De-gendering gender diversity by offering and accepting equal parental leave and flexible working options without career consequences for women and men could improve female representation in the workplace.
That’s one finding from a survey by recruiting experts Hays. Released ahead of International Women’s Day on Wednesday 8th March, which this year asks people to #BeBoldForChange, 81% of respondents said shared parental leave and child rearing responsibility would help break down unconscious biases and improve gender diversity.
Yet just 19% said their organisation offers parental leave for male employees on equal terms to female employees. In addition, the majority say men in their organisation rarely take (27%) or only take some (46%) of the parental leave they’re entitled to.
Why? 61% of men said it’s due to the financial impact whereas 42% of women said it’s because they may be viewed as less committed to their career.
Meanwhile respondents said opting to work flexibly is a career-limiting move for women (65%) more so than for men (51%).
The majority said less than 5% of men work flexibly at their organisation compared to between 21-40% of women.
Referring to the resignations of two high profile men late last year from demanding jobs for family reasons – James Brayshaw and John Key – Nick Deligiannis, Managing Director of Hays in Australia & New Zealand says, “In what might be a first in this part of the world (ANZ), men have started talking about their inability to ‘have it all’.
“To help to make real and lasting gender equality progress, I believe we need to start talking in terms of ‘family-friendly’ rather than ‘women-friendly’ policies. We need to offer and then accept the decision of men to work flexibly and take paternity leave too. Doing so without making assumptions about career motivations or applying unconscious or otherwise career consequences will have a positive impact on female gender equality.”
Last year Mark Zuckerberg, who made sure Facebook’s parental leave policy covered both women and men, took two months of parental leave after his daughter was born. Nick adds, “It would be great to see more men leading by example like this so that other men – and women – feel they can do the same without impacting their career.”
In other findings:
Career progression
• 96% of women and 63% of men think women encounter barriers in their career progression;
• 35% of men and 14% of women think that equal career opportunities are open to them regardless of gender;
• 23% of female respondents said their last promotion was more than 5 years ago compared to 17% of male respondents. More men (21%) were promoted in the last 6 months than women (19%);
• 80% of respondents said the most senior person in their organisation was male;
• 61% said their line manager was male;
• Yet 38% said their working team was comprised of mostly women. A further 34% said mostly men and 28% said the team is balanced;
• 65% of men compared to 47% of women believe they have the opportunity in their current role to sufficiently promote themselves & communicate their ambitions;
• 38% of women compared to 22% of men are not confident that their line manager knows what their career ambitions are;
• 28% of females said they were dissatisfied with their current seniority level, compared to just 11% of males;
• The majority (58%) of those dissatisfied females said it was because they are limited in opportunities to progress by their current employer.
Pay & rewards
• 58% of men and 19% of women think they are paid/rewarded in an equal manner regardless of gender;
• 86% of female respondents compared to 48% of men thought women encounter barriers outside of their control in regards to getting paid in an equal manner to men.
Gender barriers
• 65% of female respondents said their organisation has equal opportunity or gender diversity issues that need to be addressed, compared to 43% of male respondents;
• Similarly 91% of female respondents believe there are gender barriers in today’s workplace compared to 61% of men;
• 80% of respondents said greater gender diversity in the workplace would improve an organisation’s success, with more women (89%) than men (64%) believing this.
Flexible working options
• 51% said flexible working options were available to them in their current organisation;
• 44% believe that, to some degree, flexible working options have improved the representation of women in executive and leadership roles;
• 96% of female respondents thought it was important that agile and flexible working options are available to them in their organisation compared to 86% of men.
Of 842 Australian respondents, 62% were female and 48% were male.
International Women’s Day is held every year on 8th March and this year asks for people to #BeBoldForChange