Price awareness
We live in a culture where most women know the value of their homes on the property market. We are reminded daily of minute percentage movements on global stock exchanges and unemployment figures.  Women know the price of most things from the cost of a business suit to a plumber or a baby sitter and account for 85% of consumer purchasing decisions. What most don’t bother to check out is the value of possibly their greatest asset. Themselves.

I have had two contacts this week from women who have discovered signficant salary differentials either between themselves and their male colleagues, or general market benchmarks for their job.

Women and negotiation
There is much information in the public domain to suggest that women don’t negotiate hard enough, or even at all, in the area of compensation. This insidious differential starts across the world at entry-level in a wide variety of sectors and stays with many women throughout their careers. This is true,  even for those who have invested in their personal development to acquire an MBA. Research shows that women generally earn 80% of men.

And when they do try to negotiate, unlike their male counterparts instead of being viewed as enterprising dynamos, they are seen in much less favourable terms, frequently as money grabbing b$x*£€s. At a time of economic austerity many are reluctant to step up and re- negotiate.

Basic minimum
The most important thing for women is to have an idea of their own value on the open market. If they decide they don’t want to negotiate their compensation package, this decision should be taken from a position of being well-informed. No one would dream of putting their houses on the market without checking out the value, then why do it to themselves?

How to check?

• Network :  with people in your field and sector.  Asking people what they earn in many cultures is considered to be indiscreet and on par with asking a woman about her weight, age or credit card number. However it is possible to get ball park figures and salary range via sensitive discussion.
• Advertisements : many job advertisements carry salary scales. Keep a watchful eye on job boards and the press in the same way you might monitor house prices.
• Online resources:  there are many free salary survey resources online. Check out  salary.com, glassdoor.com and payscale.com which has a  global reach.
• Overview :  It’s always useful to have an overview of what’s going on in terms of salaries (especially as they’re being frozen). Most business media carry regular pieces on this topic and  LinkedIn has a Compensation and Benefits Forum where general compensation issues are discussed from a management perspective.
• General package : get up to speed not just on the salary segment of your compensation, but on where your total benefits package lies on the market spectrum. If your salary is lower, do you have other perks which are just as important such as remote working or flexi-time?  Perhaps you can’t leverage a higher salary, but are there other benefits that might be useful?

We would never consider buying or selling anything without being aware of its value. We simply have to stop doing this to ourselves.

What do you think?

Does the corporate world wants to have its cake and eat it too?

Social media and the corporate cake
I have observed and somewhat portentously anticipated, storms brewing in cyber space.

The corporate mindset appears to be several steps behind the outside world. In many areas it is now playing catch up, but nowhere is this more self-evident than in the area of employee engagement in the social media arena.

So it didn’t come as a surprise to read that an executive had been forced out of his job, not for uploading or being tagged in compromising photos, sending out risqué tweets or saying he hated his job on Facebook. No. He simply posted his professional CV on LinkedIn and checked the contact box ” interested in career opportunities.”   This seemingly was against company policy.

Having and eating the cake
The executive in question John Flexman of BG Group, responsible for graduate recruitment, is pursuing a court case for constructive dismissal. This pre-supposes that any interest in career opportunities, by default has to be external only and brings no benefit to the existing organisation. It was also claimed that Flexman had divulged confidential information by listing reduced staff attrition as one of his achievements.  Now there is possibly more to this than meets the eye,  but nevertheless there is still a court case hanging on the premise of the supposed inappropriate use of a LinkedIn profile .

Double standards
We live in a world where many catalogue and communicate every waking moment and thought in their daily lives. Most of us have no interest at all in what people are eating, or the quality of the weather, restaurants or roads in Manchester, Mumbai, or anywhere else for that matter. This is in stark contrast to the corporate world where confidentiality agreements are common place and covert deals struck behind closed doors are the norm.

