Who’s Sponsoring you to Smash the Glass Ceiling?

One of the most important findings of the Lipstick Leadership research so far, is the fact that the women who do reach the giddy heights of dancing to their own tune in the Boardroom, have, in all cases, had a career sponsor. A career sponsor is not a mentor, is not a coach, but is something entirely different. A sponsor is an advocate – a fan!

Let us look at what this ‘fan’ does, and begin by looking at it not from a career perspective, but from a customer and product perspective. At O2, the mobile and telecoms company, the Customer Service Director was once quoted as saying ‘at O2, we do not create customers, we create fans’. Cheryl Black is right. I am a fan of O2, a fan of Apple, but a customer of Marks and Spencer. What is the difference? A customer has brand awareness of your product or service, may even have brand preference and sometimes also display behaviours of brand loyalty, but a fan takes the customer experience to a whole new level and becomes an advocate. They shout about it from the rooftops, bring their friends, refuse to consider another option, look for ways to justify their purchase, loyalty and the brand itself. Mistakes are allowed, but it does not shake the fan from their pulpit of loyal and loud advocacy. It was Walt Disney who exemplified the ‘fan’ culture within Disney by saying to his people, “Do what you do ‘so well’ that they will want to see it again; and bring their friends.” Customers of restaurants purchase more than just a meal, football fans buy more than just a game… Customers, in fact buy three things:

• Good feelings and solutions to problems – customers buy with solutions in mind, not problems; a lovely cup of tea, not a new kettle because the old one has packed up.
• Buy with emotion and justify with Logic – you may ‘need’ a car to get you from A to B, but you really ‘want’ that nice little pink sports car with the soft top and great sound system! Here comes the logic… ‘of course I got a good deal, and it is economical!’
• Understand where they are and what they want – This is about closing the gap between ‘lack’ of something and ‘abundance’ of something - The CEO of Revlon once said, in our factories we make cosmetics, in our stores we sell hope.

It is the same in your career and if we apply the fan principles to your career, a sponsor is ESSENTIAL!

A Sponsor will:

1. Shout from the rooftops on your behalf
2. Will be aware of your unique brand, will have a preference for your unique brand, will be loyal to your unique brand and will, unreservedly, be an advocate for it above ALL others
3. Will recognise where you will create ‘good feelings and solutions to problems’ and will sell the benefit of you in that environment
4. Will be empathetic (my colleague at ALLY Coaching & Mentoring, Ali Dawson is writing and studying Interpersonal Intelligence, which by the way is more than emotional intelligence, and she is defining how others ‘tune in’ and create empathy) a sponsor tunes in and has empathy beyond what you do, he has empathy about who you are, how you do what you do, and who you can become.
5. Care about your success SO much! He has his own reputation on the line here, and so has a vested interest in the success of the brand he is advocating – you can’t let him down, his reputation depends on it – he can’t let you down, his reputation depends on it!

Finding sponsors is important, and many women don’t do it because they believe that it is politicking. Let me give you some advice, it is not! Politicking is entirely different, it can be manipulative and focused on jabbing your high heel in the person below you on the career ladder. Sponsorship is different, it does not create enemies, and in 100% of the successful women that I have interviewed, each of them have had a sponsor. In one case, a lady told me that she had one main male sponsor, but also a ‘posse’ of others!

Harvard Business Review has just released a report entitled:

The Sponsor Effect: Breaking Through the Last Glass Ceiling

by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Kerrie Peraino, Laura Sherbin, Karen Sumberg

