Female Attraction First published in Personnel Today, 4 March 1999 ©Reed Business Information 1999

©Reed Business Information

After nearly 30 years of equal opportunities, the number of women in senior jobs is still small. KATRINA FOX reports on what some employers are doing to encourage women to reach the top

A pregnant woman's waters break and she goes into labour. Instead of being tucked up in a hospital bed pumped full of painkillers, she is in her City office, hanging off the end of a telephone, determined to close a deal. No, the above scene is not the fodder of a screenwriter's dramatic plot, it really happened last year - a frightening example of what a woman must put herself through if she wants to break through the glass ceiling.

A recent survey by the Institute of Personnel and Development showed there are now more women managers than ever before - but they tend to be concentrated in certain sectors, such as HR. And the number of women at director or executive levels remains low across all sectors. Yet at the same time, at the IPD's annual conference in Harrogate last October, chairman of recruitment specialist Park Human Resources, Simon Howard, announced that it is now men, not women who face employment problems.

According to Howard, the undergraduate population was 53 per cent female and 47 per cent male, compared with a split of 30/70 in the mid-1970s. "Much has been made of the glass ceiling for women in senior management positions, but I would argue it is not so much of a glass ceiling as a glass escalator," he said.

In sectors such as construction, a culture shift certainly appears to be taking place, with firms actively encouraging women into the industry, but other traditionally male domains have been slower to react, even after nearly 30 years of equal opportunities initiatives. What is stopping women form reaching the top and what is being done about it?

Police

If ever there was a masculine culture hostile to letting women into its ranks, the police force is surely a big contender. Incidents of bullying, harassment and intimidation have come to light over the years, which do nothing to make you associate it with an equal opportunities employer.

Have things changed? Many policewomen will say "no". North Yorkshire police recently lost a sex discrimination case where chief inspector Lyn Smith claimed she was blocked for promotion and had to endure comments about her sexuality. And in February 1998 a tribunal found Inspector Cydena Fleming had been subjected to a vendetta by male colleagues at a Lincolnshire police station.

But HR professionals in the sector insist things have moved on. A spokesman from the personnel management committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers said the macho culture no longer existed. But he admits, "Obviously there are pockets of incidents, but it is not endemic."

Steve Bolton, head of HR at Lancashire police, says things have come a long way and Lancashire encourages family-friendly policies, such as childcare and career breaks. It also has one of country's two female chief constables - the highest rank in the force - something Bolton says has undoubtedly had a positive effect on its equal opportunities policies.

One of the unique things about the police force is that to get to the senior ranks requires a large amount of experience, unlike some professions where a person can enter at a high level. So attracting more women into the force needs to be high on the priority list of the forces' HR departments.

Bolton has launched an initiative where the force is to forge links with a local college to provide access courses to people wishing to become police officers. "Lots of women get through the written tests and assessments, but many more women than men fail the physical tests," he explains.

The courses will advise them to begin physical training well before they apply. Although family-friendly policies are offered in some forces, part-time working is often not a feasible option for women, because, as the Acpo spokesman says, "Working part-time for too long may limit your experiences."

Specialisms such as defence units, traffic and CID have traditionally been male domains. An attachment scheme is available with the police in Durham, so women can get a taster of what the work is like to decide if they want to pursue it. "Often, this can break down the stereotypes of what the job is perceived to be," says personnel manager Susanne Bradley. A mentoring system is in place, so that if a woman experiences any harassment she has someone to go to.

The police force may be keen to argue that the old boys' network is dead and that women are no longer discriminated against, but if the example of race is anything to go by, it has a long way to go.

The City

Pat Corcoran, operations director of Opportunity 2000, a business-led campaign to bring more women into the workforce, believes that some sectors, such as the City, are not particularly welcoming for women. "You have the long-hours and macho culture environment - the 7am to 9pm mentality," she says. "The women who have achieved status are either single or married with no children."

But she believes family-friendly policies will have an impact on the rise of women into senior management. "Firms are realising they do not want to be seen as dinosaurs. They cannot afford to be seen as backward and operating 19th-century working practices." The first step is to put the policies in place, adds Corcoran. "Then women will take them up and show the companies that they can work."

