Mentors bring great goodwill to their role as mentors. But that doesn’t mean they are skilled. It doesn’t mean they have thought about the different approaches to mentoring. It doesn’t mean they have thought about alternative ways of doing careers. It doesn’t mean they’ve had the opportunity to reflect on or mitigate their bias. It doesn’t mean they’ve had good mentoring experiences themselves to draw on.
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Creating more gender equitable and inclusive cultures is high on the agenda for many organisations. However there is often a disconnect between existing staff development activities and efforts to create the desired cultures. More explicitly linking individual development to organisational change can make a big difference to the return on investment when developing staff. The ‘bifocal approach’ translates this ideal into reality through clear principles and program design.
Playing the career game - the role of mentors
I am not being flippant when I use the word game.. What I am doing is calling attention to the need for a strategic approach to building a career. Much like a game, many careers and workplaces have intricate rules, some written but many of them unwritten, that you learn over time and with experience. There is complexity, with choices and decisions that lead to different payoffs, requiring various degrees of risk, and a need to look a few moves ahead. You get the idea. Careers don’t just happen. It is this career complexity that can make mentoring so valuable.
Read MoreMen have been neglected in our work for equity, diversity and inclusion
Men have been neglected in our equity, diversity, and inclusion work.
This assertion can lead to responses such as ‘Yea, poor men, they’re doing just fine”. And indeed it is hard for those working furiously (mostly women) to tackle gender inequality and who are tuned into men’s privilege in the workplace, to want to focus on men. But the longer I work in the gender space, the more convinced I am that we need to put much more effort, and resources, into working with men. That is, if we really want to create change.
Read MoreWho cares about your career?
Careers do not take place in isolation, they require webs of enabling relationships. Your career success is not just a function of your talent and hard work. It also depends on the culture of your organisation, your leaders, and your peers. Leaders, supervisors, and peers all play a part in building the web, as do you.
If your organisation is not helping to co-create your career, then it’s time to take action yourself.
Read MoreHow do organisations produce the gender pay gap?
A story of wasted talent and underpaid women. The WGEA report Wages and Ages: Mapping the Gender Pay Gap by Age is downright depressing with the pay gap growing progressively till at age 55+ it is a whopping 31.2%. Understanding how gender inequality is produced provides clues. It’s a bit like jigsaw pieces, you need all of them.
Read MoreAre we there yet?
Men have not been showing up in the gender equity space. And without the engagement of men, change will continue to be paralysingly slow. Yet men in our Partners for Change workshops relished the opportunity to discuss their gender issues with other men and to engage in courageous conversations with women about gender.
I believe men will show up if we stop doing gender equity work without them and if the invitation is to work in partnership to create more humane workplaces for all, workplaces where we can all thrive, without undermining the private sphere of community and family.
Read MoreFlip your perspective on merit
Try flipping the switch. Assume the organisation is not a meritocracy and see how that changes our thinking. What might we do differently?
So what would women, men, minority group members, leaders, and organisations do differently if they based their actions on the assumption that their organisation is not a meritocracy, not even close. Until proven otherwise. Let’s reverse the burden of proof.
Read MoreA better ROI. Spend your unconscious bias training budget on developing your leaders as sponsors →
Many organisations are rolling out unconscious bias training. I have a better idea, based on research and practice, for tackling leadership bias in ways that are positive, actionable, measurable and support good leadership. Putting the spotlight on, and improving the sponsorship practices of your leaders can better support your E and I work.
Read MorePost bronze blues? What follows Athena SWAN bronze award success?
Following hard on the heels of the relief of completion and celebration of success, comes the realities of implementation and still more hard work. Addressing longstanding gender inequality will require new and novel approaches, the application process itself has intentionally pushed institutions into uncharted territory, and concerns flagged in the SAGE evaluation conducted by ACER during the pilot program will have implications for the implementation phase. What institutions do now to ensure appropriate governance will be critical to successful implementation and future award success
Read MoreSponsorship: An equity and diversity game changer?