In the introduction they say “Women aren’t making it to the top. Despite gains in middle and senior management, they hold just 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEO positions. In the C-suite, they’re outnumbered four to one. What’s keeping women under the glass ceiling? According to this report, it’s the absence of male advocacy. High-performing women simply don’t have the sponsorship they need to reach the top. Spearheaded by American Express, Deloitte, Intel, and Morgan Stanley, the Hidden Brain Drain Task Force launched a study in 2009 to determine the impact of sponsorship and why women fail to make better use of it. The study found that women underestimate the role sponsorship plays in their advancement. And those who do grasp its importance fail to cultivate it. Many feel that getting ahead based on “connections” is a dirty tactic and that hard work alone is their ticket to the top. Women’s reluctance to engage senior men as allies is justified. Sponsorship, which often involves an older, married male spending time with a younger female, can look like an affair–and the wider the power gap between them, the greater the risk to both parties. In short, sponsorship can be misconstrued as sexual interest, so ambitious women and highly placed men avoid it. For women, the road to the top is also fraught with judgments about their personal lives. If they’re married with children, their would-be sponsors assume they are less available and less dedicated–and unsuitable for the C-suite. And yet a single woman with no children is often viewed by senior-level men as an oddity or a threat. It’s a classic catch-22: a woman’s personal choices, whatever they may be, brand her as not quite leadership material. What will it take to promote sponsorship? In 2010, leading-edge companies are making relationships between sponsors and protiges safe and transparent. Much work remains. But companies that foster sponsorship of their standout women will gain a competitive advantage in talent markets the world over.” The full report can be found at http://hbr.org/product/the-sponsor-effect-breaking-through-the-last-glass/an/10428-PDF-ENG?referral=00930&cm_mmc=email-_-rtb-_-10428-_-10428_053111_rtb&utm_source=rtb_10428&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10428_053111_rtb

Breaking through the glass (or concrete) ceiling to be given the chance of Dancing your best work in the Boardroom requires a new mindset that includes finding a brilliant sponsor (or fan). So how do you go about doing that and who should they be? Should it be a man? If so why?

Next week I am running two workshops, one for the women at Hewlett-Packard, and one for the women in IBM. These women know what its like to work for their organisations, and to continually smack their heads off this ceiling. By the end of the workshop, they will have an understanding of how to grow their brand, grow their career and find others to shout about it on their behalf. What needs to happen for you to run a workshop like this, or engage in career coaching?

For details of workshops and coaching on careers for your women, contact: Lynne Copp, Managing Director, The worklife Company, admin@theworklifecompany.com 

Dance your BEST life!

Lynne Copp, Author, Public Speaker, Coach

Congratulations on Your Engagement!

The route to engaging employees towards customer intimacy should not be too onerous, and yet employee engagement is often regarded as a dark art!

John Ruskin once said “In order for people to be happy and engaged in their work, these three things are needed:

1. They must be for it
2. They must not do too much of it
3. They must have a sense of success in it.”

By exploring each of his 3 tenets, maybe we can find an easy and yet fundamental way to measure and track engagement?

They must be for it

To me ‘being for it’ comes down to three things:

• Belief in what the organization does or stands for
• Passion for the role or contribution
• Trust that the team and organization is supportive

1. Belief – An employee must believe in what your organization does! A sense of pride and belonging are core and forms the reason why people get out of bed in the morning. If an employee doesn’t care about the purpose of the organization, then engagement diminishes. Therefore, in your recruitment campaigns, promotions, development activity and customer strategy, creating belief in the company is key. Do ensure this, leaders must be clear about their purpose. I often ask executive coaching clients, ‘what is the purpose of your organization?’ the response is often ‘to make money’. Realisation comes when they note that the only organisation in the UK whose purpose it is to make money, is the Royal Mint! If a senior leader cannot articulate the purpose of their organization, then how on earth do they expect employees to believe in it and be engaged in its work? Your purpose is a clear and compelling statement that defines WHAT you are in business to do.

2. Passion – To me, this is about a compelling commitment to a direction. It is generally underpinned by behaviours, values and playing to individual strengths. If you know what you are in business to do (purpose), then this part is about the direction that you want to go in – vision. Ask yourself: what will it look like when we get there? An organisation’s vision must be compelling for everyone; from Main Board to Switch Board. As each person looks up from the job they do, and looks towards the future, they should be able to see their contribution to that vision. Those companies that truly envision their landscape, understand the terrain and the future possibilities can engage employees in a passionate determination to be successful.

3. Trust is two-way and requires a leadership commitment to communication and inclusion. Organisations that bask in the warm seas of trust, enjoy open communication, sharing, involvement and better relations; not to mention reduced costs, increased efficiency and increased customer loyalty. Communication is not just reporting the quarterly figures, it is about listening, involving, understanding and empathizing with employees and customers. Creating inclusion means stripping out false and subversive hierarchies, valuing difference and creating an internal employee base that is a micro-representation of the external customer market.

