Women in the boardroom: Survival of the fittest?
Christine Armstrong, author of “The Mother of All Jobs: How to Have Children and a Career and Stay Sane(ish)”, says: “Many companies are trying to address the gender gap. They’re offering support to women, coaching, mentoring and flexible working but, fundamentally, there are very few addressing the issue of total hours which, based on seven years of interviews, is the underlying problem for anyone with a caring role outside of work.”
In a culture where women are more often than not the primary caregivers, this mentality can force female employees to take themselves out of the race, adds Mahua Roy Chowdhury, founder and principal partner of India-based Royzz & Co.
"There is still a mentality that if you cannot be seen in the office you are not working as hard as those who are at their desks." - Survey respondent
“It is unfortunate that we are yet to build a culture that supports women and gives them the opportunity to ‘have it all’—a high stakes career and a personal life,” she says.
Armstrong adds that professional service businesses such as law, consulting, and finance have the biggest problem with hours because “people have to hit very visible targets and win new business, so the pressure is always on”.
“They are also hierarchical businesses where leaders show that long hours are judged as a key marker of commitment,” she adds.
This issued emerged in our survey, with billable hours and a poor work/life balance being cited as top barriers to gender diversity in firms.
Chowdhury adds that many worldwide organisations have realised that person-hours and productivity are not directly proportional. “‘Concise and effective’ is the new motto when it comes to work culture,” she says.
Unfortunately, Armstrong doesn’t see very much innovative thinking about how to tackle the hours issue.
She says: “No-one seems to be talking about trying new approaches—for example, could you pilot sharing a partnership and splitting the hours and returns? It will take some bold experiments to find better ways of working.
“At the moment people leave to go in-house, work for a freelance legal agency or do something completely different. Sadly, many of the women I have interviewed have done the latter and left the profession.”
Victoria McLean, CEO of CityCv.co.uk, concurs and adds: “Much like in other professions, when talented women find that working practices don’t work for them, they don’t just accept it. They go off and set up their own businesses instead.”
“It’s not as though the clients I interview are thrilled either,” says Armstrong. “If a client sends queries at 3pm and there’s a brief on their desk at 9am the next morning, they know that means a lawyer has been working overnight, and often wonder whether the issue would have benefited from more thorough and clearer-headed analysis.”
