It's About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership by Eudemonia

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership September 2015

It’s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership

It’s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership Business pundits and consultants today often discuss the social, mobile, virtual, and digital dimensions of the workplace of the future. They deliberate and debate how organizations need to react to these trends and transform their organizations to better support the modern worker. Many argue that without massive operational overhauls and automation investments, economies will stagnate. In turn, social disparity and gender inequality will worsen worldwide. Yet a simple, universal, and ageless concept could have the most significant impact on empowering modern workers and enabling equal participation and pay, particularly for women. That concept is time. Time is a fixed resource limited to 24 hours a day, but too often today workers’ time is treated by organizations as a variable resource. As proof, research shows more and more people are working longer hours in recent years, particularly those exempt from overtime.1 Yet at the same time, high levels of disengagement in the workforce show that many people are just pretending to work despite the increase in hours.2 Following a relatively jobless recovery from the recession, many are responsible for multiple jobs formerly done by several people, which they may resent. In addition, workers are increasingly expected to be “on the clock” via mobile device or virtual office at any and all times to respond to work requests. While not officially mandated, many people stay partially connected out of anxiety to retain their jobs or maintain professional relevance and status. That doesn’t mean though that they are fully present at the right times to be truly productive.

1 2

Saad, Lydia. “The "40-Hour" Workweek Is Actually Longer by Seven Hours.” Gallup, Work and Education Survey, August 29, 2014. Adkins, Amy. “U.S. Employee Engagement Unmoved in June at 31.9%.” Gallup, July 9, 2015.

It’s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership

This workforce situation is not sustainable and it is certainly not scalable if we want to see widespread economic growth and prosperity. It also stands starkly in the way of women’s advancement.

Economic and Engagement Uncertainties While economists have always considered labor the most variable resource in business (as populations grew and people migrated), much of today’s labor is indeed limited by the amount of time the worker has, is allowed, or is willing to work. Furthermore, recent academic research shows that people have physical limits on the energy and attention required to be productive, regardless of actual working hours.3 Finally, business research shows a large majority of workers report they are not in environments that are supportive of focusing the working time they have on the right tasks and activities. They acknowledge this does not allow them to be productive, engaged, nor advance their careers.4 Helping people organize and prioritize their time around the right activities and achievements in business then is key for workers to meet the challenges of the modern world of work. It should also help increase the productivity of workers, which has indeed plateaued in recent years.5

When Women Work Time management is particularly important for women to succeed in business because women already have more absolute, if self-imposed, demands on their time. This is true both inside and outside of the workplace. Women are also less likely to consider timeline trajectories in planning their careers and career development. Neither do they typically have “extra” time to accept additional assignments that traditionally have helped workers ascend the corporate ladder. This means a time-bound and time-sensitive approach to developing women for business leadership positions can be a critical enabler of success.

Gibson, Matthrew and Shrader, Jeffrey. “Time Use and Productivity: The Wage Returns to Sleep.” July 10, 2014 via Wall Street Journal. The Human Era @ Work. Harvard Business Review and The Energy Project, 2014. 5 “Productivity, The Problem Plaguing the Economy.” The Economist Intelligence Unit, August 14, 2015. 4

It’s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership

To illustrate this idea, this paper will discuss: 1. Why plotting career ascendency expectations, identifying relevant skills and competencies, and setting achievement goals and dates over the course of a career is the first step to improving women’s advancement. 2. How establishing consistent yet reasonable delivery of professional development content is critical to literally and figuratively engage women in their own leadership advancement on an ongoing basis, and 3. When applying development learnings in the field becomes the leadership pathway itself by creating the informal networks, mentors, and sponsors necessary for success. Through this approach, a practical, tactical action plan can be developed and deployed by organizations and individuals alike. We can then move both business priorities and gender parity principles in our countries and societies forward.

Time Sensitivity In its annual American Time Use Study, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that among full-time workers (working 35 hours or more per week), men on average worked longer than women – 8.4 hours compared with 7.8 hours. 6 On the same average day, however, 83 percent of women to just 65 percent of men reported they spent some time doing household activities such as housework, cooking, lawn care, or financial and other household management. Specifically, on the days they did household activities, women spent an average of 2.6 hours on such activities, while men spent 2.1 hours. In addition, among adults living in households with children under age 6, women spent 1 hour providing physical care to household children compared to men’s 23 minutes.7 This means on average, men are working more than half an hour more than women in the office, and women are working more than twice that amount of time in the home environment.