However, a word of caution, it is vitally important that leaders ensure that the basic hygiene factors of the working environment are in place and working well before introducing the engaging motivators. Hertzberg theory of motivation suggests this too (diagram left), and by way of proof, please consider this:  94% people may join an organization because of what it does, but 96% leave because of their manager! This is often not due to the manager’s skills or capabilities, but rather, their disengaging behaviours – lack of trust, belief and passion. It is no longer good enough to employ managers that continue to disengage their staff by using inappropriate and out of date ways of managing. However, some managers just don’t know what ‘good behaviour’ looks like,  and whilst they may not be tyrannical, they can none the less demotivate employees in a slow, ‘dripping tap’ kind of way. Investment in management coaching (from qualified coaches) does bring about sustained improvement in management effectiveness as well as reducing staff turnover and increasing engagement.

They must not do too much of it!

This is about two things:

1. Worklife balance

2. Time in job

1. On the topic of worklife balance, I have spoken about this at international conferences as well as written about the business case for flexible working for many years. However, from a customer perspective, think of it like this… would your customers prefer to deal with bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and well rested human beings, or demotivated, disengaged, tired or stressed individuals who have no worklife balance due to inflexible and out of date rules? The business case for worklife balance and flexible working is compelling, and proven to work time and again. The key is to work with managers to let go of and reduce control of time, increase their consistency of approach and keep an eye on the customer at all times. What I mean by that is that worklife balance is as much about the business need for flexibility as it is for the employee need. Begin with the customer need for contact, and then work out the ideal customer focused flexible working systems that you can. One organization that I worked with found that they did little or no business during January. Therefore, they designed an Annualised Hours system where employees worked 11 months of the year and had their salary spread over 12.

2. The second part is time in job. No one should do the same job for more than five years. According to experts, employees begin to lose role engagement after 3 years of doing the same job and by 5, can even show signs of dysfunctional behavior like self sabotage or sabotage of work. Regular job swaps, secondments, role change and promotion can all help to keep the variety and challenge in a role. It is also important in all of this to play to peoples’ strengths – employees who do what they love and love what they do are generally more efficient.

The ICS Professional Awards are a way of creating variation in a role that could otherwise be potentially disengaging. As a coach, I often provide a resource for organisations keen to improve the qualification levels of their employees. Personal development is a real motivator (as shown in Hertzberg’s model), and of course this can be achieved through qualifications, coaching, training and mentoring.

They must have a sense of success in it

John Lewis Partnership is probably the best example of creating an environment where employees have a genuine vested interest in the success of the organization. Even if your organization cannot emulate JLP, then maybe there are other things that you can do to create a sense of shared commitment and ownership towards success. This of course is generally monetary, but can be encouraged in non-monetary ways. A compelling vision, with a true culture of engagement, and a share in the profits, investments, community projects and an influence on the benefits package, can all aid engagement. Flexible benefits schemes that encourage more than just financial reward are innovative and can be engaging. One organization in Birmingham has a ‘time or money’ scheme for its employees. Each year, employees decide whether more money or more time off, is their priority. The company enjoys zero sickness absence and less than 5% attrition. Employee recognition schemes that combine reward with involvement are more successful than just monetary schemes. One organization that I work, where I facilitate action-coaching teams focused on process improvement and customer satisfaction, they combine money with involvement. If a team takes the initiative to improve a process on behalf of the customer, and puts together a business case detailing what outcome they wish to achieve and how it will benefit the customer and/or the organization, the management team sets aside an amount of money that the team can spend if successful. This amount is calculated as a percentage of the team’s estimated ROI – usually about 10-15%. Then, the team sets to work improving the process. It is key that they measure and track improvement and at an agreed time, generally 6 to 12 months after completion, they report findings to the company and actual savings/profits. The team is then awarded the money based on actual ROI (which is usually more than the estimate) and are able to spend it as they see fit. One team bought a couple of cows for an African village, one team paid for a disabled team member to convert her car to suit her disability, and one team had a plush weekend away. The key thing is that the recognition was in the hands of the receivers! When employees feel that they have choice in how to appropriately recognize their own efforts, then the recognition scheme works – and by the way, success benefits the company too. This company has saved and earned millions as a result of this scheme – and the employees are engaged in it.

There you have it. Ruskin could be right; maybe it is as simple as:

1. They must be for it
2. They must not do too much of it
3. They must have a sense of success in it

Whatever way you interpret his three guidelines, the fact is, that they create a basis for measuring and tracking employee engagement. I will end with the final lesson from Mr. Clive Woodward, former Manager of England Rugby, who once said ‘Leaders get the culture they behave.’ A big clue to engagement is therefore often the person that runs the show… how engaging are you?

