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Women in Senior Management

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    #62
    g'em
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,819 ✭✭✭✭g'em


    nouggatti wrote: »
    Does that make any sense to you g"em?

    Completely, you explained what I was trying to say much better than I did :D
    nouggatti wrote:
    For many companies imo, that investment in terms of additional wage cost, and the time needed to train the individual, is immaterial in terms of potential revenue loss, and the bigger the company the worse it is.
    From I've seen as common practice in companies I'd completely agree that that is what seems to be the case. And, fundamentally, is also what I see is wrong. Women will have babies, it's what happens. Whether or not it costs a company to have to prepare and manage that is (idealistically) irrelevant. In the short term it may cost to hire and train, but in the long run you ensure a committed workforce of highly skilled individuals who may take time off but ultimately return and stay with the company long term.


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    #63
    Stheno
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 51,687 Mod ✭✭✭✭Stheno


    Thaedydal wrote: »
    nouggatti that should just be the cost of doing business it's sexist and discriminatory when it is said it is the 'cost' of hiring women of childbearing age.

    Sorry Thaed, didn't mean to imply that was a personal opinion, it's imo, a woman going on maternity leave is something a company can plan for, compared to e.g. a guy/woman having a car accident and being out of work unexpectedly if far far worse than a woman going on maternity leave.

    It's very much mo that companies need to learn to plan more, and accept women choosing to have kids and plan around it, it's something that can be accomodated much like long term chronic illness as opposed to sudden illness/absence for another reason.


    That said I personally have encountered the following:

    1. Being in an interview and being told "you are married, you obviously have children, how do you balance where you live, your family commitments and work"

    2. Comment from a senior manager, regarding a colleague: "She used be valuable to us, but she's trying to have a baby, let's try and replace her"


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    #64
    DenMan
    Registered Users Posts: 7,961 ✭✭✭DenMan


    Hi nouggatti

    Regarding the second part, surely they wouldn't say that? :eek::eek::eek:


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    #65
    Nevyn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 43,045 ✭✭✭✭Nevyn


    nouggatti wrote: »
    That said I personally have encountered the following:

    1. Being in an interview and being told "you are married, you obviously have children, how do you balance where you live, your family commitments and work"

    That's illegal and you can sue them for that.
    nouggatti wrote: »
    2. Comment from a senior manager, regarding a colleague: "She used be valuable to us, but she's trying to have a baby, let's try and replace her"

    Charming.


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    #66
    Stheno
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 51,687 Mod ✭✭✭✭Stheno


    DenMan wrote: »
    Hi nouggatti

    Regarding the second part, surely they wouldn't say that? :eek::eek::eek:

    yes they can and they did, very very hard to prove btw if you are part of a conversation, in which the relevant individual is being discussed.
    Thaedydal wrote: »
    That's illegal and you can sue them for that


    I went one better imo, I was very lucky to be in demand for a certain role with several companies.

    The company whose interviewer did the above, offered me the job, and I was dealing with their HR director (I've a relatively senior job in IT), and I turned it down on the basis of the comments made, and spent 45 minutes on the phone recounting the conversation to the HR director and advising her on every single piece of legislation that had been contravened :D

    The interviewer was sacked shortly after !

    As for the second experience, it's one of several I have encountered, it's a common enough attitude in IT imo.

    To go even further I recently attended a Girl Geek dinner, and of approx. 35 women there was the only one directly involved in IT Operations, I was shocked, now I'm one of three women in a team of approx 26, but I was still shocked.

    Mods: apologies if I have now completely pulled this thread ot.


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    #67
    Nevyn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 43,045 ✭✭✭✭Nevyn


    Been in IT/engineering jobs myself and it's like ok if you can be one of the lads and your are nerdy and geek enough they can accept it but once you are preggers or you are a mother then clearly they think your sense of humour and fun was/will be removed with the placenta.


