By Gigi DeVault (Munich)
Have you seen Up in the Air? The camera cuts to the interior of a hotel bar. We see two women sitting over drinks. Worldly, successful, confident, Alex Goran has scooped up the pieces of the broken young Turk-ette, Natalie Keener, who has just received a “Dear Jane” text message from her boyfriend. Keener ticks off the desirable attributes of her dream husband. In turn, Goran advises the young woman: “You know, honestly by the time you’re 34, all the physical requirements just go out the window…Please let him earn more money than I do. You might not understand that now but believe me, you will one day—otherwise that’s a recipe for disaster.”
Suppose we take Mrs. Goran’s recipe for disaster and change out some of the ingredients: The basic recipe we want is intended to create the greatest measure of couple happiness. Starting at the top of the happiness scale, the couples who report the most happiness are upper-middle-class, two-career couples.
In fact, sociologist Paul Amato of Penn State reports that these couples are three times more contented in their marriages than couples in the group who rank next highest on the marital happiness scale—couples in working-class and middle-class families who hold to a traditional division of labor with only one breadwinner. This more than just a nod to 1950s aspirations—a chicken in every pot being stirred by a happy homemaker. What makes these mixes leaven, suggests Amato, is that these dual-career couples have egalitarian attitudes related to child care, household chores, and shared decision-making. But, according to the Penn State professors, an otherwise good recipe for marital happiness can be ruined when the wife adds too many working hours. Marital stability is shaken when the wife in egalitarian, dual-income families works outside the home more than 45 hours per week.
Yet, both men and women are working longer hours outside the home. About 66% of married couples had a spouse at home in 1970. Today, that number is closer to 40%. In 1970, the combined average number of hours worked by couples in a week was 52.4, compared to 63 hours a week in 2009. The new economy binds job security—terminology that has changed radically in the last few years—to longer working hours. Dual-income families are the norm for families in the United States (and readers of The Glass Hammer). A happy home environment means you’re better positioned to achieve more at work, shatter glass ceilings, and claim your seat at the table. Here are a few tips for making it work at home, so you can work better in the office.
Five Innovative Ways to Improve Gender Diversity at Your Company
Industry Leaders, LeadershipWhat makes a firm’s gender diversity programming really work? According to Jacqueline Akerblom, National Managing Partner for Women’s Initiatives and Programs at Grant Thornton LLP, it comes down to culture change. For the Global 6 accounting firm’s workforce, she said, diversity initiatives are “fully ingrained into the culture of the firm.”
But it wasn’t always like that. Six or seven years ago, Akerblom said, the company noticed it was losing a lot of its female employees. Recognizing the value of its women, the firm set out to keep them. Since 2004, when its women’s initiative was launched, the number of the women partners at the firm has increased by 184 percent, growing from 31 to 88.
How did they do it? Innovation. Here are five ways the company has succeeded – and your company can too.
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Hard Questions: Why won’t we work for women?
Featured, News, Office PoliticsYou don’t have to look too far into management research to uncover that all the statistics point to one thing: we prefer to work for men. When Ella Edmonson Bell asked her MBA students whether they would rather work for a woman or a man, most of them said they’d prefer a male boss. When ForbesWoman asked their Facebook community the same thing, the answers were the same. Admitting our preferences doesn’t seem to be a problem – we’re happy to confess that we want to work for men – but why do we feel like that in the first place? What’s so problematic about working for a woman?
“One way of explaining this phenomenon is gender schemas,” says Dr. Birute Regine, a developmental psychologist and author of Iron Butterflies: Women Transforming Themselves and the World. “A gender schema is an unconscious cultural assumption we hold about men and women. One schema is that women are first assumed incompetent and therefore not leaders, whereas for men it’s the opposite – that they are first assumed competent until proven otherwise.”
The problem with ideologies of this type is that we don’t necessarily know that we have them, and they tend to be pervasive. “Both women and men hold these assumptions,” adds Dr. Regine. “So perhaps women prefer male bosses because they assume they are more competent, and don’t give women the same benefit of the doubt or confidence going in. Women bosses may not be as supportive because, even though they know that they themselves are competent, these schema lead them to assume that other women are not.”
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Shaking Up Bankers’ Bonuses: New Legislation in the EU and UK
News“Since banks have failed to reform we are now doing the job for them,” says Arlene McCarthy, the vice chair of the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) and the woman who has just spearheaded new rules on bankers’ bonuses. “We have a duty as legislators to respond to the public’s concerns by voting in favour of these tough reforms to end the obscene bonus culture. At a time when the government is making substantial cuts, scaling back public services and support to families and businesses, our constituents expect banks to prioritise stability and lending over their own pay and perks. The banks have had two years since the 2008 financial crisis to do this and have failed to act, so now we will do the job for them.”
