What Price–Opting Out
This weekend in The New York Times Magazine Judith Warner, known for her book Perfect Madness Motherhood in an Age of Anxiety writes about a generation of women who want back into the workforce after leaving it a decade ago. Read the rest of this entry »
Do Quotas Work on Corporate Boards?
Into the debate about women on corporate boards Boris Groysberg has introduced a new dimension. He has found wide differences in opinion about quotas for women on corporate boards of directors. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: corporate executives, employee attitudes, female executives, gender parity, management, work-life balance
When Work-Life Balance Ceases to Exist
Most families take juggling home and career as a given. And over at the new Atlantic channel The Sexes, there’s another conversation going. Eleanor Barkhorn, the site’s editor writes people who don’t have kids want work-life balance too. Read the rest of this entry »
Salaries for New Grads Inch Higher; Workplace Flexibility Sought
In perhaps another encouraging sign in the job market the National Association of Colleges and Employers released data that showed salaries inched up for the graduates of the class of 2012.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: career choice, employee attitudes, National Association of Colleges and Employers, The New York Times, work-life balance
Having It All–A Generational Saga
With the death of screenwriter Nora Ephron at 71 and the appointment of Marissa Mayer the CEO of Yahoo at 37 the conversation about Having It All by Anne-Marie Slaughter, a 53 year old Princeton University professor and former State Department official took an interesting twist.
Eighteen years separated Ephron’s graduation from Wellesley College in 1962 from Slaughter’s graduation from Princeton University in 1980. Ephron headed first to the Kennedy White House and then to New York City to the Newsweek mailroom. (Newsweek didn’t hire women writers then. The Ivy League didn’t accept female student either.) While Slaughter headed to Oxford University after graduation for further study and then a degree at Harvard Law School, Mayer graduated with honors from Stanford University and then took an M.S. in Computer Science. She became the 20th employee at Google.
To what extent is each woman a product of her times? And is it possible the question of having “Having It All” is defined and interpreted anew each generation?
Tags: Anne-Marie Slaughter, career choice, female executives, gender parity, Google, Marissa Mayer, Nora Ephron, work-life balance
Dissatisfied at Work? Is it Your Age?
If you are dissatisfied at work, it could be your age. In a study released this week by the Sloan Center on Aging and Work entitled Generations of Talent Study trains a spotlight on the effects of country, age and career stage among employees worldwide. Read the rest of this entry »
Becoming a Parent/Leaving the Workplace–Choice or Discrimination?
Sylvia Ann Hewlett writes extensively about the barrier women face to promotion, especially if they exit the workplace to care for young children or increasingly aging parents. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: discrimination, parenting, work-life balance
A Bit of History about the Workplace
Recently I heard a reading of the book Almost a Family given by the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, John Darnton. Mr. Darnton who was not yet a year old when his father Byron “Barney” Darnton became a war correspondent in the Pacific theater in World War II and was killed, possibly by friendly fire. Read the rest of this entry »
Do Colleagues Matter?
Meredith Viera left the Today Show with a great deal of fanfare today. She is leaving to have a better work/life balance with no more 2:30 a.m. reveilles. There was the obligatory reel of highlights from her five years on the show. My personal favorite was a bake-off with Martha Stewart when Matt Lauer tossed a ribbon into the air and Meredith caught it. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Al Roker, colleagues, cooperation, employee attitudes, Martha Stewart, Matt Lauer, Meredith Viera, Today Show, work-life balance
Few Women in Management, but Companies Fail to Identify Future Leaders
The General Accounting Office released a long overdue report on Tuesday with the ponderous title Women in Management—Female Managers’ Representation, Characteristics and Pay. And now The New York Times is reporting the news with the headline Still Few Women in Management, Report Says .
True, as of 2007 (before the Great Recession started) the latest year for which data on managers was available, women accounted for about 40 percent of managers in the United States work force. In 2000, women held 39 percent of management positions.
Still the data also pointed to some bright spots. Women were more than proportionately represented in management positions in construction and public administration, and there was no statistically significant difference between women’s representation in management and non-management positions for the transportation and utilities sectors.
All in all the results were unsurprising. Managers of either sex are more likely to be childless–sixty-three percent of female managers and fifty-five percent of male managers had no kids. Is this a reason family friendly policies still have a hard time gaining traction? And woman who are managers are more likely to be single than their male counterparts.
While life is about choices, female managers earned 81 cents for every dollar a male manager earned up 2 cents from 2000. Checking the inflation calculator, that dollar in 2000, was worth $1.19 in 2007, so women are still losing ground not gaining it.
If companies are still not promoting women to management, it may be because for some it’s not even on the radar. According to recent poll by Right Management (a division of Manpower) nearly one-third of North American companies have failed to identify future leaders within their organization. A further 30% reported identifying potential leaders for only some key roles. So many organizations, it turns out, have made practically no provision for future leadership,” said Deborah Schroeder-Saulnier, Right Management Senior Vice President for Global Solutions.
