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
© Lesley Abdela 1999
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