Gone are the unlimited cash bonuses and exceptional pension payments; in come rules about capping bonuses to salary and distributing shares instead of cash. Bankers might not be happy, but taxpayers will appreciate the shift towards a culture of transparency and accountability that focuses on repaying public loans.
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Voice of Experience: Rebecca Macieira-Kaufmann, President, Citibank California
Voices of Experience“Helping others be the best they can be is a big motivator for me,” said Rebecca Macieira-Kaufmann, President of Citibank California.
She focuses on providing the best experience for the customers of Citibank, as well as supporting her team to ensure they have everything they need to win. She said, “Helping customers be financially successful and seeing the team succeed is very motivating. Nothing can make me happier – it’s why I come to work in the morning.”
According to Macieira-Kaufmann, her career has been driven by two things – her love of business and her love of travel. Speaking three languages and having lived in several countries, she said, “I’ve always loved business. I started four different companies – before college.”
“To sum it up, I’m a fourth generation San Franciscan with a global background.”
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In Case You Missed It: Business News Round-Up
NewsThe US has avoided a double dip recession, although the Fed reported that the recovery has slowed. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision softened some provisions in Basel III, watering down earlier definitions of capital and including a long phase-in period to comply with new requirements about leverage and liquidity ratios. BP announced that Robert Dudley will replace Tony Hayword as its CEO.
Economic Backdrop
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Take More (Calculated) Risks: Five Ways to Build Your Risk Instinct and Get Ahead
Next LevelAt The Glass Hammer’s recent panel on women in IT, several of the women spoke on the importance of taking calculated risks in order to get to the next level career-wise. But many women have a problem “sticking their neck out” and taking that big assignment. Why? Is it related a physiological or body-chemistry factor? Or is it about cultural conditioning?
One one hand, a 2009 study revealed that women with more testosterone take more risks than women with less testosterone. Maybe that’s a sign that risk-taking is related to physiology – and Sheila Kolhatkar’s NY Magazine article “What if Women Ran Wall Street” references several studies in favor of a physiological basis for risk-taking behavior. On the other hand, as Kolhatkar writes:
“[no one] would argue that all men are aggressive, egotistical, and stubborn—or that all women are conservative, rational, and levelheaded. And being reductionist about hormones and gender is a sure way to misjudge a complicated individual.”
Acknowledging that there are other factors at play in risk taking skills (like cultural, workplace, or family influence) means we can seek out ways to become better risk takers – and reach new levels of success in our careers. Here are our top five ways to nurture your ability to take risks.
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Not Just Pajama Parties: Making Remote Working Work
Office Politics“People would love to work in their pajamas, on their own schedule and get around the consistency of 9-5,” says James Sinclair, CEO of OnSite Consulting, a U.S. based consulting company that focuses on insolvency, distress, and concept repositioning, with a mission to help remote workers be more productive. “However, remote or flex working is wholly dependent on the employee and their ability to work in a quasi-autonomous environment and use it to their advantage. If it is about working just enough to get by then it won’t work.”
Sinclair’s assessment is common to many employers: flexible working including the option of working from home is a leap of faith. However, OnSite Consulting has made it work – and in fact, from the company’s inception, its founder decided against bricks-and-mortar and created a remote workforce instead. Sinclair is clear that a remote workforce can generate a return on investment. The remote workforce model saves his company $1million a year in overheads. “For me, only with the advent of group collaboration tools, cloud based document storage and VOIP can I actually ensure that my employees are completing their work and I am constantly managing my workforce,” he says.
Sinclair judges his teams on their results, not hours spent at their desks, and this is a major change in thinking for many organisations. “For some employees, they love this approach and can speak openly about when they are unavailable because their confidence in their position and their completion of assignments speaks for itself,” Sinclair explains. He adds that even if employees are tied to their desks there is the expectation that they will carry out some personal tasks like paying bills during work time – simply because they are at work during business hours. “Remote working has allowed open discussion regarding personal time and what is expected,” he says.