But having said that, organisations tap into this disparate information in the public domain to keep their fingers on the pulse of their customer bases. They extract key nuggets of market and competitive intelligence, tracking our spending patterns and other consumer trends, as well as keeping tabs on the competition, from what would appear to us regular mortals, to be totally inane data. Research shows that a high percentage of companies also use social media for identifying and screening candidates as part of their own recruitment processes, with 86% of businesses now saying they use LinkedIn and even Facebook.

Ring fencing
This issue raises a number of questions. Do organisations such as BG Group want to have their cake and eat it too? Are they happy to use social media platforms to achieve corporate goals, but not thrilled when employees use these platforms to meet theirs?

But  more importantly, shouldn’t the role of management be focused on motivating its employees to be committed and engaged to a company, rather than ring fencing them,  making it difficult to leave? Would that perhaps account for a need to reduce staff attrition?

An epidemic of tolerance as though being late is always outside our control

Poor timekeeping
I have to confess that in my time I have indeed been guilty of some erratic time keeping. I was very much  ” a one more thing before I go“  type of girl  and a great subscriber to the phrase “fashionably late“.  But then I worked for a manager who would monetize  the communally wasted time whenever any of his team was late for a meeting.   It was actually quite shocking. If we had all been held financially accountable,  our pay cheques would have been significantly lighter.   When I transitioned into sales I had to replace ” better late than never ” with  “never late is better”.  Arriving late isn’t actually a recognised commercially winning strategy.

Running late
I have become acutely aware in recent weeks how erratic general timekeeping seems to have become and how easily  the phrase  “running late “,  has slid into our daily business and social vernacular, including my own. Very often people apologise, (sometimes they don’t), explaining that either they, someone, or something else was “running late“, as though they were a bus service,  entirely passive and had nothing to do with it at all. Clearly there are always unforseen circumstances. Only recently I scooted into an important meeting with only  minutes to spare,  because a journey scheduled to take 10 minutes,  took 45,  due to traffic congestion.  But, I wondered, are we all becoming more tolerant of  poor time keeping,  as if  we are communally raising our hands saying ”  I know life is tough for you  – but it’s Ok – I don’t mind waiting here wasting my own time….. I’m a bus too ?”  Whatever happened to William Shakespeare’s “Better three hours too soon, than one minute too late?”

Consequences
A candidate was recently late for an interview. He hadn’t properly checked the company’s address the night before and arrived 15 minutes late,  having been to the wrong building at the designated hour. What should have been a walk in the park (he was the preferred candidate) became an interview nightmare, as his anxiety levels rose and he fluffed even routine questions. A hiring manager similarly kept a candidate waiting so long that she eventually left and then withdrew from the process.

Julie Morgenstern, author of Time Management From the Inside Out,  tells us that the first step is to make promptness a conscious priority,  but also we need to  gain an understanding into why we’re always late.   Poor timekeeping can  be very costly, both directly  but also via damage to our reputations suggesting we are unreliable,  untrustworthy and/or disorganised. The reasons she maintains tend to fall into 2  categories: technical or psychological.

Technical Difficulties

Morgenstern advises establishing patterns by keeping a time log of all tasks and finding out exact how much time each task takes. Then factor in a margin for some unforseen contingency.

Inability to say no
Linda Sapadin, PhD, author of Master Your Fears believes there are deeper underlying implications of poor timekeeping,  which are linked to procrastination. Very often many of the difficulties come from lack of confidence and an inability to say no,  or even to tell another person we have another appointment in our diaries.

Do you choose to be late?
If we are always late by the same amount of time, there could be a number of reasons – but no doubt, it’s about us!  We might be:

• Rebellious   – not doing what’s expected
•  A crisis maker   – need an adrenalin rush to get going
• Attention seeker  - which comes with being last through the door and going through the apology ritual.
• Power playing  – I’m more important than you are,  sending a message of disrespect
• Avoider - you don’t want to meet the person, or attend the meeting, so leave it until the very last-minute.

During a recession when employers are tightening up on time keeping with threats of dismissal after the second or third offence, there are so many challenges in the workplace, it seems crazy not to take responsibility for the things we can control ourselves. It’s also really rude!

