“We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry.” – Maya Angelou
I get asked why the continual focus on diversity is so important, especially when, as a young professional, it's easy to see that the big companies have got the message and are hiring increasingly diverse candidates. Unfortunately, it's sometimes to the point of being too diverse, with the majority of the population barely being represented.
So what is diversity? Hiring enough women / minorities / LGBT / disabled individuals so that no one's moaning anymore? And why is diversity so difficult to achieve? Why do we have whole departments within HR devoted to diversity, inclusion & equality? How are diversity consultancy firms making so much money from helping companies make the baby steps along the way?
Main Entry: di·verse
1. Differing one from another.
2. Made up of distinct characteristics, qualities, or elements
In business, diversity is about representing the population, because that's the target market. Obviously, the niche that a product or service is aimed at will be distorted from the general population, but minority groups always find their way in, and it has to be shown that you can cater to their interests better than anyone else.
It's not about hiring a certain number of individuals that fit a certain box. It's about hiring a lot of different people so that you have knowledge of all the boxes.
What's so difficult about doing that?
It is a simple fact that people hire people that are like them. Your employees are the people that you will interact with day in and day out, and at the end of the day, you want to hire someone you have something in common with.
Unfortunately, that doesn't make a great team. No individual excels at everything. We all have annual objectives and development plans that try to overcome the greatest issues, but ultimately there are areas that are lacking, and this is where someone needs to be hired with contrasting viewpoints and experiences that can enhance the team's collective credibility.
The business case for diversity goes beyond that, as numerous studies have shown that employee satisfaction, productivity and retention need to be improved as diversity increases. This is where HR and the consultants come in, because hiring the right people is only the first step. It's pointless if they don't stay. Unfortunately, the traditional methods of doing this tend to be at the exclusion of the so-called non-diverse individuals, through specific employee networks, events, etc. They do all claim to be inclusive, but that message hasn't sunk in yet.
There's clearly a long way to go. And that is why we need to keep working at it, because the job is done when this is seamless: when the right people are hired without having to go to the conscious effort of hiring someone different; when they fit into the firm naturally and their talent is leveraged by all without a special forum needing to be set up; and when none of that is a reason for them to consider leaving.
“Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” – Malcolm Gladwell
Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell, is one of those books that seems to be everywhere and yet barely anyone I know has read it. I've been doing a lot of walking lately (in preparation for the 20 mile London Night Hike, please donate if you can!), and decided to grab the audiobook of Outliers to entertain me.
One of the more prolific statements that he makes is around the 10,000 rule: the concept that the key to success is practicing for at least 10,000 hours. Gladwell claims that it's true for everyone, from the violinists at the Berlin Academy of Music, to chess players, to Bill Gates. If you believe his theory, then you also have to agree with corollary. It doesn't matter if you're naturally a genius in the area - the 10,000 hours is still required to be successful.
Unsurprisingly, this all made me think about gender demographics in technology. Remind me, why don't we have many women?
They got lost, when they didn't get their 10,000 hours of practice during the 10 years of schooling that their male counterparts did. They were too busy being told to take English instead of Maths and trying to fit in with their peers.
They got lost, when they went to university for 4 years and ended up being put in the role of organiser and presenter and report writer instead of doing technical work during projects.
They got lost, when they took that career break to raise children and missed thousands of hours of technical and management experience.
The first two are things to be remedied, things that have been identified time and time again, and have a million and one projects in the works in the hopes of addressing them.
The last issue is something we have to learn to deal with. Women bear children; this is way things have always been and will remain for a very, very long time. The choice of whether to stay at home with your children is a personal one, but the key word is choice. It should be a fair choice, where there is no undue bias because your job doesn't suffer and neither do your children. Technology is important, but so is the next generation.
But now we know that taking that break automatically puts you behind the competition, because it doesn't matter how good your company's maternity policies are and it doesn't matter how good you are. You will still lose the advantage because you have to make up that time somehow, and that can only be done by working harder and longer, which new mothers usually aren't in the market for. So it will take longer to make that time up. The determined ones will make it, as they should, and the ones that decide it's not that important to them, won't.
My gut instinct tells me that career breaks will continue to be taken by women. I don't think this is an issue that needs to be tackled on that front.
Instead, the shoe has moved to the other foot. As men campaign for better paternity rights and start taking longer breaks themselves, will we ever reach a point where the playing field evens out across the genders?
