women and men working in partnership

Shevolution

by Lesley Abdela
First Published by Executive Woman http://www.execwoman.com
June/July issue 1999

The shevolution barometer is swinging all over the place. A recent experience of mine on the panel to select a new Chair of The British Council was both an indicator of the good news and the bad news for Shevolution.

On 1st August, Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, best known as Helena Kennedy QC- becomes the first women to chair the British Council. The Council is the United Kingdom's cultural and educating wing of British Diplomacy. It has an annual budget of £600 million, part-funded by the Foreign Office and Department for International Development, with offices in 109 countries.

The headhunter for the council told me he felt only around 250 people in the whole of the United Kingdom were up to the job. The British Council selection committee of two women and five men broke with tradition and selected women's rights campaigner Helena Kennedy from a final short-list of three women and three men to succeed former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Martin Jacomb. But few of over 100 names presented by the headhunters were women. The headhunters and my fellow 'top of their class' male board members were completely unaware of several fully-qualified females, well-known to us women.

The process revealed that the old boys' network glass ceiling still needs penetrating. A role perhaps for the Porsche end of the women's networks, such as Club 2000 and Forum. In my first employers' guide 'Breaking Through The Glass Ceilings', published by the Metropolitan Authorities Recruitment Association, I said that there isn't ever just a glass ceiling. The whole place can be riddled from basement to boardroom, with invisible barriers that prevent women rising to the top. In 'Glass Ceilings' l invented Shevolution (the word that is!) to describe what happens when glass is shattered and the work culture adapts to enable women and men to work comfortably side by side.

I asked employers, "What would you change to make your work-place more women-friendly? Is there an Old Boy network that needs to go? Is the training you lay on for senior management only? Do you offer childcare provision during the training?" I asked whether the employer had carried out an equality audit. I pointed out that age barriers slam doors shut on women. I talked about the Second Shift. I mentioned the legal obligations on equal opportunities that the European Commission had bought in. I talked about job-shares and annual hours contracts. I emphasised that sexual harassment is not only illegal but potentially a criminal block to a women's advance in the company. I ended with the looming difficulty surrounding eldercare in an ageing nation.

Seven years on, Professor Cary Cooper, specialist in Organisational Behaviour at the University of Manchester's Institute of Science & Technology (UMIST), believes many women are making advances through sheer slog and guts, but not many to the very top level. He says, "The elevator for women is certainly rising but the very top floor hasn't shattered yet. Despite Helena Kennedy's success, that Old Boy Network is firmly in place up there." In the optimistic mid-nineties, equal opportunities, family-friendly practices and the birth of New Man, shot to the top of the vox pops with the media and employers. Today, Professor Cooper still sees no sign of New Man - "there are newish men but no New Men," he says, "That's going to stay a very large glass ceiling as long as women bear the world's children and look after the world's oldies."

Edinburgh-based Training 2000 has done considerable work on combining employment with family life. Acting Director Michelle Tovey, (the Training 2000 Director is on Maternity Leave) feels New Labour and many corporations have yet to grapple properly with the bottom line that good money needs to be spent if women are to get equality of opportunity. Michelle Tovey says, "Much of our work recently has been with Scandinavia. By comparison, the UK comes out extremely badly. There is interest among UK employers in family-friendly policies but 'women's issues' generally have slipped back down the menu." Management Consultant Dr Elizabeth Sidney says, "Gender is dead', adding, "and parenthood is dying. If the Sainsbury's of this world want to keep going in 20 years' time, they'd better take staff needs into account. Creches, for example, and workable hours for a staff member's family commitment.' Former National president of the BPW, Management consultant Ann Swain says, "there is still a lot of tokenism about. A company takes on an equal opportunity human resources manager and ipso facto - all problems solved. Well, they're not." She feels some of the UK's largest companies benefited from the fig leaf of Opportunity 2000 membership rather than taking an in-depth look at their operation. "I have read one recommendation to a company which said 'appoint a high-profile EO manager'. It was the sum total of the recommendations on EO in the whole policy paper."

But Professor Cooper still glimpses that tantalising, much heralded breakthrough ahead: "Women are attuned to being flexible. They have to be," he says. "They're taking that flexibility into the market place and making the old system adapt. Just watch. If Fatima can't go to the Mountain, the Mountain will have to go to Fatima."

lesley.abdela@shevolution.com

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