It’s not good for man to be alone, God thought when he looked at Adam.

Hence: Eve.

Turns out that gender balanced teams are most effective, efficient and healthy in the workplace, too.  (Apples notwithstanding.)  A recent study by the London School of Business found that when women are in the minorityon a team,  they reach out to others outside the team. Ironically, the whole team benefits from their expanded networking…and thus the group is disproportionately helped by its minority members.

When men are outnumbered by women, it’s not such a positive experience. They tend to withdraw, and their loyalty to the organization (and presumably its mission) is weakened.  With women now half the workforce, and, broadly speaking, half of all managers and professionals, there’s no excuse not to have gender-balanced work teams. 

Think your company is short on qualified women? Here’s how to draw a few more into those career-building team assignments:

• Find out who the women already on the team are networking with. Ask those women to join.
• Reach one level below to identify high-potential women.  Typically, women are promoted on the basis of performance, and men, on the basis of potential. By pulling up a women who’s already on track for promotion, you’re just applying the male standard to her.
• Think one step ahead in your process: What expertise will you need to test and then execute the project? Why not ask a woman who you’ll soon be working with to join the planning and leadership team?

Well…why not?

Defendant.  

In what is becoming a depressingly familiar scenario, yet another “best company for women” has been charged with a high profile discrimination lawsuit. The defendant du jour is Big Four accounting firm KPMG. It has one woman on each of its top governing bodies, though women are 50% of all employees.

Women comprise 18% of partners at  KPMG  — right in line with other accounting firms, as tracked by the Accounting MOVE Project,  which my firm produces. 

But it’s not just how many women partners you have. It’s also about how consistently women move through the partnership pipeline. The Best Accounting Firms for Women all show consistent improvement. KPMG is notorious for its erratic attempts at advancing women.  Its women employees have told me,privately, that they’re dismayed at the superficial and weak programs that are doomed to fail…and do.

According to the lawsuit, “ KPMG promotes fewer women to Partner (18%) than the industry average (23%) and fewer women to Senior Manager (35%) than the industry average (44%). “Across the accounting industry, women are conspicuously absent from leadership positions; but at KPMG, women fare even worse,” said Janette Wipper [one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs]. “As soon as women come within reach of partnership, the Company’s male-dominated owners find ways to block their advancement.”

At this point, I almost feel sorry for the public relations folks at KPMG. The ink has barely dried on their self-congratulatory announcements about making the  Fortune list, the Working Mother list and all those other lists based on flimsy methodology. I doubt that there’s an umbrella big enough to keep lawsuit rain off that parade.

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor clarita.

Ah, the sweet sensation of validation.  Finally, a think tank has thought what many work-life advocates have been saying for years: Men want work-life flexibility just as much as women do.

That’s the basic point of “Men and Work-Life Integration: A Global Study,” released last week by the WorldatWork Alliance.

For men and women of all ages, flexibility in work schedules is the number one most-desired workplace characteristic. Most say they want to spend more time with family, but fitting in exercise and hobbies is right up there too.

But – shocker!  – managers universally think that the most productive employees are those without “personal commitments.” (As though supporting a family doesn’t focus the mind!) The report finds that business leaders have ‘bought into’ the business case for flexibility.

So where’s the disconnect? The current work framework doesn’t work. Men don’t even like it and they’re the ones who  set it up!

The think tankers are too polite to come right out and say it, but I’m not:  Execs at most companies are clueless. They think that if they sign off on a rosy program, that flexwork will bloom in every office. Problem solved!

Tackling work-life issues for real requires some humility and the willingness to accept that others’ paths to career success just might look different from yours.

Here’s how accounting firm Elliott Davis took on its ‘woman problem,’ the problem being that it had almost no women partners. 

First, they canceled golf.  They really, really did.

Then, they confronted the fact that if their workplace culture and career paths didn’t change, they wouldn’t be able to retire. It wasn’t just an issue of being nice guys. It was a matter of fiduciary responsibility to the firm and its owners (mainly, the partners).  Read more in the latest Accounting MOVE Report about how lead shareholder Todd Mitchell got the others in line…and discovered three women parked in the partnership pipeline, all ready to be promoted.

Guys, if you’re frustrated with your own system, and the workplace you’ve invested in has become a barrier to your own retirement, break it down. For all of us.

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor anitapatterson

Sure is complicated getting hired. Two recently released studies show just how narrow a line women must walk to get ahead at work: be nice to others day to day, but make sure your professional references describe you as an assertive achiever. That takes some tip-toeing.  And…I think it can be done. But first, let’s recap the research.

Daffodils are sometimes $2 a bunch in downtown Chicago, where I live. So occasionally I bring in a few bunches for colleagues.  I get a lot of goodwill for $2. (Makes the office look cheery, too.)  Can I buy  off any of my colleagues for $2? No.  Does that small kindness incline them to give me the benefit of the doubt  if my credibility is challenged by someone? In fact, yes: somebody commented so the other day. (Then, she gave me a little bouquet for my own office. Really.)