So next time instead of saying something “ ran late“, perhaps we should all just be honest and admit to being bad planners,  power players, attention seekers or avoiders.

Or is the alternative to opt for carrying on living our lives as buses?

Mad Men meets Stepford Wives in outdated Economist poll

Named Editor of the Year in 2012, Mr John Micklethwait is Editor-in Chief of the Economist. Given his background, as a leading figure in global intellectual and business media, one would assume that he is a pretty smart and savvy gentleman.

The Economist is normally associated with balanced,  neutral, informative reporting on the issues of women in the workplace and business. I am a regular reader. So,  I was astonished  this weekend by a departure from their usual high level,  objective content,  into the tabloid style enforcement of gender stereotypes.

Loss of balance
Why on earth would his publication send out such a thoughtless, sexist poll asking if women with young children should consider waiting before starting an MBA?  Here is the text which reads like something from Mad Men meets The Stepford Wives:

Juggling the twin demands of an MBA programme and young children is bound to be tough. But it is not impossible. According to one student, interviewed here, it means devoting days to classes, afternoons to her daughters, and evenings and Sundays to school work. Still, multi-tasking can be a mistake. Children demand your full attention and trying to concentrate on it and your assignment at the same time inevitably means you do both poorly. One answer is to hire a babysitter. But this can be costly….”

Out of date
Notwithstanding it came out the morning after the major office party night of the year, and a few brain cells might have been lost. Perhaps  Mr. Micklethwait was having a day off. Or maybe the The Economist is short of  readers and needs something a little contentious. Perhaps the 21st century notion of dual career families has completely passed them by. The expectations of women, especially Gen Yers in the area of  the roles their partners play in household and childcare responsibilities, are very different from their mothers’  generations.  Not only that there are actually  significant numbers of  men who want to be actively involved in their children’s upbringing.  My own questions would be:

• Why don’t they pose the same questions to men?
• Where are the fathers in the childcare process? Why are they coming home when the children are asleep?

Only one-third of MBA students are women. Surely the poll  and business schools should be trying to establish  how to attract high calibre women without imposing the ” Mummy penalty”, rather than going into the family planning advisory business which serves to re-enforce out dated thinking. As one MBA candidate in a career workshop in Paris told me last week, as a married man with children  he felt he was perceived as offering employers stability, echoing Curt Rice’s fatherhood bonus theory.

This is perpetuating any number of outmoded stereotypes:

• That childcare is the exclusive role and responsibility of the mother.
• MBAs are for men
• Women who are both mothers and professionals will “inevitably“ do both roles poorly.
• Women who focus on the achievement of their own goals will feel guilty.

Here is the story of one woman, Lynn Barbour  who broke the curve.  I suggest that J.L.H.D of The Economist, Atlanta  interview her as well,   to show how it can all be achieved successfully. Lynn says “While formal strategies of employers and business schools need to be strengthened to increase the percentage of women in MBAs, I believe most of the change required starts with individuals” There must be a multitude of other women who have done the same and would not be OK with their partner coming home when the kids are in bed!

There are many reasons why women don’t make it to the top,  but I suspect fitting in a nappy/diaper change around an MBA assignment will not be one of them. Gender stereotypes reenforced by an influential, global press publication are far more likely to strengthen any barriers, than make dents in them.

Perhaps what we need is a female editor for the Economist.

What do you think?

Portfolio careers a rich tapestry of work experience - on the increase

A Portfolio Career ” a tapestry of a variety of eclectic employment experiences; employment in a series of short-contract or part-time positions“

Not new but on the increase
The term Portfolio Career is being used in current business  vernacular  with the same type of smug and superior ” in the know -ness” ,  as we might have seen when the atom was split or  the wheel invented.  I always smile indulgently! The concept of a portfolio career is actually far from new. What is new is the number who have embarked on this career path.

