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42 roundtable: women in business ... continued from previous page


that. Going back to work may not be for everyone, but you shouldn’t be made to feel guilty about doing it.“


*Adamson: Construction sector employers were constantly creating solutions such as re-training, upskilling, flexitime, part-time working, home- working, and job-sharing in order to recruit and keep much-needed female employees.


about having a family, and not be worried about it slowing down their promotion chances. People should be able to discuss that sort of thing openly at work with their employers and even colleagues. You can’t do that currently because there is that immediate niggle that an employee is seen as not taking their work seriously.“


As a CEO and mother of four, Edmunds highlighted how senior managers could fall foul of that same perception, causing a workforce to lose motivation and worry about the company’s future. Again, impartial discussion and clarity about an individual’s plans would be beneficial. “It works both ways.“


Forrester liked the concept of a charter but felt it would be very difficult to achieve, not least because of the lack of women coming through into decision-making company positions.


Men are from Mars, women are from Venus?


Stephanie Morris


Do we need a women’s charter to overcome the barriers?


The Roundtable general view was that such a ’charter’ or additional legislation, establishing the expectations and requirements of employers and employees, would be too blunt an instrument to be effective in overcoming existing barriers.


Clifford: “It wouldn’t work because we are talking about personal choices and that’s a different space for every individual woman.“ Priorities and challenges can frequently change during worklife, while bringing up children, or even when looking after elderly parents, she pointed out.


Shimmin: “It’s more about the cultural acceptance of the validity of women’s choices, whatever they are.“


Claire Edmunds stressed that it wasn’t just women’s but parental choices that needed to be accepted. Couples made work-life plans and had family aspirations, and these could differ wildly – some taking lengthy periods off work, some choosing full-time childcare, male earners becoming house-husbands, etc. “We have to create a society where people can make their own parental choices, whether right or wrong in some people’s eyes.“


As an employer, she accepted: “People’s priorities do shift, and when people return to work after having children, you don’t know what you are going to get back. They may be desperate to work again or feeling guilty about leaving their children. Equality is about enabling choice, without judgement.“


Daykin also doubted the effectiveness of legislation. “Things are so different in individual cases.“ Instead she proposed more transparency between employers and employees about their future plans. “Women should be able to talk


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Morris mentioned a recent Winchester seminar: ’The Disappearing Woman’ by Germaine Greer that emphasised the innate and fundamental differences between men and women – such as nurturing traits and qualities, and the part they play in business. “Surely it makes no business sense, to not make room for these instincts and qualities.“


Forrester felt businesses would be improved if more women were involved in influential roles, because they offered different skillsets including soft skills such as “conflict management, compassion and team-building.“


Dereza: “Businesses that embrace diversity and inclusion often perform better, so even if you don’t believe it is good for society, it is good for the business bottom-line.“


Edmunds agreed that men and women do have different interests, skills and attributes. However, there were ways of making job roles more attractive to women, for example by the design and use of words on websites and recruitment advertising. Certain job-roles naturally appealed to different genders. In some sectors men could even find themselves operating within the culture of a ’female club’.


Drummond saw far more women than men coming through the recruitment doors of her career sectors – event management and charity fundraising. She highlighted lack of confidence as a key reason why women don’t rise up the ranks. “There’s something in our composition as women where we undersell ourselves.“


Morris: “There needs to be more leeway, flexibility and a greater understanding by men, about the fact that women may have to leave work and come back. They need to accept and deal with that because of the long-term benefit to the business. Women possess nurturing qualities and allowing them to be mothers celebrates that. It should be recognised that these qualities have a rightful place in the decision-making and future strategy of any business, and should therefore be safeguarded“.


Dallimore-Fox: “Boardrooms are still massively male-dominated. That’s the key battle, changing


Lucy Clifford


Edmunds concurred with Dereza that sometimes it was necessary to force change through, and starting at the top should kickstart improved gender balance at lower company levels. Quotas might accelerate that process.


Recruitment specialist Forrester felt gender quotas were unnecessary in certain sectors, such as technology, where feminine skillsets were already valued as positive business differentiators, particularly as research has revealed that appropriate gender-balanced management can help boost corporate performance. “But, I’m not sure that men yet acknowledge the personal struggles that businesswomen have.“


Shimmin: “Quotas do nothing to encourage women to apply for senior posts. The actual challenge is making those positions more


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SOLENT & SOUTH CENTRAL – DECEMBER 14/JANUARY 15


that senior mindset and making women feel more comfortable in the management environment, so that they can offer their different approach.“


Do we need to introduce gender quotas?


Dereza noted how gender quotas in Scandinavian countries had brought more women into boardrooms, although it had not significantly advanced female involvement in management pipeline levels below.


Edmunds said positive discrimination at recruitment level simply to obtain a 50:50 balance did not feel right, but there might be some merit in director level gender quotas.


“I sit on the fence on this one, because I would hate the idea that I was in a boardroom role simply to fulfil a quota, and yet there are questions around how women can break through into those environments. The demographic at the top of many businesses today has a very different gender view of the world to the new generation of workers who are coming through.“


Clifford agreed that were she ever to sit on the Board, she would be “mortified to feel I didn’t deserve my boardroom seat.“ She felt imposed quota systems could undermine respect for women in companies. Gender balance guidelines linked to a timeline of expected achievements might be more acceptable.


Morris too didn’t want a quota role unless she felt she merited it. Also, she queried whether rigid quotas actually fit the commercial requirements of all business.


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