employers to employees, resulting in what the Harvard Business Review dubs a “candidate-driven” economy. That means if you’re a young professional unhappy with what you’re doing, you’re in a better position than ever to make a move. But it’s not always obvious what a bad job looks like if you haven’t been in the workforce very long, said Catherine Tinsley, a Georgetown University management professor who researches workplace dynamics. Women, especially, are known to stay in work environments that aren’t conducive to career advancement, she said, because they are more conservative about taking job risks. Women are so aware of seeming annoying in a negotiation that some won’t negotiate at all, she said.
The Gender Pay Gap: A Call for Evidence-Based Change Initiatives. Huffington Post (November 16, 2015)
“How many more reports do we need?” I asked myself as I read through the latest one documenting (again) the gap in gender parity in organizations. This particular report, “Women in the Workforce”, featured a nice visual of how women are underrepresented at every level within organizations. And, of course, at higher organizational levels women comprise an even smaller percentage of the workforce than at lower organizational levels. Sigh…. I imagine two general responses: yawns from those for whom this conversation about gender equity has become tired and stale and frustration from those companies and executives who have been trying, for years, to achieve some sustainable change. I have a suggestion–let’s approach our intervention efforts to solve the equity problem with as much rigor and skepticism as we apply to our efforts to document the problem. What I am calling for here is “evidence-based change interventions.”
“Last year UN Women created the “He for She” campaign as a way of engaging men and boys to “stand up in addressing the inequalities and discrimination faced by women and girls.” I submit that males are already deeply embedded in issues of gender inequality, although they may not immediately recognize it. When it comes to parenting, society still has pretty rigid social roles about who should be doing what–and it is constraining all of us,” by Catherine Tinsley.
“We’ve all seen the headlines about how much money people spend on Mother’s Day — the National Retail Federation ranks it just behind the winter holidays (Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza) in terms of gift spending. The idea of Mother’s Day is that we reward the selflessness of our mothers once a year, acknowledging how they often dedicate themselves to their family and household. Although I wholeheartedly endorse the appreciation of moms (and dads), the “give a card and gift to honor Mom once a year” mentality seems like a bit of a raw deal to me. More importantly, the traditional notion of Mother’s Day does not capture the reality of today’s mothers in many ways,” by Catherine Tinsley.
Making boards more diverse—in terms of gender and other factors—is now such a common goal that you’d think companies must have worked out how to do it by now. But researchers from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University have identified one big problem that stymies efforts to boost the ranks of female directors. It’s quite simple: women are more likely to be appointed to seats vacated by other women. When men step down, they are more likely to be replaced by men.“Our work underscores the importance of creating a pipeline of talented women in the workplace,” said Catherine Tinsley, the study’s author faculty director of Georgetown’s Women’s Leadership Institute, in a statement.