“Moonlighting” has long been a euphemism associated with  individuals aspiring to break into such professions as  acting, music , arts, writing etc,  or others running more than one job. As companies abandon the corporate  “ cradle to grave” employment concepts,  and move towards the leaner and meaner machines of more recent times,  we had already started to see the beginnings of this seismic shift some years ago. Business Week referenced the changing work place practise of   Perma Temps,   as organisations  began to seek flexible ( =  disposable) workforces, to allow rapid response to fast changing business conditions.

I view and review literally hundreds of CVs in any given week.  Although predicted by all the trend spotters, the shift to individuals having an increasing  number of jobs and spending less time in each , is becoming very marked. I am  often asked to avoid “ hoppers/movers/jumpers”, but that is now an outmoded concept,  particularly as younger age demographics move between jobs more strategically,  with periods of employment, also punctuated by stints in further education.

No alternatives
Portfolio  careers and the wearing of many hats was once  associated with mid- career or older professionals, perhaps after redundancy seeking a better work / life balance,  or  when there were no other options. It was considered a fall back position.  We are now seeing younger  Gen Yers  build up this type of career,  not because they particularly seek an improved quality of life,  but because they have to tap into different parts of their skill sets, simply to  get a job,  any job.   This is also apparent when coaching career changers pursuing MBA courses,  when I have come across a range of skills from Project Management, entrepreneurial roles , to  professional photography,  all in the same student.  The real  challenge is to create an interesting and credible career profile to showcase success stories, transferable skills and  the lessons learned from such diverse backgrounds and interests.

Choice
However, there are people who simply prefer the variety, flexibility and freedom offered by tapping into a wide range of skills, so they choose a wider portfolio career, over a more traditional focused one.  At one time a portfolio career was considered to be higher risk than a corporate role. Today,  I’m not sure that is the case.  Portfolio careers suit disciplined, self motivated people with strong time management skills,  who have a variety of skills and interests,  as well as the drive to go out and market and monetize them. Portfolio careers are also generally associated with adept networkers and can be a great route to gaining experience in a new field, whilst maintaining a part-time role in a traditional job in line with a professional background. Many do just that.

Challenges
The real issue will be for the demographic which doesn’t voluntarily choose this more entrepreneurial style of career strategy.  Flexibility for companies is key, of course, but if organisations aren’t careful,  they can wind up searching for new talent in an alienated and demotivated workforce, which has struggled to gain skills in a wide range of unstructured and less professional environments. It also means a  quantum shift from lazy and uninsightful  ”copy / paste” recruitment methodologies, sadly  relied upon by companies and some search consultants alike.

Can you afford not to?

For anyone embarking on a job search related to career change and developing what is now called a “personal brand” for the first time, I outline the steps and options involved using social networking. As I do so, I am always aware of two things. Faces turning ashen with panic and then groaning, as clients,  whether individually or in groups, mentally try to calculate how much time this process is going to take out of their already busy day. There is a reason it’s called net ”working” (not net “vacationing”).  It is indeed a lot of work, it does take time and much of it is doing stuff people have never heard of before  (and wouldn’t choose to do if they had!) .

Authenticity
Today,  job search is personal, flexible and strategic. Sadly there is no template or blue print which can be reproduced, although guidelines can be given.  What works for one individual, will not work or sound authentic for another. The whole point of it is also to be unique and stand out, not to be a clone of your neighbour.  The learning process is  intuitive,  as we move away from the old style rigid approach. This does indeed makes life far harder for any job seeker today and it is time-consuming. However,  authenticity is key,   which is why we have to run, stroll or even crawl,  the hard yards for ourselves.

Strategic alliances
As recessionary thinking starts to hit us again after a very brief interlude of optimism,  the job market looks set to shrink.  Economic downturns touch even the brightest and the best. It’s imperative that developing a  personal brand  and raising visibility becomes a daily part of all job seekers’ routines -  before there is a crisis.  Social networking is a great way to supplement and enhance actual networking,  although ( and I stress)  not a substitute for it.