“There cannot be true democracy unless women’s voices are heard.” – Hillary Rodham Clinton
I was sitting at work, immersed in a spreadsheet while the floor was relatively empty. Out of nowhere, Hillary Clinton's voice appears, causing everyone to swivel around to identify the offender that didn't know how to use headphones on his computer. My colleague didn't even pretend to notice anything out of the ordinary, and asked us if we'd seen the clip. What clip, we asked.
This clip, he said. Hillary Clinton Bites Student's Head Off.
We crowded around and watched and vigorously agreed that she was in the right to snap the boy's head off for asking about her husband's opinion. It's her job. But women in politics have never had it easy.
I was pleased to discover that The Guardian has a dedicated Women in Politics section, unsurprisingly filled with articles about Harriet Harman's latest statements. It's mostly supportive, given that this is The Guardian, but also unsurprisingly, the focus is on whether women should be in power, and about Harman's own chances for power. Other quarters have a lot of criticism for her feminist agenda, but no one seems willing to talk about what she's actually done for women outside of this week long stint. The government's Government Equalities Office, led by Harman, lists the Equality Bill, the Equality PSA and Violence against women amongst other things.
But Labour's always been better for women. The Guardian also had a spread of articles recently on up-and-coming Conservative women. It would have impressed me more if 5 out of the 6 portraits didn't feature women in skirts and high heels. I'm a proponent of both, but I still remember my year group in school being the first to have the right to wear a trouser suit to Speech Day. It feels a bit like voting to me - of course you can choose not to exercise your right, but don't ever forgot what all that effort was for in the first place. Regardless, only 17 or 8.76% of 194 Tory MPs are women, compared with 95 or 27% of female Labour MPs. Given the seeming inevitability of a Conservative future, things will probably get worse before they get better.
“If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business.” – B. C. Forbes
What do you think of when you think of Forbes? Media, business, rich lists.
What do you get when you go to ForbesWoman? Top 10 Skinny Food Myths, The 'New' Sexual Harrassment, Moms Connect on the Internet. In all fairness, I judged very harshly on the first but when the latter two scrolled across I wondered why even the inclusion of the word 'Forbes' isn't enough to change the focus of 'Woman' to the successful businesswoman.
Ironically, the reason I was on ForbesWoman at all was because I had been pointed to a Q&A they had posted a few weeks ago with Jill Lee, Siemens' first chief diversity officer. She has a solid background with experience in global CFO positions and then moved to the so-called softer side.
She's not the first to do so. Most of the great corporates have diversity offices, sitting outside of HR with a mandate that goes further than recruiting a diverse employee base but also focusing on attracting a diverse client base. Diversity is good for business.
I went to a talk by Merrill Lynch's MD of Diversity & Inclusion, Subha Barry, when I worked there. Apart from the usual statements, she went on to say that her goal for the role was to hand it over to a white man - because this isn't only for the minorities to champion. It's well recognised that women need the support of men to further their agendas in the long run, but a quick Google of diversity officers will result in a long line of women's names.
But diversity is good for business. Why ignore part of the population when looking for clients?
Or does it come back to the job itself? The word diversity has connotations of HR and non-revenue generating back office activities. It's an area that women have traditionally dominatated, and men, for once, haven't. The only difference is that men aren't fighting the imbalance, because it's not (yet) an area that they care about.
Will their interest ever be piqued? Or will the day come when we accept that these imbalances are just the way things are?
“I walk tall and make the most of myself. And I was having that used as a weapon against me.” – Carole Caplin
For any new readers to this blog, I'll say it up front: my name is Lily, and I work in the financial services industry.
Returning readers may have noticed that this blog has been particularly quiet for the past few weeks. That's because I started a new job last month, working in the finance support division of a European investment bank, which comes complete with studying to become an accountant.
Most people are aware that this is a hugely male-dominated sector, whether you're in technology, finance or a banker. The stereotypes have kept the front page headlines of the evening papers going for months now, especially as this is the week of Q2 profits announcements in the UK. People eagerly await the first mention of the size of the bonus pool, to be divided amongst thousands of people, usually working out to an average of hundreds of thousands of pounds per head. If only that's how it actually worked.
But the part that the public doesn't see is the people really behind it all. The clients. The people with so much money that paying for an investment bank or private bank's services is well worth it for the return. Who are they?