Lynne Copp

Coach, Public Speaker and Author

Managing Director

The Worklife Company

Associate Member of The ICS

Happy Mother’s Day! – or is it? Do mothers really get balance?

Monday’s mum is tired of the pace,

Tuesday’s mum puts on a brave face.

Wednesday’s mum has stress to show,

Thursday’s mum has lost her glow.

Friday’s mum wants time for living,

Saturday’s mum is fed up of giving.

And the mum that must work on Mothering Day,

Is tired and sad with not much pay!

 

But the job of a mum is joy and love, her babies (at all ages) are her life, and her most important role. There is not one mother who would place a business priority over the priority of a sick child. Life comes first for every employee, but women in the main take responsibility for caring.

As we approach Mothering Sunday, give thought to some cheery stats and celebrate these women for their abilities to juggle, organize, plan, project manage and most of all give love to their work and their life…

• 1 in 6 women in the workplace have children under 16 – how many workplaces still insist on set hours of work that put these children under stress to leave home at unnatural hours, or turn them into latch-key kids?
• 86% of caring responsibilities in a family are down to women - Caring takes up 50+ hours a week – there is no time for self, and when the boss wants her 100% of the time, her children want her, her partner, parents, friends…is it any wonder that stress takes its toll?
• In the 10 years after having a baby, only 4% of women are promoted – some of this is self-imposed, but the sad fact is that even with those choices included, there are too many women overlooked for promotion due to the fact that they have children
• 68% of new businesses set up by women are for reasons of flexibility – flexible working is an easy thing to do and brings benefits to organisations, customers and teamwork. However, there are still too many organisations that seek to control their people and the hours they are present. It is time to start measuring output (contribution) and not input (hours)
• For every £1 a man earns in pension, a woman earns 32p – The pay gap is 16% and only 1% of organisations have women on the Board. 75% of those women have a life partner in an equally professional role, but 76% of men at the top have a wife that stays at home…

Do something for a mum in your workplace this week… how about Friday afternoon off? Or Monday morning? If you can’t do it for every mum, then think about doing what a Nursery in Birmingham did. The owner-manager wanted to recognise the mums in her nursery but she couldn’t give them all the day off at once. So, she introduced Birth-Days. Every employee was given the gift of a day off on her birthday. She handed the gift out to everyone on Stork cards! If an employee’s birthday landed on a weekend, then they got to choose which day to have instead. It cost the Nursery an extra day’s holiday for every employee, but sickness absence dropped and saved them more than the cost of the holiday, and commitment and productivity increased. Of course, not all employees are mums, but other companies have Birthday holidays for all employees too and is a true recognition of them as a person. Another company, decided that their ‘top mum’ performer could have the day off and that the MD would wash her car, the FD did her ironing, the Ops Manager and Manufacturing Manager cleaned her house and her HR Manager took the children to school! She was bundled off for a Spa Day! The motivation and commitment from everyone was so strong and it built trust, fun and teamwork in the culture of the organisation!

The gift of TIME to mums is so precious, try something this week…

Dance Your Best Life

Lynne

 

Dancing Queens – Which leads YOU?

What causes imbalance in your life? What are the dances that you dance to that take up your time and prevent you from dancing your best life?

In order to get our needs met when we were little, we would develop a range of behaviours, which, although effective in our family of origin, might actually work against us as adults in the workplace or in the home. These habits often dictate the dances that we dance to, and if over-used, prevent us from dancing to our own purpose. That means that there is a part of you that internally dictates how you behave and therefore “why” you dance to the tunes of others. Remember, it is not a problem until it is a problem! We all dance to childhood tunes some of the time; it only becomes an issue if our inner child inappropriately guides your day-to-day life.

As part of the Dancing ‘Round the Handbags book, I have developed an exercise loosely based in transactional analysis, that supports you to explore these internal dances and decide what, if anything, needs to be done to change responses to specific situations. To make some changes, it is first of all important to understand what drives you and secondly, to understand what aspect of your life it is impacted. For example, if you are a Quickstep mum, you may find it difficult to say “no” to your children. Resulting in you not only being run ragged doing things to please them, but also your financial situation may be less than optimal because you cannot say “no” to the new toy or treat! By identifying where your life is out of balance and relating those to the dances that you dance to, you can begin to make some analysis of where to make effective change.