Simple basics
—Select a primary platform  – for most people this should be a professional network   (e.g. LinkedIn, Viadeo, Xing)  to showcase career success stories and background. The largest English language one is LinkedIn for and anyone seeking a career in an international arena,  I would always advise a profile placed on this platform. — As a minimum I would suggest the following activity:

• Send out 1 update daily to develop your reputation. If you have a blog so much the better,  otherwise any nugget of information that could be interesting taken from the press or other media related to your new function/sector. Twitter is a good source.
• Post 1 comment in a LinkedIn group related to your target career.
• Indentify and connect with 5- 10 new connections in your target sector – preferably ones you hope to meet in person.
• Research companies in your target sector.

Connect with other platforms  – extend your reach via Twitter and Facebook which are becoming fast growing global job boards as the Like, Share and Tweet functions become a quick way to circulate job information. Employers are also strengthening their Employer brand on these platforms and offer increasing opportunities to inform and connect with job seekers. Trend spotters are suggesting that these 2 platforms will change the job search  landscape in 2012.   Although their figures are US-based, Europe is  usually only a few steps behind. Get ahead of the game. Even a British spy agency is seeking code-crackers via Twitter and Facebook.

• Post content via Twitter.
• Share content from others ( RT).
• Comment on a blog.
• Post an update or a note on Facebook.
• Locate followers and friends that might be helpful to you.
• Pay it forward  – share any new updates with your peers or other job seekers in your network.
• Partially automate when you are busy. Bufferapp hits Twitter and Facebook. I would advise not to over do it  – engagement is key.

—One of the advantages of Social Networking is that it’s self scheduling  – so any of this can be fitted  around other activities and in a piece meal fashion. It’s a question of carving out 10 minutes of time, 3 times a day which may make a difference. Yes, initially it might take longer, but as skills are honed and knowledge acquired,  it can be whittled down to become  rapid fire productivity.

Like a string of pearls your skills will be threaded through your life experiences and serve to make you unique

Creating an effective USP ( Unique Selling Proposition ) is key for any job seeker or career  changer. It a major, invaluable tool in the job search tool box and will serve as a basis for:

• One sentence bio either written or oral
• Your online professional profile tagline ( 100 characters on LinkedIn)
• Any introduction (occasion appropriate!)
• Telephone message
• Twitter profile ( 160 characters)
• Job fair pitch  (  MBA, entry-level)

Tough
Dreaming  this up is an agonising process for most of us.  We struggle to find a balance between finding something that is authentic, words that don’t sound fake, crass and pushy,  using keywords for online effectiveness,  but at the same time something that can be delivered verbally,  while conveying a benefit, in an occasion appropriate way. What might sound great in a networking meeting could clear a bar in seconds.  On top of this, we want to sound unique.  It’s really tough. How do we differentiate ourselves from  the thousands of  highly qualified  professionals, entry-level or MBA candidates who might be on the job market?

The following questions need to be addressed:

• Who are you?
• What  makes you special?
• Where and how do you add value?

To achieve this, there is no way of getting around the basic career management and strategy tool of identifying transferable skills and gaining self insight.  I use the CARS method  ( Challenges, Actions, Results,  Skills)  also known as STAR.  I am always astounded by the number of individuals who actually try to create a career strategy without going through this process. But like a string of pearls, your skills and qualities will be threaded through your experiences and serve to make you unique. Tie these into you passion, vision, values and goals for an overall picture of what is YOUR critical make-up  Sadly, there are no short cuts and those that try to do just that, eventually become unstuck.   This means if individuals don’t know who they are and what they’re good at, how can they expect anyone else to know?

Funky or functional?
Some have a gift for personal insight and seem to produce the right words which reflect their personalities: “  dedicated business development ninja” ,   “Pharma Research funketeer ,  successfully combines science ( PhD), business ( MBA) and innovation “,    ”IT Solutions consultant,  marries the achievable with the sublime. “

Keywords
Others are more cautious about being bold with creative vocabulary. They also have a point,  as keywords in this part of  their online profiles generally carry a higher SEO.  Many frequently use a job title or student status, whether because they understand this, or they are simply less creative  – who knows. This is fine of course, but  clearly not unique. It is therefore a good idea to add one or 2 keywords to your jazzy content,  perhaps academic qualifications  ( PhD, MBA) ,  any certifications  (CPA, CIPD, LLM )  or sector titles  (business development, pharma research,  IT solutions).

