Montag, 17. März 2014

Quotas still needed to guarantee women rise in business: leaders

Grainne Kearns, CIO, Jetstar. File Photo: Eddie Jim


Female quotas are a necessary evil to guarantee enough women rise to the top echelon of business and public life in Australia, according to a panel of female technology and business leaders.
At an event organised by Females in IT and Telecommunications (FiTT) to celebrate International Women's Day in Melbourne last week, five women imparted personal stories of rising to the top of their professions.
They shared their successes and their failures and independently advised other women to 'go for it'. They advised them to carve their own paths based on their strengths, instinct and expertise; give opportunity to other women and not worry about what others thought. But when asked by Fairfax Media for their position on the establishment of formal quotas to guarantee a certain proportion of decision makers were women, they surprised the 200-strong audience.
"I am for quotas," said Grainne Kearns who, as chief information officer, sits at the main decision-making table at Qantas offshoot Jetstar.
"If you put quotas in place, it's very obvious who's paying lip service versus who's taking action."
When pressed on whether merit could be a better gauge of talent for the selection of women for top jobs, Ms Kearns, a former Telstra transformation director and change manager, quipped:
"I'm of the firm opinion there are just as many good women in the world as there are good men and I think that quotas will just drive a different level of looking for that right person to feel the quotas, different to what we have today."
One by one, panellists owned up to the same admission.
Maggie Alexander, business improvement consultant and 2013 NSW ICT Woman of the Year, who has seen much change since she being a founding member of 25-year-old FiTT agreed. She too felt the merit system alone wasn't enough.
"I am for quotas. Gender balance is very important for management because you need to get different points of view. In my experience if you have gender balance in the room the outcomes are different.
Katerina Andronis, who rose from the dark computer room at a biochemistry lab to director of life sciences and health care at Deloitte Australia, and holds a number of directorships nodded in the affirmative.
"I wish I wasn't for quotas, because I wish I worked in an environment where we didn't need them, to be honest.
"I don't think they matter much for small organisations, but they help large organisations to get visitbity of what's going on," Ms Andronis said. 
Jude Horrill, head of communications global technology, services and operations at ANZ Bank and a mentor, urged women to find out what they want "and go after it". 
"It requires confidence to take risks. Don't ask for permission to lead", Ms Horrill told the mixed gender audience. She confessed she too was for quotas, and indeed mandatory reporting of the number of women in workplaces. They were both paramount to ensure gender balance in power. 
The issue is again in the spolitght after the Abbott Government appointed only one woman to cabinet, Foreign Minister Julia Bishop, in September. It has now flagged it wants to wind back mandatory gender reporting of the Workplace Gender Equality Act, in its drive to eliminate red tape. It was to come into force on April 1, 
Leadership coach, author of Find Your Courage and Stop Playing Safe, Forbes columnist Margie Warrell has a different point of view. She told Fairfax Media on Friday she did not agree with quotas.
"I'm just very cautious of the unintended backlash that can come from mandatory or possibly legislated quotas.  If we are going to go down the quota track, be very mindful many men will call it reverse discrimination. It could hurt many women rather than help."
Ms FarrelI prefered the setting of targets for the employment of women, as already common in many large organisations including banks such as Westpac and NAB. NAB has committed to raising the participation of women in board positions, in the top three layers of management and graduate intake. As of September women held 30 per cent of the top three levels of management jobs, just short of the 33 percent target set for 2015.
"I get that having targets just isn't enough, but with targets, organisations make very clear commitments. What's very important is just not to have it a top level, but in operational roles as well, and not just HR support roles," Ms Warrell.
"Men are promoted on potential while women are promoted on performance, so they need to have diversity of experience." 
Ms Warrell said women in managerial roles just below the top level often felt men had already decided they would eventually want to step out and have kids. She advised women to work around that.
"You need to manage that expectation, you need to make sure you put your name on the table if you want to have that role."

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