Views in other sectors vary as to whether you can operate job-sharing or flexible working at the most senior levels, but Corcoran is adamant that it is possible. "It is a startling lack of imagination to say that a job can only be done by one person," she says. "Ironically, the higher up the ladder you go, the more control you have over your own time - no one tells the chief executive when to come to a meeting."

Corcoran admits that change in working practices in the City will be slow, but says, reassuringly: "The monster is stirring."

IT

The number of women in IT is lower than it was 20 years ago. According to Judith Scott, chief executive of the British Computer Society, the sector has become male dominated and this can put women off, although she stresses it is not an aggressive culture, such as that in the City. In IT there is lot of emphasis on keeping up to date with skills, so women who have taken career breaks often feel that once they have been out of the business, they cannot get back in.

The remedy lies in employers taking a more rational view of what to do for women who want to retrain, says Scott. "Employers must bring in schemes. Self-help does not help - what is a woman to do? Go to a local college when she has already got a degree?" Scott says she has no evidence of any positive action programmes to bring women into the industry. "I hear most employers saying they do not have time to train people."

But Clare Curtis, certification and development manager at software giant Microsoft, disagrees. "In Microsoft women do take career breaks and there are plenty of opportunities to retrain," she says. Curtis agrees that the image of IT needs to be made softer to be more appealing to women. "People think of IT as being full of techies. Even though there is a whole range of jobs in IT, people automatically assume you are an anorak. Not many women want to fiddle about under desks fixing PCs. We need to show them that there is a variety of jobs in IT and that it is fun to work in."

Contrary to Corcoran of Opportunity 2000's opinion, Curtis believes it is harder to have flexible working at senior levels. "Executives have to get together and meet up," she says, adding with a touch of irony that even Microsoft, with all its whizz-bang technology, has not yet come up with a way of replacing face-to-face meetings.

Higher education

While universities may do much to attract female undergraduates to their courses, the proportion of high-ranking women in academic jobs is poor. Liz Lanchbery, personnel director at Kingston University, believes there are several reasons for this. "Many women do not have the career paths expected for the top jobs - they have had breaks to have families, for example," she says. "Also, their backgrounds are different. Women tend to want to stay in practice, so they go as far as middle management where they can still be relatively hands-on." When women look above to senior management they are often put off, adds Lanchbery. She also acknowledges the difficulties of juggling a family and work life.

But in this sector, women are doing it for themselves. Last year a professional development programme was launched, called Room at the Top. Open to women already working as, for example, deans or vice-chancellors, the scheme is aimed at providing participants with a portfolio that can be used as part of an application for a more senior position.

Results of the initial part of the scheme are as yet unavailable but, if the example of the US is anything to go by, it is likely to be a success. The scheme has run for the past 20 years there and has increased the proportion of women chief executives from 5 per cent in 1975 to 16 per cent in 1995.

Two new projects were also launched last month in the UK. A Women in Higher Education Register, of which Lanchbery is a coordinator, is being set up to make accessible the skills of women in the sector, facilitate a resource centre and networking base and to run training and development programmes.

The register will form part of a database for a second scheme, the Athena project which is designed to promote the interests of women in the areas of science and technology, where they are under-represented. "The register will allow mentoring and job shadowing, because we will be able to see who is where and who we can match up," says Lanchbery. "Communication is not very good in the sector so the idea is to pull other initiatives together by, for example, offering space on our web site so people can find out what is going on."

So, while government initiatives may help to push the career opportunities of women along, there is still a battle ahead, even 20 years after the feminist movement, for women to break down stereotypes and cultures and prove their worth to employers.

Sheila Wild, employment director of the Equal Opportunities Commission, notes that many women are moving into self-employment. She rejects the suggestion that they are opting out. "It is derogatory to say this. They are exacting the same independence that men do if they set up on their own and people praise them for. It can be a self-fulfilling prophecy if you say it too often."

Asked if she is optimistic about women rising through the ranks, Wild says: "Optimistic is perhaps going a bit far, but let's say I haven't given up."

Perhaps Wild, and any woman who feels alone in a man's world, can take comfort in the words of Charlotte Whitton, Canada's first female mayor: "Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought of half so good. Luckily, it's not difficult."

Personnel Today is the weekly magazine for human resources professionals. This article is the copyright of the publisher, Reed Business Information and appears here with their permission. For more information on the magazine, visit their website at www.personneltoday.com