Career Changers
Career changers can reference a previous career with a target role, function or sector   “  Dedicated business  development ninja (Exec MBA)  aspiring to leadership role “  , ”IT Solutions delivery expert,  marries achievable & sublime,  passionate about  sustainable energy”,   ”Pharma Research funketeer (PhD), business minded ( MBA)  innovative and creative, transitioning to marketing “.    

Organic
Generally, arriving at this short sentence takes a lot of thought and juggling with vocabulary. Research on LinkedIn and check out other headlines.    No one else can do it for you but getting feedback is always helpful. Do others perceive you in the same way as you perceive yourself?  Don’t be afraid to change and play around with your results until you get something you are totally comfortable with, provided of course  that you are not constantly changing your key message, tweaking is fine. It’s an organic process and nothing is set in stone. That is the beauty and a superb advantage of online content, it supports intuitive learning.

But don’t forget, it’s not enough to identify, create and articulate your key message – you have to promote it too.

Storm brewing over online connections

 A problem waiting to happen.

Personal Branding  as a career management tool for all employees and job seekers has been strongly encouraged since Tom Peters urged us all to become our own Chief Marketing Officers.  Today,  many employees network strategically in both their personal and professional lives to create an effective career strategy and now have strong personal brands.But could it be we are headed for a clash?

Personal vs Corporate
This  recent development is proving to be challenging for some businesses, as they are becoming aware of a growing need to manage employee individuality within the context of their own organisational structures. Some are now playing catch up.

I had two interesting conversations this week. Both made me think that there ‘s trouble brewing out there in cyber space, the ramifications of which we have yet to fully understand. And according to a report by DLA Piper, Knowing your Tweet from your Trend,  I am not alone in these concerns.

Complex
Many column inches have been given over to employee content on social media, where the nature of some tweets and Facebook updates has resulted in disciplinary action and even dismissal. But what about the unchartered territory of the ownership of contacts and connections with whom employees are engaging? Whose are they exactly? Organisations are struggling to exercise control between an employee’s business and personal life on social media, where the  divide is often indistinct. This is particularly true on LinkedIn, which now has 130 million members globally.

Who owns your LinkedIn contacts?
The first chat last week was with an executive search associate who told me that his company was now using LinkedIn as a date base and had all but stopped using their own in-house applicant tracking  system. It was simply easier to keep up with changes in potential candidates movements on-line and saved a huge amount of time for all concerned, cutting data inputting costs totally he told me. Little warning bells jingled in my ears.  “What happens if the consultants leave?”  I asked. The response was that the  connections would be transferred to the practise partner. At that juncture, the little tinkles, became massive gongs, as the company had no contractual legal procedure in place to cover this.

Fast forward to the end  of the week. Simon was a Business Development Director with a Financial Services Consulting organisation. On Friday, he was called into his bosses office and although he was clearly aware that business was slowing down,  he was shocked to find that within  2 hours he had been “let go” and cut off from the company server. Amongst the mountain of paperwork he has been asked to sign,  is a clause asking for his LinkedIn password to transfer his connections to another sales person in the company.

Now Simon is a very strategic and creative networker. He invests a significant amount of time cultivating a meaningful network, both physically and virtually. He feels that his associates and superiors  never  committed to online networking. He maintains that his contacts have been developed over his entire career and have nothing to do with his employer. He is also well-connected personally via his family, high-profile school and university and is not about to hand those details over without a fight. The company differs and is arguing that many of his connections were cultivated as an integral part of his role with them, on their time and need to be returned. Both are seeking legal advice. How do we decide if a contact is a personal or a business one and what happens if those connections are inter-changeable?

Legal Action
According to The Telegraph, a British court has already ordered a recruitment consultant to hand over his LinkedIn contacts to his previous employer. In this particular case the consultant had started trading on his own account before then end of his contract, which muddies the water slightly. But if the data for all his connections is in the public domain - are they “his” in the first place?

