Posted by Mel on Oct 24, 2012 in Main Blog | 0 comments
|
This post has nothing to do with drug awareness, but is about something else that I feel strongly about, and is work related.
I spoke on BBC Radio Nottingham today, about the proposal for a European directive that will make sure more females are employed in senior/director positions. The question I was asked was if women make better directors/bosses?
The point I raised was that it shouldn’t be a question of gender. You can have great female or male directors and you can have some that don’t live up to the role. Women do need to be given a greater opportunity.
What I do find is there is a common assumption that women may want to have families and are prevented from going up the career ladder as quickly as males because of this.
So what if a male and a female candidate score the same in the interview process? Can we blame an organisation for choosing the male because of the risk of the woman leaving to have a family? That was a question I was asked and perhaps didn’t get my message across as clearly as I am about to.
Again that assumption about women wanting to go and have a family does not apply to every woman. For those that do, there are many opportunities for going back to work (for example,child care, although that is very expensive- and a topic for another blog). It is also in the interest of an organisation to make that transition back to work as easy as possible. Sometimes dads choose to be at home with the children, but this isn’t usually a thought that comes to mind when a male or female has the same score in the interview.
My main point though is that people can end up having time off work for many reasons, regardless of gender,such as long term health reasons. We can’t know what the future holds when someone is employed as a director. There are many ‘what ifs’ . We have to stop discriminating against women and embrace an opportunity for increasing the number of female directors.
|