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    #68
    Stheno
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 51,687 Mod ✭✭✭✭Stheno


    Thaedydal wrote: »
    Been in IT/engineering jobs myself and it's like ok if you can be one of the lads and your are nerdy and geek enough they can accept it but once you are preggers or you are a mother then clearly they think your sense of humour and fun was/will be removed with the placenta.


    +1 agree 200% it's a man's world.

    That said, given what I have said about being in a relatively senior position in IT, I have no children and don't really want them, but I have seen women in the same type of job as me lose out due to their having children.

    IT/Engineering imo is one of the worst areas for women to be involved in if they do want a good work/life balance, all well and good being one of the lads, but by god it can be lonely :)


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    #69
    g'em
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,819 ✭✭✭✭g'em


    I'm in academia, and women get a fairly short thrift there too. It's beginning to get recognised and steps are slowly being made to rectify the situation in the form of extra funding and grants aimed at encouraging women to pursue careers in science and engineering (e.g. SFI funding) but the problems are a long way off disappearing. While there's actually a bias of women to men in early stage third level education in Sci & Eng, by the time you reach Doctoral level the scales have shifted back in favour of men. Women are still being forced to choose between family and career, simply because Third Level Insitutions do not have the policies in place to source or provide the resources needed for a woman to take time out to have a family and later return to pick up her career where she left it off. Many women who do succeed at senior academic levels (at least those who I have spoken with, and that's quite a few) often admit that they didn't take their full maternity leave entitlements for fear that in as fast paced a world as research is their position in the lab/ resesarch group would be in jeopardy if they were absent for too long.


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    #70
    Will
    Closed Accounts Posts: 19,183 ✭✭✭✭Will


    work for IT department in an accounting firm, most senior positions are filled by ladies in the department.
    My main manager is probably the best manager ive ever had in my whole life. Would do anything for the woman... e.g work an extra week for them continuing my contract even though its just work placement, was given 1 hour notice, but as i said would do anything for her. Morale is so high in our area, and it's all down to her.

    her senior boss, is just weird, not a fan of her at all. she doesn't know diddly squat and isnt good with people unlike my beloved senior manager :D

    she was recently promoted too and i was so happy.

    end of happy rant


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    #71
    Dragan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,497 ✭✭✭✭Dragan


    g'em wrote: »
    It was a generic "why", I'm not asking you personally to divulge the details of your companies policy.

    But people leaves jobs/ go on long-term sick-leave all the time, and a company has no choice but to cope. If you have women of child bearing age working in a company it's a pretty reliable fact that a large proportion of them will indeed have kids at some point and companies should be able to forsee and cope with that. This isn't staff turnover either, this is a woman taking temporary leave from her job and so surely it would be in the company's best interest to entice that woman back to her job (with all that personal experience) once maternity leave is over.


    Why yes, yes I did. Btw, there should be a "you" after the word think there.


    I think you're seeing something in my post that isn't there. A bit less condescension would be just fab too.

    Apologies if you read anything in my post as condescension g'em, it definitively wasn't meant that way.

    Look, as i said i agree with you guys and leave should be far better handled but the simple fact is that responsibilities lie on all sides to get that done from employer to employee and the government.


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    #72
    Mikel
    Closed Accounts Posts: 863 ✭✭✭Mikel


    g'em wrote: »
    I'm in academia, and women get a fairly short thrift there too. It's beginning to get recognised and steps are slowly being made to rectify the situation in the form of extra funding and grants aimed at encouraging women to pursue careers in science and engineering (e.g. SFI funding) but the problems are a long way off disappearing. While there's actually a bias of women to men in early stage third level education in Sci & Eng, by the time you reach Doctoral level the scales have shifted back in favour of men. Women are still being forced to choose between family and career, simply because Third Level Insitutions do not have the policies in place to source or provide the resources needed for a woman to take time out to have a family and later return to pick up her career where she left it off. Many women who do succeed at senior academic levels (at least those who I have spoken with, and that's quite a few) often admit that they didn't take their full maternity leave entitlements for fear that in as fast paced a world as research is their position in the lab/ resesarch group would be in jeopardy if they were absent for too long.

