The SheEO Blog

Last week I met with a long-time mentor of mine who’s definitely a Good Guy.  Tony and I met on a consulting project, he was on the client side and I was external but still he became a mentor.  I went on to take a number of roles in that organisation and over the years we’ve stayed in touch sporadically.  It’s one of those informal mentoring arrangements where I’d call on him for help with specific issues as they arose.

It was a welcome surprise when his text message popped up on my iPhone a couple of weeks back, suggesting that we meet.  This time though, the tables had turned and it was Tony who was seeking advice.  This was a reverse mentoring session: we were meeting so Tony could ask my advice on gender diversity and the approach he should take in his company since he’d been appointed to his company’s Diversity Council.  

To use Tony’s words, he didn’t know where to begin and I think this is so often the case with the Good Guys in business.  They can see the problem, they see the impact its having on their teams and on the bottom line, and they want to get involved in fixing it.  They often just don’t know how.
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I have recently read a really interesting article on the human resources leader blog by Angela Priestly that investigates if the increasing focus on gender diversity in business distracts attention from other diversity needs such as sexuality or cultural diversity.

She recognizes the improvement made in law firms in regards to gender diversity (although women still make up only 8% of executives and board members in top publically listed companies), and questions whether if “the focus on the number of women in senior positions within a company detract[s] from the wider issue of diversity?”

I think this is an important question, and we do know is that gender diversity is the key lead indicator to other aspects of diversity. I agree it’s definitely not the only issue, but it’s a great starting place and one that we must continue to push for. Especially because women make up 52% of the population, and include many cultural backgrounds and the full scope of sexual orientations - it’s hard enough for people from diverse cultural background or sexual orientations to progress their careers in some fields without also being discriminated against as a woman.

She also reports on the findings of a study that worked with 506 for-profit American companies, with findings that indicate that better diversity in all fields improves and encourages innovation, creativity and better customer service. Read More

Apparently so!
“The stupid curve” phenomenon (named by former Deloitte USA Chairman Mike Cook) that describes the curve you see in graphs that source 90% of their leaders from only 50% of their workforce. And Australia ranks behind peer countries in regards to number of women in senior executive roles… Read More

The Diversity Council of Australia has identified what they see as a “glaring omission” in employment-related research and statistics which their new survey hopes to fill. This diversity-stalling gap is a “need for better access to systematic and reliable information on employment and diversity related workplace trends”. The ADC claims that since the demise of the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey this information is difficult to obtain.

I’ve also felt the gap between employer understanding, recent research findings and feedback from women. At sphinxx, part of our work is to source feedback directly from our network and communicate it to employers. This has been really effective for in depth studies, and I’m really excited about the broad scope of the project that the DCA is undertaking.

To find out more about the survey, including the PDF with all the partnership, process and proposed outcomes click here.

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Catalyst has just published their second report Pipeline’s Broken Promise examines the flawed assumptions in conventional wisdom of the past decades that counted on parity in education, an increase of women into the labour force and company implemented diversity/inclusion programs to yield an equitable and robut talent pipelines, with women surging to the top in increasingly equal numbers. 

Yet the report finds that inequality remains entrenched, and companies need to do more to advance women. It’s a great read; definitely a wake up call to business leaders and my brain is firing with ideas on how we can improve the talent pipeline for business women.

This is the second report in a longitudinal project called  “The Promise of Future Leadership: A Research Program on Highly Talented Employees in the Pipeline” follows the careers values, goals, expectations and developmental opportunities afforded to the graduates of leading business schools in Canada, the US, Europe and Asia. The project also surveys their strategies for managing work and family life.

Download the free report here. And don’t hesitate to forward it to your peers.

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The Equal Pay Alliance has made 2010 the year for real action on the pay gap for working women. The Equal Pay Alliance is made up of 150 representatives from government, unions (including the Australian Council of Trade Unions) and businesses.

And I am delighted to pass on that the campaign has kicked off with the Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick announcing that the Australian Services Union is aiming to increase the wages of almost 250,000 mostly female workers in the community sector. The ASU claims that low wages in the community sector should be raised to a comparable rate to similar industries that aren’t made up of mainly female workers.

For more information click here for the Get Networking blog reporting on this exciting development. This is the first step in a potentially very exciting revolution for us women in business with the significant pay gaps exist, and women in everywhere. Read More

Recently, I received an email from one of many women who attended a May Ascend development day, called Alison. In her thank you email was an interesting observation about her Tasmanian owned and operated private health cover.  Read More

A big congratulations to Natalie Aroyan, Sarah Sammon, Belinda Cordina, Amy Lowe and Chrissy Hammond, Christine Matta, Holly Owen and Zoe Warne for recently making the Hot 30 Under 30 entrepreneurs list. Read More