Personal Profiles
LinkedIn profiles are indeed personal online resumés, reflecting individual achievements and success stories, rather than company branding messages. Some individuals are very savvy about the use of this platform and maximise the opportunities it offers both personally and professionally often times merging the two areas. Others are lethargic and disinterested, with incomplete profiles and minimal or no activity.

DLA Piper suggests that only 14% of employers have policies in place which regulate social media activity outside the workplace.  Failure to provide clarity on the ownership of connections will result in many unforseen ramifications. It will also cause confusion on the value of personal branding as a career management tool and  perhaps impact the energy individuals put into online networking.

So should employers be able to claim individual online contacts when an employee leaves? Would you take the time to build up your online connections and create these strategic alliances, if they become the “property” of your employer on departure?

For me, it’s no different than asking the employee of yester year to hand over his/her Rolodex or Filofax on departure. When a client interfacing employee resigns or is fired, there has always been a commercial risk of them taking their contacts with them. This is why many organisations have non competition clauses in their contracts.

Whether contacts are actual or online in my book, will not make any real difference.

Or will we see a return of the adage – ” Never mix business and pleasure” ?

.

Should candidates declare learning differences?

It is estimated that 15% of  employees have moderate learning difficulties and although many received support during their education, when they transition into the workplace, for most that support disappears,  although the issues regrettably don’t. I actually prefer the US phrase learning differences, which covers a wide variety of challenges and should not to be confused with any intellectual cognitive impairment which is more severe. This might include mild dyslexia, dyspraxia, attention deficit disorders and short-term memory issues,  through  to milder conditions on the autism spectrum.

Anything to declare?
For many candidates it’s hard to know where and when to declare these issues, or  whether to declare them at all.  Some companies list the conditions as   “disabilities ” on their application forms,  which many  applicants are reluctant  to admit, because they actually don’t believe  their condition is disabling. Or they fear that it will be held against them in the recruitment process. In many cases it will depend on the type of job being applied for and the severity of the problem – if there are health and safety risks involved (ciphering chemical symbols for example, might be challenging for someone with dyslexia) or if the condition can impact on the job performance with more serious consequences.

According to the British Dyslexia Association being up front can be most useful in the long-term,  particularly if job descriptions change and lead to more report writing and greater organisational demands,  as these may need to be supported by assistive software and strategy training. There may also be (dyslexia unfriendly) tests for promotion.

Poor performance may be dyslexia related and can lead to stress which impacts performance even further. So another reason for being open , possibly after an offer has been received to ensure that all channels of support can be available and there are no later accusations of lack of transparency.

As cruel as school
Workplaces can be as cruel as school, with one client telling me how a report he had written containing some spelling mistakes and word confusion ( caught/court, assistance/ assistants, bear/bare) was circulated on an ” all company ” email circulation list. Rather than supporting this employee,  he was made an object of ridicule for almost a year,  bringing back a childhood stammer,  which he had over come 20 years before.  ” Spell check is no use at all for anyone with dyslexia ” Tom told me   “all the words look the same to us”

Kara Tointon  a British actress, herself  suffering from dyslexia made an excellent documentary ” Don’t call me Stupid”  charting her own  struggles. It really is worth watching.  Here is an extract.

Although many adults with learning differences develop sophisticated coping and cover up strategies for dealing with these challenges (quite often avoidance),  the best way is to accept and confront the conditions and to make use of some of the many tools and supports services that exist.

Tips

• Assistive technology: voice-activated software, text-reading software
• text-to-speech and scanning tools
• organization of work areas on to improve the reading of  VDU with appropriate fonts and colours
• support on a one-to-one basis setting realistic deadlines, organising workloads, clearly marking deadlines etc.
• Structured admin patterns including written lists, to cope with a list of multiple verbal instructions.
• Provision of a dictaphone.
• Find a proof reading ( non -dyslexic)  peer.

