April's diary

I chose a photo of my dog to put a smile on your face, as this month’s diary is not going to lift your spirits!

As I reflect on this month, it has crept up on me that it has felt unbelievably depressing.?

As a nation that obsesses about the weather, gosh has it rained and for someone who is growing her own veg for the first time, the debate about the ground being too wet, too cold is endlessly boring.?

We can't rely on the politicians

That lament is futile when you look at the scale of the humanitarian crisis that is escalating in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. I don’t know about you, but for the first time in my life I feel really scared about our national safety. The mounting tension is palpable.?Sadly, it wouldn't surprise any of us if some ‘nutter’ (political leader) got trigger happy and pressed a button that changed in a heartbeat the global security that so many of us have?enjoyed for 70 plus years.?Our ever increasingly fractious and fragile world is profoundly unsettling.

On the home front, I have, with the one exception when Tony Blair promised us a new beginning, voted Conservative. But after 14 years in power the party is a complete and utter embarrassment and will leave our country, at some point this year, in a mess. We have a failing NHS, pitiful defense budget, a cost of living crisis, sewage spewing into our seas and rivers, and a gazillion pot holes that are rapidly turning into craters -- all of which is alarmingly worrying.

With a country in such political and economic turmoil our next government is not going to be priotising gender equality in the workplace. Nor are they going to overhaul childcare or modernise the school timetable so that it is in sync with the working day (the school holidays were designed when we were a nation of farmers and all needed to bring in the harvest!). They simply don’t have the bandwidth.?So the working landscape for women as they advance their careers is going to remain a tough gig.

We can't rely on the economy

At the beginning of April the right to ask for flexible working from day one came into force. I took part in the Pregnant Then Screwed Webinar discussion (thank you) with the Department of Business and Trade. Sadly I reached the raw conclusion that whilst it is a step forward it is little more than a token, as in my humble opinion companies will exploit every ‘business case’ argument going and simply decline the vast majority of requests.??

The backlash to ED&I initiatives is also in full swing; having started in the US it has now reached our shores. On a daily basis the tenor of my LinkedIn feed has also changed from optimism and frequent celebration to a growing outcry of panic as reports from the front line gender equality consultants, such as Sharon Peake , Cat Wildman , Robert Baker are increasingly frustrated by what they witness.

To add to the woe, last week I also took part in a webinar hosted by Shape Talent Ltd where we were discussing the business case for flexible working. Sadly, as Lyn Bartholomew of Ericsson pointed out, the reality is that whilst tremendous inroads were made thanks to Covid -- and I hope and pray that companies will stick to hybrid working -- there are many alarming signs that the gravitational pull back towards the traditional 9-5 in the office model is getting stronger.?Great for the younger workers but not great for women in their 30’s through to their ‘50’s who are saddled with juggling family caring responsibilities. Only yesterday as I left aerobics, a friend, looking for her next interim COO position, shouted over her shoulder that Kantar , one of the world’s largest research companies, is only offering 5-day-a-week in the office contracts.

A ray of sunshine: the FTSE 350 now has 42% of women in executive positions. This is a tremendous landmark and I salute all the many men and women who have been behind such progress. However, this achievement will be short-lived if we don’t fix the ‘broken rung on the career ladder’ as McKinsey refers to the women in the middle of their career paths. All the evidence shows that the odds are still stacked against keeping women in the workforce.

We need to rely on society

I get it. Advancing women in the workplace is a complex and multifaceted issue. Policy making is not a priority and too many companies continue to play lip service to it. The upshot is that female talent remains hidden, opportunities are lost and progress feels, at best, painfully slow.?

People are yearning for a sense of belonging and community. I think it is up to us as individuals to come together and to get behind something that will make a difference and that doesn't rely on our political system or the whims of company policy. In that way collectively we can build a stronger pipeline of female talent and female entrepreneurs. It’s up to us to take control and be the solution to our own dilemma.

What are your thoughts? I don't want to be my own echo chamber. We have enough of these already and they aren't working either! Please DM me or leave a comment below.

What have I been up to in April outside of thinking about women in the workplace?

• I watched Sarah Snook’s outstanding solo performance in The Portrait of Dorian Grey
• I read The One thing by Gary W Keller and Jay Papasan
• I read The Lean Start up by Eric Ries
• I continue to swim in the sea - it's now a balmy 11 degrees!
• I walked another leg of the South Downs Way
• I planted my herb garden, sweet peas and dahlias - marvellous and so quintessentially British!