I am very proud to announce my long awaited report Sponsorship: Creating Career Opportunities for Women in Higher Educationis now available here for free download. This sponsorship guide is a practical publication, based on research examining sponsorship practices and my decades of experience with mentoring and leadership programs within the higher education sector.
I believe sponsorship can be an equity and diversity game-changer. Read on for an overview of why.
Read MoreEngaging men in gender equality work
Are our organisations sufficiently 'gender mature' to move towards implementing initiatives where men (at all levels) are squarely within the frame? It is the next step and here's why.
Read MoreQuotas and Merit
The assumption that quotas undermine merit is a common one. I've lifted two excerpts - quoting Cordelia Fine and Carol Schwartz from the Policy Shop podcast To quota or not to quota to further explore the relationship between quotas and merit.
Read MoreWe need to interrogate merit
Merit, and the idea that we can accurately assess merit, is situated at the heart of academia. The need to preserve merit and a presumed meritocracy is one of the first arguments to be put forward to counter more ambitious gender change initiatives. But what does merit mean? Can we assume that the current system is meritocratic and therefore worth protecting? And can we achieve the desired transformation of institutional culture without a frank re-assessment of merit?
Read MoreSimply Good Practice: A Mantra for Gold
Aiming for fairness & excellence = aiming for Gold. Based on a presentation by Professor Sara Mole at Cambridge in May 2017. Titled Leading the way by simply good practice – cultural change at a departmental level, it reflects on the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology at University College London, journey towards achieving an Athena SWAN Gold in 2016.
Read MoreImperial College: A courageous look at institutional culture
The impetus for this frank and fearless examination of Imperial College culture was a result of what James Stirling described as ‘laddish, blokeish, stupid misogynistic behaviour’ by male Imperial students at a women’s rugby match. As he describes, ‘we thought it was about sexism among students’ but it turned out to be much more than that.
Much of what is written in the report will ring true for Institutions that, like Imperial, pride themselves on their excellence. The key finding of the research is that ‘how we drive for excellence has unintended negative consequences’.
Read MoreGender Equality in Australian Higher Education: A Frame for Athena SWAN
The gender equality landscape in Australian higher education has entered a period of renewal and change, with unprecedented levels of activity, resourcing and profile. This renewed vigour is largely driven by the SAGE pilot implementation of the Athena SWAN accreditation process, based on the UK model. However while Athena SWAN is currently the approach of choice in Australian HE, this does not preclude drawing on existing strengths and looking elsewhere for inspiration.
Read MoreOnly women need apply
Women only appointments signal strong support for building gender equitable workplaces. But what are the pro's and cons? Several universities advertised women only academic positions in 2016, perhaps with more to follow. I suggest that there are some lessons to be learnt from the affirmative action appointments of the 1990's and ways of proactively working with the inevitable backlash.
Read MoreCatalysts and advocates for gender change
This blog explores two Initiatives, Athena SWAN Advocate (ASA) and Catalysts for Change (C4C), designed to enable men and women at multiple levels of the organisation to be visible and active in their support for gender change. Not only is it common sense, it is also supported by the research.
Read MoreEnvisaging a more gender equitable workplace; #TomWeltonTour
Tom Welton’s tour has been enthusiastically received by a higher education and research sector keen to learn from a Department and Institution well progressed on the Athena SWAN pathway. Institutions looking at the year ahead, which for many will involve data collection and analysis, compiling action plans and finalising institutional applications, are keen to receive guidance. We are so keenly tweeting the received wisdom that Tom’s tour has been trending in the top ten twitter hashtags in Australia this week (go Sydney!).
Read MoreQuotas and targets for research funding
‘Are there examples of targets and quotas in relation to funding and grants for research elsewhere, and do they work?’ This question arose in a recent discussion on twitter. It was triggered by the latest NHMRC funding round outcomes where women continue to be under-represented. The Science Foundation Ireland provides a compelling example of how a quota can work.
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