Many famous people have dyslexia -  Tom Cruise,  Steve Jobs, Einstein,  Winston Churchill, Walt Disney, Leonardo da Vinci, Richard Branson and Thomas Edison to name but a few! And we all know what kind of careers they enjoyed!

If you are coping with a moderate learning difference in the workplace, don’t remain isolated. Most geographies offer support, please check out your local areas.

Who is complacent? Women or organisations?

I recently watched “Made in Dagenham” , a movie made about the women machinists at Ford’s Dagenham factory who downed tools in 1968, in protest that they were classed as unskilled workers, while male colleagues doing the same job were thought to be skilled and therefore paid much more for their efforts.

The three-week strike brought production at the factory,  which was the centre of the UK car industry at the time, to a halt. The dispute was finally resolved only when Barbara Castle, the  Minister for Employment was brought in to negotiate a settlement.

The Ford machinist ladies returned to work after agreeing to be paid not parity with their male colleagues, but 92 per cent of male machinists’ wages. This strike accelerated the introduction of the Equal Pay Act of 1970, which made it illegal to have different pay scales for men and women.

Are women dissatisfied enough?
This prompted me think of Vineet Nayar’s slightly contentious HBR article, “Are women dissatisfied enough?”    He suggests that perhaps we women are a tad too complacent and not dissatisfied enough to “force” the changes we want to see in our lives today.  Referencing the US Civil Rights Movement, the Egyptian Revolution and Indian Independence, he suggests that “The difference between a change and a revolution is a function of the extent of dissatisfaction.”

Historical Perspective
In a historical perspective post World War II economic models were created specifically to accommodate men returning from the traumas of a global war and to increase the birth rate. This model was therefore based on a nuclear family containing an economic provider and a child raiser, with women therefore discouraged from entering the workforce. After heroic war efforts on the home front, the seeds of dissatisfaction with this way of life were sown by women in the 60s and 70s, resulting in certain amount of bra burning, shortening of skirts, free love and general cultural unrest. Economies were relatively buoyant at the time and these demands were met, as we saw in Dagenham. The long-term result of these movements was that more women entered education and thereafter embarked on career routes.

Generally,  those male centric business models in many cases prevail today. In some areas, limited meaningful changes have actually been made to organizational structures to marry the inevitable outcome of the increased number of educated women in our societies and the resulting demands made by a two career family.

What sort of protests?
However , I’m not sure what Vineet had in mind, but the point is that women shouldn’t have to occupy the cafeteria to get a promotion,  or pitch tents in the car park to lead high visibility projects. As Gene Marks astutely points out in Why  Most Women Won’t be CEOs   they would certainly need a babysitter before they could even think about chaining themselves to the revolving doors of their corporate headquarters to make a point. For many women the strongest form of protest is via a silent revolution, of voting with their feet. They simply leave.  Why? Because unlike both the men and women in India, Egypt and Louisiana  what’s on offer doesn’t interest them enough and isn’t attractive enough to channel their energies. They choose to do other things. And this is where organisational complacency kicks in, as generally male leaders sit back and simply watch a brain drain. Truthfully many men would also leave, but they are equally tied by the same limiting model in their allocated role as the “ provider”.

Silent revolution
So I asked 3 women what would need to happen to make them take some form of decisive and extreme industrial action, petitioning the board or walking out on strike.

• Suzanna,  London  solicitor  “Nothing probably – a crime against humanity“
• Fabienne,  advertising executive, Belgium  “ Perhaps some sort of physical abuse which had been tolerated by senior management – but if I’m honest only if there was a group”
• Martha, Pharmaceutical Researcher,  Italy  “  Closure of the offices perhaps and as  part of a general protest“

We know that organisations tend  only to adapt to demands made by both men and men for change in the workplace, when their bottom lines are impacted.  Whether these changes will follow the retirement of  baby boomers raised by post war  “stay at home”  Mums,   or the discrediting of  “ crony capitalism”  with  yet another financial crisis, ( I never thought I would hear myself quote Sarah Palin  ..heaven help me).

But it will happen eventually.

So what would prompt you to take industrial action?