You can't be serious!

You can’t be serious!?

Hello and a warm welcome to the third edition of the 2to3days newsletter - for people in business who are responsible for hiring decisions and who want to accelerate the pace of change when it comes to women’s equality.

By 10:30am last Wednesday on IWD ’23 I was like a bear with a sore head. I found myself compelled to get out of my home office and go and have a vent, so my friendly greengrocer, Sevi, got it in the neck. Poor chap, he is such a sweetheart! But my, did I feel better for it.?

Why??

Because I found it all soooooo frustrating.?

IWD ‘23 looked and felt to me exactly like IWD ‘22, ‘21 and ’20. And if we don’t do something different then IWD ‘24, ‘25 and ‘26 will look and feel exactly the same too.?

Change feels so incrementally slow. It feels like we are caught up in the same spin cycle and getting nowhere fast.

I know I am not alone feeling this way, because I checked. In the past week I have spoken to some seriously capable women in the @2to3days community and to company directors, business owners and hiring managers, and they all feel the same frustration.?

So, I took a look at the IWD website and have pulled out some of what they say.??

…”The world has witnessed a significant change and attitudinal shift in both women's and society's thoughts about women's equality and emancipation.... With more women in the boardroom, greater equality in legislative rights, and an increased critical mass of women's visibility as impressive role models in every aspect of life, one could think that women have gained true equality.”

But here’s the rub, where the frustration kicks in… “The unfortunate fact is that women are still not paid equally to that of their male counterparts, women still are not present in equal numbers in business or politics, and globally women's education, health and the violence against them is worse than that of men.”

It goes on to say… “Many from a younger generation may feel that 'all the battles have been won for women’…”

I can see that. According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, in 1951 80% of girls left school at 16 years of age. By the early eighties women made up 41% of undergraduates. By 1995, the gender gap in higher education had reversed. And employment followed – between 1975 and 2017 rates of working women rose from 57% to 78%.?

This is all great news. The problem is that we’re not retaining these women as their careers progress. And that’s the reason we feel we are going backwards. We all know this, but what I see in my daily life is that there still seems to be a woeful disconnect between companies who openly acknowledge that they want senior, experienced female talent back in their organisations but at the same time refuse to embrace the one thing that will make this possible – namely, offering genuine flexible working so that women can integrate work into their lives while still getting the job done. That’s the key. They are not mutually exclusive and wanting this does not make these women any less ambitious, capable or committed. In fact, the opposite is true.??

The bottom line is that too many companies are still paying lip service to flexible working. It’s time for employers to seriously up their game and take it seriously. Flexible working is a key driver and agent of change. It’s here to stay. Every generation is demanding it. It drives equality at all levels of the workforce, and it creates inclusive work environments.?

The frustration amongst the women is palpably acute and the cost to the economy is massive to the tune of ￡600billion – and that’s before the pandemic set back gender equality in the workplace by 25 years.

Let me give you a quick example. On Saturday night I was in the pub watching England getting pounded by the French in the 6 Nations and got talking to two friends. Both are senior women, one from the banking sector and one from cyber security, and they were talking about their roles as NEDS. Both are privy to boardroom conversations, and both were lamenting how frequently they hear boards discussing the need to get more senior women but then in the same breath go on to dismiss flexible working…

Why is there so much resistance to flexible working? A topic for a future newsletter!

The reason I know companies are paying lip service to flexible working is that every day I see their job adverts. Most of them are shockingly bad, adverts that don’t inspire and too often are poorly disguised as full-time roles with no real flexibility. Of course, the women vote with their feet and don’t apply, and the companies blame the shortage of candidates rather than their own adverts.?

The other day I was with a senior member of a world-famous plc who admitted to me that their job adverts were little more than ‘cut and paste’ jobs that had been in circulation for years.?

Seriously, it’s a joke!

There is no fresh thinking or putting the person they want to attract at the heart of the job advert.?

Here’s the thing. If you want to attract the best female talent out there, then draft a job advert that does justice to the role and will appeal to the target audience. I get that the job advert is the final piece of a much larger process that begins with an inclusive culture, career planning, interview process etc but companies are letting themselves and the women down.?

Either we continue to dance around our proverbial handbags, or we individually decide to commit to doing something about it – flip the mindset, flip the narrative. So that come IWD ‘24. you can look back and say, ‘I did this’ or as a company ‘we did that’. The collective effect would be massive.?

So what's it going to be?

Before I sign off I thought I would share that in the past two weeks? I have committed to cycling the London to Brighton Cycle Ride – 55 miles in aid of Prostate Cancer. I am not a cyclist. But I decided after years of procrastination and a large dose of CBA to commit, to take action and to do something different. Funnily enough I have already started to attract more into my life and companies you can do the same!

Food for thought. You just need to decide…

Juliet?

Who am I?

I am Juliet Turnbull, the founder of 2to3days, the company I set up because I believe that women in the 21st century have a fundamental right to reach their full potential at work. I believe the UK plc needs a female focused talent marketplace that supports women, inspires women and connects women to organisations that want to hire more women to work flexibly. I myself have worked flexibly for the past 20 years. I don’t believe you can have it all but I do believe you can ‘have both’ - a great work and home life which comes through integration.?

I am a straight talking, crack on and make it happen sort of girl. I believe in speaking truth to power and being your authentic self. I am on the third chapter of my career - I started life as a Chartered Surveyor before moving into business coaching and now I am an entrepreneur building a purpose-led business.