has built her career around improving diversity and bringing women leaders into light.
Making powerful women more visible, she explained, will help change presumptions around what a leader should look like.
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Ask-a-Recruiter: How to Get Back on Track After a Career Break
Ask A RecruiterHow can you get your resume to the top of the stack when you’ve taken a break from your career to care for children or aging parents?
You’re punctual, smart, determined, qualified. You’ve had great experience and have at least 3 years of tenure in every position you’ve held. You’re a hard-worker, a fast learner and above all, you excel at anything you put your mind to. Oh, I almost forgot, you interview fantastically too. Wow, you sound great! You’re currently job hunting, so if all this is true, why haven’t you received any job offers?
Did I mention you left the workforce six years ago to be a stay-at-home mother?
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