6 7

American Time Use Survey Study. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. June 24, 2015. Ibid.

It’s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership

While a proxy of the time-crunch problem for women just in the US, these statistics are powerful. And whereas the time imbalance between men and women at home may not be news to most people today, consider this: women’s time in the office may also be siphoned away from the activities that help people advance.

Collaboration is Time-‐consuming Management consulting firm McKinsey research has shown that five out of nine key leadership attributes are found more commonly among women: people development, setting expectations/rewards, being a role model, inspiring, and participatory decision making. The two men apply more are individualistic decision-making and control and directive action.8 Arguably the leadership attributes women exhibit more often than men are behaviors that in practice take more time than the men’s primary attributes – almost by definition. While an individual decision or directive action can be made in seconds, it can take weeks if not months in a large or virtual company today to get alignment on a new idea. Multiply that time by a considerable factor to inspire people to pay attention to it and then adapt to that change. Ironically, people development itself is a time-consuming task that may disproportionately be falling onto women who find inherent meaning in interacting with and inspiring colleagues. This may indeed be coming at the expense of their own advancement. The fewer women who advance as leaders themselves, the fewer opportunities they have to change their companies’ views around what is important in leadership and the workplace. McKinsey’s study noted that “moving corporate culture” was key to making progress in gender diversity in top management.9 A conscious company culture of educating men and women about the importance of time in developing women leaders is thus essential.

Devillard, Sandrine et al. “Women Matter 2013—Gender diversity in top management: Moving corporate culture, moving boundaries.” McKinsey & Co., 2013. 9 Ibid.

It’s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership

Conscious Collaborative Cultures Management consultancy Deloitte recently did research showing that the most important issue overall facing the human resource function in business today is culture and engagement, slightly edging out leadership itself (the number one issue in most recent years.)10 Not a single respondent out of more than 3,300 professionals in the Deloitte study said that “aligning employees’ personal goals with corporate purpose” was not applicable with creating positive company culture and engagement. Yet less than half of firms are ready to create the capabilities that enable positive cultures of engagement around balancing personal and professional life. The same is true for aligning employees’ personal goals with the corporations.11 Underscoring the results from the McKinsey and Deloitte studies, a recent Skillsoft survey of more than 450 professionals showed the largest number of respondents (63%) feeling that work/life balance is the most important issue facing women in the workforce today. Yet while 87% of the respondents said there are more men in senior level positions in their firms, only 8% said their organizations are good or very good addressing that unequal balance of men and women.12 The fact remains that many senior male business leaders rely on an unparalleled dedicated and completely unpaid workforce to support and sustain their lives outside of work: stay at home partners or spouses. This allows them what McKinsey calls the “anytime, anywhere availability” that women typically cannot replicate. Women cannot attract or afford to pay for similar support, particularly as they are often subject to pay inequities in the roles they do attain.13 As businesses globalize and physical time zone differences add more complex demands on workers’ days, time becomes all the more important a factor to manage. Globalization also means labor market competition exists from societies that value workers and women differently.

Bersin, Josh. Global Human Capital Trends 2015, Deloitte University Press, May 2015. Ibid. 12 Skillsoft’s Women in Leadership Survey, n=450, August 2015. 13 Hill, Catherine. “The Simple Truth about the Pay Gap.” AAUW, Fall 2015. 11

It’s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership

The advantages men have become even more acute as male executives from societies with more limited views of women’s capabilities and roles ascend corporate ladders. Economies as advanced as Japan’s have native cultures that may expect women to leave the workforce after marrying and certainly after having children. Even in the U.S., the Pew Research Center showed earlier this year that one in four Americans think that the major reason women have not advanced in business is that family responsibilities do not leave enough time.14 Also of note, senior executives are among the few remaining professionals that have assistants to support the administrative tasks that have been pushed onto modern workers. Many professionals spend hours weekly now using self-service software to do things previously handled by administrative personnel, such as booking travel, filing expenses, requisitioning supplies, hiring workers, and enrolling in and consuming pay and benefits. This takes them away from meaningful work that leads to engagement and career advancement. Many if not most senior (male) executives have been sheltered by their admins and spouses from these frustrating time-drains that frontline and middle management workers face today. It is in these very roles that women’s advancement has tended to stagnate. While there can be myriad factors that go into creating company cultures supportive of productivity and advancing women, focusing efforts around understanding the dimension of time can help simplify these productivity issues. It can certainly address the obvious work/home time crunch and development challenges for women.

