CareerNews
			Fulfilling potential Women in the current UK workplace Why so few? Turning the tables

Popular media has for several years had a severe case of Homer Simpson syndrome portraying males as bumbling and socially inept figures while women are the stronger, more purposeful gender.

Studies have shown that young males feel insecure about their roles in society and their future in the workplace. Many are putting their careers on hold to stay at home and in the past five years the number of so called 'house husbands' has risen from 44,000 to 99,000 (Source: The Office for National Statistics).

All this would suggest that we are witnessing a reversal of the traditional role of male as primary breadwinner. But the question that we need to ask ourselves is, do women feel more empowered? And more importantly, are they making inroads onto the male dominated echelons of upper management and onto company boards?

Fulfilling potential
25 years ago women were still second class citizens in the workplace, they had very few rights and could be sacked from their job simply because of the demands of pregnancy. Women were seen as mothers and housewives, but not business professionals.

Women of today are standing up and being counted. They work in the Army, on oilrigs, and have rebuilt damaged satellites in space. Being a woman no longer excludes you from doing any job carried out by a male. Young women enjoy having their own income and are choosing to fulfill their career ambitions instead of or before they consider having a family.

Education is a playing a big part in full transition to workplace equality. The proportion of women entering university education in the UK is at an all time high with 53% of degree applications in 2000 coming from females. Women are educated to the same level as or exceeding the level of their male counterparts; they are ambitious and have the law behind them, which should protect against discrimination.

For 25 years there have been laws in place to protect against discrimination in the workplace and consequently in the last ten years the number of female executives has risen by 180 percent - and nowadays over 22% of executives are women.

With all these factors working in their favour, women should be advancing into the top positions, earning high level salaries, running industry - unfortunately; this is still not the case.

Women in the current UK workplace
In reality females are still not getting a fair deal in the workplace. Whilst they are securing executive and managerial positions they are often not being paid at the same level as a male counterpart, for example female managers still earn on average £30,000 less than men in the same jobs.

The gender wage gap is negligible in other European countries, if you are female you're better off in France, Germany or even Portugal.

In Britain a female working full time earns just 82% of her male colleague's salary. (For a part-time female worker that sinks to 60%.) The pay gap costs a woman with average qualifications about £250,000, during her lifetime.

In predominantly female professions such as nursing, an average pay of 6% less than overall average male earnings in the UK, and you can see why the European Council of Ministers told the UK to get down to work on closing the pay gap.

If you require paid maternity leave, you are also better off elsewhere, in Italy a mother gets five months' paid leave, in Finland mums get nine months as well as 42 days for paternity leave - in Britain, you get a paltry 18 weeks. Add to this poor childcare provision and it is clear that the position of women in the workplace is in need of adjustment to say the least.

What is perhaps most worrying is that women are also still not advancing to top board level positions, as they should.

A recent report, undertaken jointly by the Industrial Society and the Fawcett Society, and initiated by Harriet Harman, found that women account for:

· 5% of all directors of the UK's FTSE-100 companies
· 45% FTSE-100 companies still have exclusively male boards
· Only 10 female executive directors were found in all.

Why So Few?
Part of the problem is that women are not coming forward for the top board positions. There are a number of possible reasons for this.

Women that work in senior positions often work exceptionally long hours and their commitment and dedication has to be visible and total. Many do not get the chance to look around for advancement.

The job market is highly competitive and studies have shown that young male managers are more proactive in promoting themselves, often networking at a higher level than female managers do.

The adage of who you know rather than what you know rings true particularly at board level where old boy networks are still prevalent. Headhunting firms report difficulties in finding suitable women directors, this lower level of networking by women may be an important factor.

A key criterion for board appointments is corporate experience at board level, but how can women provide this if they cannot get that first appointment?

Those who do get appointed often have other credentials, such as a title (Baroness, Dame, Lady and Dr), and a few women appear in the FTSE Female Index with remarkable frequency. Dame Stella Rimington holds non-executive positions on a number of boards, including Marks & Spencer and BG Group (part of British Gas), while Baronesses' Hogg and Dunn appear more than once.

In some cases the appointment process itself is indirectly excluding women. Headhunters may interpret the briefs given to them by CEOs as a desired `fit' of the new individual to the board, often seen as being male.

Despite the recent rhetoric of a move towards more informal, communicative leadership styles, at which women are said to excel, there still appears to be a `think manager, think male' mind-set when it comes to the appointment of directors of FTSE-100 companies.

Research carried out by Cranfield School of Management, of European banking managers, found that women managers still see the `successful manager' as male, even though men are beginning to see the `successful manager' as androgynous, strong on both masculine and feminine leadership traits.

Views such as this lead women to limit their own ambition, when they should be pushing themselves forward for promotion.

Turning the tables
More women will become board directors; it is just taking longer for it to happen than many had hoped.

These women will act as symbols of the organisational culture for women lower down the ladder. Women managers will be encouraged to stay if they see that ladder extending to the top for those with the right ability, regardless of gender.

In this way the US is a model to us in the UK - of the Fortune 500 companies 84% now have women on their boards but this trend has now slowed and women are still not given the power that they deserve.

As in the UK, women in the US have pointed to the fact that they lacked corporate and general management experience also male stereotyping and exclusion from informal networks.

UK top companies, like those in the US, are notorious for the homogeneity of their boards, made up of predominantly white, middle-class, middle-aged men from the same set of schools and universities. Such similarity of background and experience can lead to complacency and 'group-think', with nobody willing to rock the boat. This is not good for corporate governance. Women directors do not all fit that mould.

It is interesting to note that 72% of companies in the top half of the FTSE-100 have female directors, compared with only 44% of companies in the lower half. Does the presence of women on the board foster growth and profitability, or is it that when companies reach a certain size, they can afford to take risks and make diverse appointments?

More women are attending university, but are they studying the right subjects? There are very few females working in the IT and engineering industries and it is often from these areas that the top earners and managers evolve.

Attitudes are changing but it is crazy to think that it should have to take so long. In 1965 John Stuart Mill presented a petition to Parliament in 1865, calling for female suffrage, and lived to see women winning the vote on equal terms with men in 1928 (married women and women over 30 won the vote in 1918).

Today women still do not have equal billing in the workplace. A few extremely successful fails to signify that equality has been achieved. Even these sometimes very highly paid women still tend to earn less than their male counterparts.

There are women's groups actively campaigning for change, one of which, the Fawcett held a rally in March this year to respond to the growing opinion that women have it all. Their, 'Where are the women?' campaign highlighted the real position of women in the UK.

Pressure is being applied by European Council, for the UK to pull its socks up and pay women the same wage as males. Not until this happens will society and women themselves realise their own value and begin fulfilling their true potential.