Researchers at Niagra University found in a study titled “Influence and Promotability: Importance of Female Political Skill,” that women gain politically at work when they are “ingratiating.”  Distributing $2 bunches of daffodils was openly ingratiating; my colleagues loved it. The practical implications, as reported in the Business Journal of Youngstown, Ohio, is that women who are adept at building workplace networks through small favors  have hit on a winning formula for advancing their reputations.

Nice stops where references begin.   A different set of researchers found that women described in traditional gender terms (caring, supportive, etc.)  by professional references  were less likely to get hired, even when they were equally as qualified as male candidates. Men are more likely to be described with active verbs like “confident” and “independent.” That’s what employers want in a new hire, not somebody who’s going to bring them bargain daffodils.

If you want to help your friend land a job,  pump up your reference with examples of how she got the job done, hit targets, and led with confidence and imagination.  Then, once she has moved into her new office, send her flowers.  Just to be nice.  

Image courtesy  of Morguefile contributor starblue.

When short-term business goals conflict with high-minded work-life programs, work-life loses.   Profits vs. flextime;  team goals vs. job sharing; when deadlines are driving dollars, it’s all hands on deck, compressed workweeks be damned. Now, a new study by Alexandra Beauregard, of the London School of Economics, argues that managers should be held just as accountable for making the most of work-life programs as they are for wringing the most from any other company asset.

In this, she’s just catching up with the recommendations we have long espoused through the Accounting MOVE Project (read the brand-new 2011 report here), which shows how the accounting profession can make more of the women who dominate its ranks.  Through the Accounting MOVE Project and similar efforts, I’ve been asking employers how they reconcile the unintended but inevitable conflicts between line managers’ daily business priorities and the lofty work-life programs announced with regularity by workplace leaders.

Hey, if I was managing a team with few resources, tight deadlines and swinging for big wins, I’d clear everything out of the way to hit my financial targets, too. The underlying question, then, is: do  work-life balance arrangements help or hinder team productivity? If they help, then how do managers leverage them? If they hurt,  how do managers reconcile the apparent availability of the programs with their own responsibilities? And either way, how do you measure productivity to understand if the programs help teams make their goals or get in the way?

You can see why we have plenty of work.  it takes a lot of interviewing to understand these dynamics.

Which is why we were relieved when folks at Clifton Gunderson, one of this year’s ten Best Accounting Firms for Women , reported that they had measured productivity for participants in their decade-old flexworking program and found that those on alternative schedules were actually more productive and effective. Clifton also told us that it’s one thing to install a sweeping work-life program and a very different thing to have a workplace culture that actively reinforces the program.  The firm is currently doubling down on training its managers to use flexworking as a team productivity tool.

That’s one reason why Clifton was named to this year’s Best list. And why we think that all employers move  work-life programs to the asset side of their cultural balance sheets. Make bosses show how they use work-life programs to achieve their teams’ financial goals. Tie their bonuses to flexwork. And watch how fast things change.

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor Melodi2.

There’s a reason why women gravitate to teaching and government administrative jobs: family-friendly hours,  a clear career path and pay bands, which are supposed to minimize pay discrimination. But as the economy stumbles towards recovery, financially exhausted governments are cutting loose tens of thousands of employees.  And, as the Wall St. Journal reported this weekend, that means that women’s jobs are slated for elimination.

Because it tries to set a lofty example for those moneygrubbers in private industry, the Federal Government has been monitoring the state of its own gender pay gap…and making respectable progress towards closing it.

Still, there’s an 11% gap, and given the strict qualifications, testing, and pay bands that dictate salaries,  the Feds are running out of explanations for the gap.  Eleven percent is still better than 19.8%, the overall  gap. And, the pay gap is  consistent across industries and occupations, according to the latest research by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Let’s line up the dots.

• Women carried households through the recession.
• Women make less money, especially in private industry.
• Women are going to be crowding into private industry from the shrinking public sector.
• Where women make less.

Sounds to me like a setup for the resuscitation of the Paycheck Fairness Act, and that is precisely what is happening.

Maybe this time the act will be correctly cast as a family economic stability act, not an entitlement for women. As though we all need a third shift: fighting for the right to get what we earned in the first shift.

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor clarita.

It took us six months, dozens of interviews and a boatload of analysis to produce the 2011 Accounting MOVE Project Executive Report. 

One of our sponsors, Moss Adams, recommended that this year we do a deep-dive into the implications of this one fact: 55% of today’s accounting grads are women.  Here’s the implication:  twenty-something women control the retirement of baby boomer accounting firm partners.

Who’s your Daddy now?

Here’s how it shakes out:

• Young women are well over half of all accounting firm grads
• Women tend to evaporate from the accounting firm partnership pipeline at the senior manager level
• Without up-and-coming partners, the current generation of partners can’t retire
• Without sufficient leaders to bring in new business, the current generation of partners won’t have a growing firm to sell
• All that stands between the golf course and today’s partners is an army of young women

Firms slow to grasp this are going to find themselves stranded, their partners unable to either retire (not enough partners to replace them) or sell (losing half the talent midstream dried up their revenue and growth).