Time for: Career Planning Acknowledging time is limited, targeting specific time for career and leadership development may be the best lever to increase both productivity and engagement in business overall. As written in the classic business management book, if people do not take time out to “sharpen the saw,” no amount of effort with the tool will cut down the tree.15

14 15

Deane, Claudia et al. Women and Leadership. Pew Research Center, January 14, 2015. Covey, Steven R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Free Press, 2004. Page 287.

It’s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership

At a macro level, considering time as the backdrop to a career over a span of years and roles is a valuable yardstick to plot development. Lack of career development and career progression is consistently cited as a top issue why people leave their organizations, but it starts with making the time to do the planning. Intentionally or not, by and large women have tended to fail to proactively plot out the trajectory of their employment over the life of their careers in the context of other personal ambitions. Many are finding out too late where they may need to invest more time or instead compromise their work and life goals because of the lack of planning. In her book, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg laments how many women have opted out of the workplace and leadership positions, but nowhere in her writing does she explicitly address career planning and development. In fact, she admits much of her own career path was serendipitous: “Younger colleagues and students frequently ask me how I planned my path. When I tell them that I didn’t, they usually react with surprise followed by relief.” While she recommends women “adopt two concurrent goals: a long-term dream and an eighteen month plan,”16 women should indeed consider their broader career aspirations as they enter the workforce, if not as early as they embark on higher education. People can’t hit what they are not aiming for; identifying the level of leadership an individual seeks to achieve can have a profound impact on prioritizing the skills and competencies that will be needed for success. It also impacts personal life planning and fulfillment.

Curate the Competencies Organizational development strategies and offerings that can bucket the phases of career progression alongside expected competencies (and for individual firms actual likely timelines to advance as applicable), can then give women a view into where to spend their development time, at the right time.

Sandberg, Sheryl. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2013. Page 53.

It’s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership

For example, having an awareness and articulation of a basic three-tiered approach to leadership – aspiring leaders, team management, and executive roles – can help individuals identify the associated concepts and competencies required for success. Company culture creation itself is often a reflection of deeply-held characteristics or personal competencies of its top leaders, so this type of development approach can be culturally selfsustaining. And as more individuals opt out of traditional hierarchical career ascendency, firms can consider abandoning traditional “high-potential” “up or out” type leadership development approaches for culture and competency building capabilities for all. Indeed, more people today, particularly women, may consciously plateau their careers, yet they still want ongoing personal interactive development to stay engaged in their work and companies as peer leaders. This can help organizations keep solid workers over the life of their careers, as well as retain valuable institutional knowledge and traditions.

Time for: Continuous Content After learning the rules of the game and the equipment needed for success, players have to practice. The same is true for professional development in the workplace. In his book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg sums up the scientific research on habits, which emerge, he writes, because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort. An efficient brain allows people to stop thinking constantly about basic behaviors, so they can devote mental energy to novel tasks, like problem solving and innovating.17 He notes the process within the brain is a three-step loop. First, a cue, a trigger that tells the brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then it follows the routine, which can be physical, mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps the brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future.

Duhigg, Charles. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. New York: Random House, 2014.

It’s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership

Over time, the loop becomes more and more automatic. The cue and reward become intertwined until a powerful sense of anticipation and craving emerges. Without habit loops, the book notes, “brains would shut down, overwhelmed by the minutiae of daily life.” This concept is particularly important when considering how to develop workers in the modern world, constantly overwhelmed by new technologies, mobile alerts, and digital distractions. In light of the quote above, many women arguably shut down their career progression because they are already overwhelmed by their daily lives.18 Consciously calendaring professional development content and collaboration can make competency and career advancement a habit.