I'm pleased to say that on the private bank front, they're theoretically almost as likely to be women as they are men.
"Women account for nearly half of the millionaires in Britain - around 46% of the country's 376,000 millionaires are female. This is predicted to rise to 53% by 2020 and 60% by 2025. Female wealth is growing by almost 11% every year." - Addidi Statistics (pdf, 146K)
The research around wealthy women is fascinating, showing amongst other things that younger women (18-44) have the most wealth, and high net worth women nowadays are more likely to have generated their wealth by working as opposed to inheritance or divorce.
The document goes on to explore the facts around female entrepreneurs, which only goes to prove what I think is generally accepted these days: women like to set up their own companies because it provides them with flexibility, especially after having a baby. But women run their businesses differently. Women place social, ethical and environmental concerns much more highly than men, which will hopefully make a difference in how we all do business in the long run.
For now, wealth management firms such as Addidi and Coutts Woman have identified this target market and are working exclusively with high net worth women to ensure that their wealth doesn't become a burden, but also to use it to give back to the community via initiatives such as angel investing. Women make up less than 5% of business angels, despite this apparently wealth we have. Imagine the different types of ventures that would go ahead if there was a more balanced set of decision makers at the table.
“The geese that laid the golden eggs – but never cackled.” – Winston Churchill
This fine Sunday, I went to FindingAda's first public event: Women of Bletchley Park. Having never been to Bletchley Park before, I was quite keen to see the place as well as learn about the role women had to play during it's wartime efforts.
The day opened with an intro from the leading ladies: Suw Charman-Anderson, founder of FindingAda, Sue Black, Head of the University of Westminster's School of Information and Software Systems, Kelsey Griffin of Bletchley Park itself, and last but certainly not least: Jean Valentine, Bombe operator at Bletchley Park during the war and our tour guide today.
Jean covered the somewhat random history of Bletchley Park, which is nicely documented on their website. Kelsey explained Bletchley's problematic funding situation, which has been covered in the media over the course of the past year. Sue explained her personal involvement and gave some colour to the Saving Bletchley Park campaign that she has spearheaded.
We then relocated to the Enigma ABC Cinema to watch The Women of Station X. I think one of the oddest - and nicest! - parts of the day was to realise that half of the staff at Bletchley Park during the war were women. That's... equal representation. Obviously, women would have been doing vastly different roles compared to the men, but they were still there. The sad part is to hear how the men were able to leverage their Bletchley experience in their post-war lives, while the women sadly returned home, unable to tell a soul about the work that they did.
We had a wonderful tour with Jean, a fantastically enthusiastic and spry woman despite her age. One thing that hadn't occurred to me was how many different things are hosted at Bletchley: from the Churchill room to the Toy Collection to obviously the rebuilt Bombes and Colossus, to my personal favourite: the Bletchley Park Post Office. They produce first day covers of Royal Mail stamp issues, so while this is the original Women of Distinction collection, I grabbed myself the Bletchley version, featuring 6 of their heroines, one of which is Jean Valentine - our tour guide that had signed it.
All in all, it was a lovely day out. Go and see what it has to offer if you can!
“The future [...] is digital, and Xerox will continue to be the digital printing partner of choice.” – Anne Mulcahy
When the issue of women comes up in a professional environment, it's quite common for men to ask why we need all of this attention focused on the issue. In my previous job, it was pointed out to me that not only did I report to a woman, but her manager, and her manager's manager were also women - with the global head of the extended team (based in America) also a woman. With such a long chain of women, they said, was there really anything for me to moan about?
But for every such line of women, the company had another 10 to match it of men. What's more, those hierarchies stretched much further than mine ever did - because it was a man that had the top job. This is why it still matters.
Of course, women are breaking through every day. Ursula Burns' ascent to the position of CEO of Xerox has been widely reported, not least because she is the first female African-American to lead a major public company, and because she is taking over the reigns from another woman. Anne Mulcahy is often credited with rescuing the company known for photocopying, although I don't believe the usage of the word 'xerox' as a verb has extended beyond America.
There are some similarities between the women: apart from the obvious business acumen, Mulcahy has two grown sons while Burns has a 16- and 20-year old, but that seems to be where it ends. Mulcahy joined the firm as a field representative upon completion of a BA degree in English and Journalism, while Burns started as an engineering summer intern and went on to complete her BSc and MSc in Mechanical Engineering.