The most common internal dances are:

• Waltzing Queens – she takes care of others too much
• Disco Queens – she puts everyone before themselves
• Tango Queens – she expects things to go wrong
• Jiving Queens – she lives life in perpetual motion
• Foxtrot Queens – she must be perfect at everything
• Quickstep Queens – she doesn’t like to stay still too long

Although we will all display parts of all of these, they can become a problem and cause addictive or habitual behaviour. For example, the Jive Queen can become addicted to work at the expense of their relationships outside of work. This would be reflected in the worklife wheel as low scores on “me-time” and “family”. Being more involved in work, means that the JQ does not need to face their underlying fears of loneliness; they feel valued at work and obsess about being constantly busy.

Your internal drivers can sometimes prevent you from dancing your best life – if you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got!

Which tune do you dance to?

 

Tango Queen

Folk Saying: “Life is never a bowl of cherries!”

For the TQ, life is a bitch! If it is already bad, it is bound to get even worse. TQ’s often feel inadequate, unworthy and undeserving of happiness. The TQ is a worrier and feels guilty about a lot of things. They will comment on the sacrifices that they make and throw water on the fires of enthusiasm. In being self critical, they will be able to catalogue their own past failings and list how things will fail in future too! The Tango Queen expects things to go wrong.

Worklife Balance Objective: Have fun!

• Allow yourself and others to have pleasure just for the sake of it.
• Work on your attitude: is your glass is half empty, not half full?
• Spend the next month keeping a gratitude diary; each time you do something that you enjoy or are proud of, write it in your diary. At the end of the month read it back to yourself
• Do something fun and spontaneous this week!

Foxtrot Queen

Folk Saying: “If a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing perfectly!”

The FQ is often never satisfied with what they do and how they look. Nothing is ever good enough; especially themselves! Life has to be perfect in all aspects; perfect work, perfect wife, perfect lover etc. They demand high, and sometimes unachievable standards from others and can be very demanding managers. The FQ is prone to procrastination as they cannot hand over a piece of work until it is perfect! Therefore they tend to butt up against deadlines and can miss them for fear of failure. The self-fulfilling prophecy of not being perfect comes into play and results in them working even harder to be perfect. Their best is never good enough.

Worklife Balance Objective: Allow things to be good enough

• Review all the aspects of your life and do the “shoulds” exercise from the book
• Allow one thing this week to go out from your desk less than perfect; no one will know how perfect it could have been!
• Stop expecting perfection from yourself and others; we’re human! Good enough is good enough! So what if the tops of pictures never get dusted or the report has no I’s dotted nor t’s crossed?

Disco Queen

Folk Saying: “I’m just a girl who can’t say ‘no’!” or “I’ll go with the flow!”

DQ’s take on too much. They just can’t say “no”! Their workload is so high and they worry about upsetting people and letting people down. If you ask a DQ how they are, they invariably say “fine”, but they are like a swan, calm on the surface and paddling like crazy underneath! They never tell you when they are unhappy, stressed or overworked; they hope that you will notice! Invariably you won’t and they will feel hurt and let down. DQ’s hate to upset others and apologise for taking up other people’s time.

Worklife Balance Objective: Practice direct communication

• It is time to get your own needs met! Be direct with your communication; and ask for what you need.
• Stop apologising for taking up other people’s time, if it wasn’t convenient, they’d tell you.
• Make a list of all the jobs you take on and delegate some to others. Even at home, it’s ok for someone else to do the washing up for a change!

Waltzing Queen

Folk saying: “What would you do without me?”

WQ’a love to take care of others either physically (feeding, accommodation, money, driving others around etc.) or psychologically (making decisions, giving support and approving what others do etc.). They like people to be dependant on them as they want to feel indispensable. They often don’t get their own needs met and complain about other people being so dependant like babies.

Worklife Balance Objective: Do something for you!

• Allow people to live their own life – let them grow up and make their own mistakes
• You are not a puppeteer, cut the strings and do something for you – take up a new hobby – on your own!

Jiving Queen

Folk saying: “A woman’s work is never done!”

The JQ is in a state of perpetual motion – always busy, never resting. They love the task of “doing” above the relationships that they have with the people in their work or life and sometimes can even feel that going home spoils their rhythm and an interruption in their day. They have an inability to relax and often say, “a woman’s work is never done”. The fact is that it is usually a mask for underlying loneliness.