The report outlines plenty of strategies for keeping young women in the pipeline:

• Equipping them with business development skills from the start
• Rotating them into positions where they can meet and learn from women just a few steps ahead
• Ensuring that they really understand the variety of paths their careers can take
• Providing tracks to leadership through women’s initiatives and other programs
• Transparency in pay equity and the advancement of women at the firm

We looked into the whites of these guys’ eyes and we saw….yes, fear. Things are starting to change at tradition-bound accounting firms. Retaining and promoting younger women is suddenly mission-critical. Some will do it better than others…but they’ll get it done. Nothing will keep them from that golf course.

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor  carool.

Every employer pays for performance…right? Only believe it when your employer can prove it.

There’s not a boss on this earth who doesn’t think he pays for performance.  But ‘performance’ is often much more of a judgment call than one might think – even for jobs with quantifiable results, such as sales.  Given pervasive cultural factors, men tend to ask for, and get, bigger raises and bonuses. Women tend to assume they are being fairly treated – until they find out they aren’t. By then, women have fallen behind and they often can’t make up the gap in pay or prestige.

It’s time this tiresome cycle stopped. Here’s how.

Clifton Gunderson, a public accounting firm based in suburban Milwaukee, analyzes who gets paid what in the context of who does what.

Sound basic? It’s not. As we parse in the just-released 2011 Accounting MOVE Project Executive Report, many accounting firms don’t apply their own financial analysis skills to pay equity. They might analyze pay by level and office, but many don’t.  That’s why the report showcases firms that do for themselves what they advise their clients to do:  slice pay data by gender, too, to flush out any inadvertent inequities.

Clifton Gunderson goes two steps further:

• Raises are tied to professional progress – not just major leaps forward. That especially helps working parents who might take longer to earn specialized certifications. And, at Clifton, helping lead the women’s initiative and work-life committees counts as ‘professional development.’
• Bonuses are analyzed independently to ensure that they are tied to specific business results. That means that bosses have someone double-checking that hefty chunks of discretionary cash goes to those who actually helped haul in the results.  Again….basic fairness that none of us should take for granted.

Is it a coincidence that the firm is headed by Krista McMasters, one of the very few women at the top of the CPA heap? Doubt it. She increased retention 50% when she overhauled the firm’s work-life practices a decade ago. That’s why we expect Clifton to show other accounting firms how equal pay should be.

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor penywise.

Discrimination is officially over. That’s why it’s so difficult to deal with cultural factors like a boss’s expectation that you always make work the top priority, no matter whatever else is happening in your life; or the sinking feeling that the guys are clued into some secret communication channel that gives them early notice of new opportunities.

A new study by the Simmons School of Management  peels back the self-coaching techniques that women managers use to deal with cultural bias.   It’s not how much networking you do. It’s whom you network with.

The headliner is that women need to line up a powerful advocate who can champion their work and correct others’ misconceptions  about their work.  Hitch your wagon to the power players and get them on your side. In other words, ‘help’ is the first four-letter word. You need it. Ask for it. But ask the right people.   Choose higher-ups who can advocate for your strengths, accomplishments and, most of all, for your potential. Ask men to do this for you. Ask women to do this for you.

The culture of the organization won’t change until individuals change how they perceive and promote talent. That brings me to the second four-letter word: “show.”  Advocate for the women behind you. Model for them what you want others to do for you.  Explain what they need for you to do. Do it. And explain what you did. Otherwise, how will they learn how to advocate for themselves?

 Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor clarita.

Gender discrimination accounts for  29.1% of all EEOC charges filed in fiscal 2010. Apparently  women aren’t so grateful for a job that they’re willing to suck it up and take a pinch for the team.

The list of the offended and offenders list goes on and on. It doesn’t matter if you have a public relations department capable of keeping your company on “best places to work” lists, racking up awards for pronouncements made by top executives, regardless of the reality experienced by worker bees.

Who can stop this miserable cycle?

Maybe those corporate killjoys, insurers. Let’s see: If you were in the business of covering legal liability, and you kept getting to pay for the boneheaded, potentially illegal, decisions of middle managers and employees who obviously didn’t take the CEO’s diversity directives very seriously…well, you might decide that you needed a bit of proof to back up an organization’s claim that they don’t discriminate never, ever. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research has found that discrimination suits actually clean up workplaces. Bet the insurers don’t appreciate getting stuck with the janitor’s bill.

If I were in the business of telling business insurers how to do their business, here’s what I’d ask them to screen for:

• Are managers’ personal incentives in line with the CEO’s diversity directives? Or are the CEO’s directives actually contradicted by earnings, growth and profitability goals and resulting bonuses? If there is a conflict, what do you think wins?
• How does the organization measure the actual effectiveness of its recruiting and advancement programs for women and minorities? Does the organization talk about what it does, or the results that it gets? If hard numbers are hard to detect in fancy reports, you might have to figure out what the  organization is trying to hide.
• Does the organization know where its glass cliffs are? At what point do women leave? And what does the organization do to get them to stay and continue to advance?

Insurers do due diligence all the time. Insurance is earned by reasonable and consistent risk management.  Any organization that isn’t applying these principles to its diversity programs deserves to pay more, much more, in liability insurance. And that will really pinch their bottom line.

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor pedrojperez.