    It's interesting you said 'later return to pick up her career where she left it off.'
    Doesn't that mean that she returns to the level she was at, and others who were at that level with her will have moved on?
    Take the banking industry, the last 12 mths have been the most significant since 1929. But some women in the industry will have been having children and won't have experienced it.
    Shouldn't this be considered in the future when senior promotions are made?


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    #73
    g'em
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,819 ✭✭✭✭g'em


    Mikel wrote: »
    It's interesting you said 'later return to pick up her career where she left it off.'
    Doesn't that mean that she returns to the level she was at, and others who were at that level with her will have moved on?
    Take the banking industry, the last 12 mths have been the most significant since 1929. But some women in the industry will have been having children and won't have experienced it.
    Shouldn't this be considered in the future when senior promotions are made?

    I probably should have said 'later to return to pick up her career in the same capacity or equivalent capacity to where she left it', that is she couldn't have been demoted while she was gone or have her position diminshed in any way.

    Obviously people will move on in her absence, but I suppose again in my rather idealistic way of viewing it I'd see it as swings and roundabouts - if all workers are equal and can take paternity/ maternity leave when needed there'll be a constant flow of people coming and (temporarily) going from their jobs, and they will have the freedom to so without worrying that while they are away they will be sacrificing their chances of career advancement.

    But to go back to you question you can't legally take a woman's potential for maternity leave into account when deciding promotions - it happens, of course, but instead of trying to just ignore it and letting it continue to happen again I feel that policies need to be changed so that the freedom to raise a family and have a career is there.


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    #74
    Mikel
    Closed Accounts Posts: 863 ✭✭✭Mikel


    g'em wrote: »
    But to go back to you question you can't legally take a woman's potential for maternity leave into account when deciding promotions - it happens, of course, but instead of trying to just ignore it and letting it continue to happen again I feel that policies need to be changed so that the freedom to raise a family and have a career is there.
    But what if you're promoted to CEO and decide you want to take a year off and have a child?

    In any event I didn't mean potential maternity leave, I mean that if you and I are being considered for a promotion next year, and I have the experience of managing a department during the current turmoil but you don't because you were on parental leave for a year or two.
    Wouldn't and shouldn't that weigh things heavily in my favour since you don't have that experience?

    The notion of people coming and going without disruption is all very well in theory, but there are a couple of problems with it.

    If you are dealing with a high skill and experience dependent job it's not a simple matter to cope without someone.
    My job for instance could not be just covered by someone else, no matter how many procedures are put in place.
    Or if a woman is a teaching professor in science, you can't just ask someone else to do it.
    If a company saw that there was no disruption they would decide they were overstaffed and get rid of people.

    I could only see it working in commoditised jobs, but is that where senior management candidates are plucked from?

    From my experience women have plenty of freedom to have a family and a career, the original question was about senior mgt positions, but there could be very good reasons for that.


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    #75
    b3t4
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,325 ✭✭✭b3t4


    I work in a medium size IT company but I think it looks like I'm the only one working in a pretty much maternity and paternal friendly work place.

    In the last two years alone, they have promoted two women even though they had recently gottten married. This wasn't a promotion simply because they were female but simply because the were much better at their jobs. One of them is currently waiting to go on maternity leave while the other is on maternity leave. There is no drama in our company about this. They plan and prepare for these things.

    They are also very fair when it comes to the men in the family. There is no drama if a man takes 4-5wks off after the baby is born. It's planned for and prepared for.

    It's a shame that more companies aren't like mine in this regard. Everyone is left on a similar playing field and understands that a person's family is more important than their job.

    Lack of paternity leave in Ireland is shocking. Men are as important to the family as women. With mandatory paternity leave I believe the situation in the majority of companies that are outlined here will change.

    Also, the company has gone from strength to strength over the last few years.

    A.


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