While it goes to show that perhaps one really should do what they love at university, because it can all lead down the same road at the end of the day, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I was pleased that Ursula Burns is a scientific woman. Her academic achievements are impressive on their own, but she also worked her way up from being raised by a single mother in a New York City housing project. Now that's a role model for future generations!
“My career is based on enthusiasm, determination, hard work and luck.” – Anna Amtmann
I'm usually far more interested in planet research than plant research, but when I heard that a woman from my alma mater, the University of York, had a blurb in the June 2009 edition of GARNet newsletter, GARNish, about a women in science project she was running, I had to take a look.
As part of her Royal Society Rosalind Franklin award, Professor Ottoline Leyser (University of York) has produced a book entitled Mothers in Science. The aim of this book is to illustrate, graphically, that it is perfectly possible to combine a successful and fulfilling career in research science with motherhood, and that there are no rules about how to do this. On each page you will find a timeline showing on one side, the career path of a research group leader in academic science, and on the other side, important events in her family life. Each contributor has also provided a brief text about their research and about how they have combined their career and family commitments. The book is available for downloaded from
http://bioltfws1.york.ac.uk/biostaff/staffdetail.php?id=hmol
The book contains profiles of 64 academics, including a woman from my former computer science department and quite a few other familiar names. It gives an interesting insight into a world that rarely gets to be in the spotlight. There are obvious limits to the story being told, but while there is a slight bias towards the idyllic world of supportive (and more often than not, academic) husbands with part-time or flexible working arrangements, the "2 body problem" that academics face when they are not located in the same city are also addressed.
Some women happily say that they delayed children until they were established in academia with research groups, while others were 'unknowingly pregnant' when taking up early research positions and took 8 year career breaks. Almost all detail their childcare arrangements, ranging from family to departmental nurseries to various nannies and au pairs being employed. One woman, Sunetra Gupta, has not only juggled two daughters alongside her academic career but is also an established novelist with four books under her belt! The only thing missing is greater coverage of single mothers and inclusion of same-sex partnerships: this is a good start, but there is more equality to be found here.
All in all, it's a fascinating read and well worth hitting the print button for local libraries and schools to stock. People always say that women can have it all these days, but this is one of the few times where you get to see the proof of it with the compromises - from the parental side.
“Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.” – Ernest Hemingway
My generation spawned many things, including the birth of ‘ladette’ culture. Despite the stereotypical image of young British women downing pints, I still associate wine with a woman’s drink.
You can imagine my surprise at being the only woman in the room when I joined my other half for a wine tasting a few weeks ago, organised by his firm’s trading technology department (where he works). Where did all the women go?
It’s easy to come up with superficial reasons behind this phenomenon:
- They signed up but couldn’t make it due to work issues
- They have to run home and take care of the kids
- They like wine but they don't care about it that much
- There aren’t that many of them there in the first place, so proportionally you wouldn’t expect (m)any anyway - unfortunately I wasn't able to get hold of the percentage of female employees in that department to confirm what the expected figure would be around.
The first three points all lose ground when you take Women Inspired by Wine into account. The group was only launched in April of this year, and it's exactly what you would infer from the name: an organisation that provides educational and social opportunities around wine for women. One would assume that they have a number of members, or it wouldn't exist. Who are these women? I think it's safe to say that they don't work in trading technology at investment banks, or maybe they do and that's why they eschew the work events for the superior women-only ones!
However, for anyone that thinks perhaps the women attending these events are something other than city professionals has it wrong because one of Women Inspired by Wine's partners is none other than Women in the City. But how many of those women attend the wine events?
Women in the City was created when Gwen Rhys, a serial networker if there ever was one, decided that there should be a forum to gather city women together. This resulted in a 'one-off' lunch that has become the annual flagship event for the organisation. In addition to the lunch, they now have an annual symposium, an awards scheme and produce a magazine with items of interest to both men and women.
The network is currently focused at senior women, with a target age of 35-45, but I'm pleased to see that future endeavours include a Rising Star award for the 25+ age range. I remain convinced that while networks are good in the current atmosphere, the only reason they are necessary is because women are in the minority. The only way to bring this situation to an end is to increase the number of women, and that will naturally occur by fostering younger talent.
Maybe then, the day will arrive when wine events are open to both genders, and both will attend. What a novelty!
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