Four Ss for Success How should organizations do this without further overwhelming working women? Keep it short and scheduled, simple and sweet. •

Short: Use new media to offer bite-size chunks of content that can be consumed where women are working and when they want to work. Limit to realistic windows of no more than 30 minutes a week or an hour once a month.

•

Scheduled: Embed content sessions into calendars with regular appointments set aside for development and prioritized by managers. Create the habit.

•

Simple: Most leadership development criteria or competencies are not elusive ideas or technical treatises, but practical people principles put into practice. Pick the key ones that reflect your organization’s mission and culture, including developing women and work-life balance.

•

Sweet: Pick inspirational speakers and popular authors that are a treat to tune into in the course of the business day or week. Also ask if your motivational movers and shakers reflect the type of diverse leaders you are trying to develop.

Schulte, Brigid. Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time. New York: Picador, 2014.

It’s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership

Time for: Applied Leadership Learning After carving out the tactical time for leadership development content consumption, women have to prioritize applying it in action. This allocation is particularly important, as Duhigg writes, because for a habit to be ingrained, people must believe change is possible. He also notes that belief most often emerges with the help of a group. This final step may also address the root causes of fewer women in senior business leadership positions. A key challenge holding women back has been they have had less sponsorship or advocates on the path to ascending the corporate ladder. In a report McKinsey prepared for a Wall Street Journal Executive Task Force for Women in the Economy, authors noted “the reasons why women choose to remain in their current level or move on to another organization – despite their unflagging confidence and desire to advance – include: lack of role models, exclusion from the informal networks, not having a sponsor in upper management to create opportunities.”19 The report also noted: “Women prize the opportunity to pour their energies into making a difference and working closely with colleagues. Women don’t want to trade that joy for what they fear will be energy-draining meetings and corporate politics at the next management echelon.” The practice and discipline of discussing development content and literally engaging with colleagues around what the concepts or content means to them can be the very activities that develop informal networks and sponsors for women. These interactions also provide the opportunity to work more closely with or get to know key colleagues that may offer a stretch project or sponsor and advocate for their advancement. To this end, following up consistently scheduled development content with prioritized personal interactions and activities to apply curated concepts on the job actually puts people principles in practice. The final step is to then for firms to literally and figuratively reward those that make that time with their colleagues.

Barsh, Joanna and Yee, Lareina. “Unlocking the Full Potential of Women in the U.S. Economy.” McKinsey & Co. 2011.

It’s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership

Conclusion Given the challenges facing organizations to increase women in senior leadership roles, this paper sought to outline a simple approach to career planning, delivering training, and prioritizing interactions with colleagues that would help women advance their careers in both a practical and profound way. In the social, mobile, virtual workplace of today, people can literally work anywhere at anytime, so workforce management and professional development alike demand more conscientious approaches to working women’s time and time management principles. Digital technologies can eliminate some factors of time in work, but companies must judiciously embrace the tools that truly support people’s productivity. They also have to consider how they level the playing field for all participants. Perhaps as academics test students under time limits to complete exams, progressive companies will ask their workers to produce results in a limited amount of time. Some organizations have started restricting off-hours communications, for example.20 In this way, companies can cultivate the ongoing culture of respect for people’s time, recognize the deeply ingrained challenges women face, as well as start to realistically enable their advancement. This approach also offers a framework for all of those looking for a more manageable and meaningful professional and personal life. Professional development courses are easily delivered online at any time these days, but it may be the careful curation around career competencies, thoughtfully embedded into people’s work days, followed by the colleague conversations that makes the difference. Calendared content and the coaching is arguably what will deliver results. By establishing the routine practice of reviewing key leadership concepts, and then engaging peers, mentors, and sponsors across a company network and beyond in the development discussions, formal programs to develop women leaders may finally move the needle on the numbers of women in Clevel executive and board positions worldwide.

Noguchi, Yuki. “Amid New Overtime Rules, More Employers Might Set Email Curfew.” National Public Radio Online, July 8, 2015.

It’s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership

Along with productivity, gender equity amongst executives has plateaued in recent years, with fewer women even participating in the U.S. workforce today than in the year 2000.21 This is despite more women than ever pursuing higher education and advanced degrees in academic institutions. Businesses have to consider what infrastructure they are implementing that taps into women’s interest and ability to advance beyond academia. They need to transform their own mind-sets and mediums to sustain women’s leadership development success. As McKinsey noted in Women Matter 2013, “One reason for the shortfall in results is time: like all transformational programs, measures to improve gender diversity require time to take effect.” So the time to start offering practical and profound leadership development for women is now.