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Five Financial Companies with Fantastic Diversity Initiatives
Industry Leaders, LeadershipIn a time when companies are rebuilding their business models to include a more diverse workforce, financial corporations are paying attention. Black Enterprise magazine recently released its list of the best companies for diversity, a list which consists of companies that the magazine believes have achieved a high level of inclusion of minority individuals – including race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. The Best Companies for Diversity list was made through surveys of the top 1,000 publicly traded companies, focusing on technology, sales, marketing, and human resources. Below is a roundup of BE’s five top financial companies in diversity.
Northern Trust
Named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers and one of the top 50 Companies for Executive Women, the Chicago based financial company boasts not only an annual Chairman’s Diversity Advocate Award Program which recognizes employees who make contributions to diversity efforts, but Diversity of Work training to encourage work groups to value their people and their contributions.
Director of Global Diversity and Inclusion Mark David Welch promises progressiveness and training with the support of diversity councils. “Northern Trust has long recognized the invaluable role of diversity, and this recognition is a testament to our belief that fostering a globally diverse and inclusive workforce is fundamental to our success as a business enterprise and community advocate.”
The company also gives priority to programs in diverse neighborhoods while offering a broad variety of business groups including Women in Leadership, the TNTPride (LGBT) Community, and the Black Business Resource Council. All combined, this makes Northern Trust an inclusive culture that enables the company to hire and retain a diverse workforce – which Welch says leads to better ideas and innovations and brings out the best in our employees.
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Ask-A-Career-Coach: Increasing Career Confidence
NewsConfidence attracts. I’m not talking about arrogance, which really bothered me when I was a recruiter and still bothers me (because who wants to deal with that!?). I’m talking about quiet confidence, poise, that “it” factor of believing in yourself and knowing you will get things done. Projecting confidence in a job interview, business meeting or sales call is difficult. Many people, even with a healthy dose of overall self-esteem, can still waver in these high stakes situations. Here are some tips for increasing your career confidence:
Keep a wins journal. Every day, document all the wins, big and small, that accrued during the day. It might be as simple as a follow up call you’ve been meaning to do that got done or not losing your temper with a colleague that irks you. If you are trying to specifically improve your career confidence, highlight your wins on the job or job search and any action steps you took to advance your search or career. But don’t forget to include general wins, like maintaining your exercise routine or making a date with your significant other. Your personal wins will improve your confidence in the professional arena. Over time, there are 2 benefits: 1) you will see all the things you have accomplished and have a pattern to recognize what areas are working; and 2) since you now have to document what you’ve done, you have built in some accountability to force you to get stuff done.
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Dual Career Couples – Tips for Making It Work
Work-LifeHave you seen Up in the Air? The camera cuts to the interior of a hotel bar. We see two women sitting over drinks. Worldly, successful, confident, Alex Goran has scooped up the pieces of the broken young Turk-ette, Natalie Keener, who has just received a “Dear Jane” text message from her boyfriend. Keener ticks off the desirable attributes of her dream husband. In turn, Goran advises the young woman: “You know, honestly by the time you’re 34, all the physical requirements just go out the window…Please let him earn more money than I do. You might not understand that now but believe me, you will one day—otherwise that’s a recipe for disaster.”
Suppose we take Mrs. Goran’s recipe for disaster and change out some of the ingredients: The basic recipe we want is intended to create the greatest measure of couple happiness. Starting at the top of the happiness scale, the couples who report the most happiness are upper-middle-class, two-career couples.
In fact, sociologist Paul Amato of Penn State reports that these couples are three times more contented in their marriages than couples in the group who rank next highest on the marital happiness scale—couples in working-class and middle-class families who hold to a traditional division of labor with only one breadwinner. This more than just a nod to 1950s aspirations—a chicken in every pot being stirred by a happy homemaker. What makes these mixes leaven, suggests Amato, is that these dual-career couples have egalitarian attitudes related to child care, household chores, and shared decision-making. But, according to the Penn State professors, an otherwise good recipe for marital happiness can be ruined when the wife adds too many working hours. Marital stability is shaken when the wife in egalitarian, dual-income families works outside the home more than 45 hours per week.
Yet, both men and women are working longer hours outside the home. About 66% of married couples had a spouse at home in 1970. Today, that number is closer to 40%. In 1970, the combined average number of hours worked by couples in a week was 52.4, compared to 63 hours a week in 2009. The new economy binds job security—terminology that has changed radically in the last few years—to longer working hours. Dual-income families are the norm for families in the United States (and readers of The Glass Hammer). A happy home environment means you’re better positioned to achieve more at work, shatter glass ceilings, and claim your seat at the table. Here are a few tips for making it work at home, so you can work better in the office.
Read more