Methodology Eudemonia was founded to investigate new ways to gain value from more relevant and rewarding human resources (HR) or workforce-related software, services, and support business operating models. A particular area of attention is the economic opportunity and social imperative to support gender parity and pay equity. A key hypothesis of Eudemonia research is that improving the employee experience day-to-day on the job – as well as in providing on-going support in using the technology and tools and consuming the rewards and benefits that employers offer the workforce – will significantly contribute to top line business growth and economic expansion. This is likely achieved through improved workforce productivity and efficiency, enhanced employee commitment and retention, and prioritized time and efforts on delivering business results, including customer service and satisfaction and innovation. To outline the challenges and opportunities facing businesses in embracing and enabling better leadership development education for women, Eudemonia drew upon a series of discussions with professionals familiar with the issues facing organizations and HR today, as well as women in business.

Women in the Labor Force. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, December 2014.

It’s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership

Eudemonia conducted primary research interviews with subject matter experts on leadership development, including professionals at Skillsoft. Research also included a review of its leadership development offerings and approaches. Secondary sources are cited with links to source content as referenced throughout the paper. All links active as of September 28, 2015. We would like to extend special thanks to Skillsoft for recognizing the challenges to and significance of women’s leadership development, its support of this paper, and providing access to its staff and leadership development resources and content. Information on women’s leadership development support from Skillsoft can be found online at www.skillsoft.com.

About the Author Christa Degnan Manning founded and leads workforce support research firm Eudemonia. Based on more than two decades of business-to-business market research, operational leadership, and global workforce experience, Christa has identified the need for a new category of technologyenabled business service capability: workforce support services. Inspired by marketing's successful championing of the customer experience, Christa seeks to help businesses align their own workforce support service strategies and models with the right third-party software and service partners to deliver functional capabilities and employee experiences that support productivity, engagement, and workforce efficiency. Prior to this work, Christa served as an Innovation director in the Advisory Services consulting unit of American Express Global Business Travel, leading the EXPERT INSIGHTS research and Applied Business Intelligence consulting practices. Before American Express, Christa spent a decade as a business process and technology analyst and practice leader with the Aberdeen Group (establishing indirect procurement and spend category management coverage) and AMR Research/Gartner Group (covering human capital management software and services providers), following five years as a business journalist and media professional with Advance Publications and Ziff Davis.

It’s About Time: Developing Women for Business Leadership

Cited throughout her career in leading business and industry media and contributing thoughtleadership commentary to podcasts and guest blogs worldwide, Christa has been most recently featured on HCI.org, HR Examiner, HR.Com, HR Tech World, The Bill Kutik Radio Show, SHRM.org, The Company Dime, Workforce, and WTG Events. Christa has a Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College, Columbia University, including studies at University College, University of London, and a Master of Arts from the University of Massachusetts. She has also completed on-going professional development course work in business metrics at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. She can be reached at christa@eudemonia.work and on Twitter @ChristaDegnan.

About Eudemonia From the ancient Greek word meaning "human flourishing," Eudemonia is a new type of systematic research firm focused on the organizational constructs, collaboration strategies, and workforce and talent management solutions that support people in driving positive outcomes for businesses operating globally today. Specifically Eudemonia focuses on understanding evolving human resource (HR) and information technology (IT) service delivery models and evaluating the solution providers that provide digital automation and staff-based service capability to support workforce enablement and organizational effectiveness business functions and shared services organizations. With particular attention on maturing software as a service (SaaS) delivery implications, research and analysis includes organizational support models, HR and workforce-related software and service provider selection criteria, and implementation best practices including on-going innovation consumption, managed services capabilities, and partner ecosystems, such as consulting, systems integration, and business process outsourcing (BPO). Clients Eudemonia serves include investors, operational professionals, and solution provider organizations through annual subscription and ad-hoc advisory services. It also conducts projectbased research and due-diligence to provide education and guidance on workforce support issues and initiatives. For more information or to make an inquiry, please visit http://www.eudemonia.work.