Worklife Balance Objective: Get a life! Book in me-time!

• Walk in the park, kick the leaves, take time out and get to know the people in your life
• Do nothing for 15 minutes a day – In that time, get to know the real you, face your fears, think about what your missing and then get out there and find it

Quick-Step Queen

Folk saying: “When the going gets tough, I get going…”

QQ’s rarely stand still long enough to face their biggest fear – long-term emotional commitment! They wriggle out of having to communicate and when times get tough, they get going! In the workplace these might be job-hoppers, in life these people may be relationship avoiders – they don’t like commitment. Wherever they lay there hat, that’s their home – at least this week! A QQ doesn’t stay long for fear of being ‘found out’ for not being good enough.

Worklife Balance Objective: Start to love yourself!

• You are OK the way you are! You are not a bad person and people do love you – warts and all!
• Begin to love yourself, go for a massage, a pamper day, a walk with yourself – learn to enjoy what and who you are.
• Learn that long-term commitment actually frees you; it does not trap you. Love and be appreciated.

 

Access to the full questionnaire can be made available as part of:

• one-to-one coaching
• a 90-minute workshop in your organisation,which includes the full questionnaire and tips to create balance in work and life,
• a full and inspirational Dancing ’Round the Handbags® Workshop

Email me at admin@dancingroundthehandbags.com and in the subject header type ‘Dancing Queens’, for details, dates and costs.

Dance Your Best Life!

 

Spring Forward!

As I admire the beautiful daffodils of Spring, I am reminded of the New Year’s Resolutions that many of us announced with gusto on the 31st of December, and wonder how many are still being pursued? Our Resolutions to acquire smaller hips, fitter thighs, a healthier lifestyle, a new job, or to spend more time with friends may still remain a desire but now, as the first bulbs pop their ochre heads above the frosty soil, do we regard ourselves as failures at making lasting change happen? I wonder if the reason that we ‘fail’ is not due to desire, but rather that work takes over and in our frenetic offices of demands, deadlines and targets, the goal of losing a few pounds is discarded along with the Kit-Kat wrapper at the first desk-bound lunch-break?

Isn’t it interesting that most of our resolutions are to do with life and not work? How many people resolve to spend more time at work?

Being inspired all the time is tough though. Whilst you burn the midnight oil night after night, trying to convince yourself that “this is just a busy time”, the demons of worklife imbalance eat into your life, your health and your creativity. Most of all they are dampening your flames of inspiration with the cold dark waters of exhaustion and demotivation. How many of you wake up each morning just as tired as when you went to bed? How many dread the ‘call to action’ for change, creativity, empowerment and growth? I often hear employees say that they feel just like robots, trudging through treacle of work with no real inspiration or motivation any more.  They don’t mean to be that way! In fact, they would rather be passionate about what they do every day! After all, isn’t that how it used to be?

How can each of us re-ignite the flames of inspiration in our teams and ourselves; and whilst we achieve great things, get the chance to live a little too? It is now the beginning of a new season, let’s start as we mean to continue. Begin by completing the Worklife Wheel, email me at lynne.copp@theworklifecompany.com, and I will email you the whole tool. The Worklife Wheel will provide you with an image of your current reality, and from there, you can begin to take charge of your goals and resolutions that will stick!

If you manage a team, your people need support with prioritising, letting go, managing workload, managing change, managing interruptions, driving out waste and learning how to say ‘no’. A little word and yet the most difficult to say! ‘Getting to NO! You! Is the most popular SkillSnax Webinar and 90-minute workshop that I run – the last one attracted 468 attendees!

Senior managers need to change the measures that are used for measuring the commitment of their people – why reward the person that works the longest hours? Challenging yes, but how can we be inspired to reach new goals when we are worn out and addicted to working long hours? Our workplaces need people who are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, well rested and eager to deliver their best.

Stress, reduced productivity, increased absenteeism and accelerated attrition are the result of long working hours, excessive workload or inflexibility.  This imbalance is reducing results and crippling many industries. 80% of all sickness absence in the UK is stress related* and around 46% of all absence is due to worklife imbalance. Implementing worklife strategies with even the sole objective of reducing absenteeism, will also save money, increase productivity and realise benefits for the whole organisation. Therefore the motivation to improve can be achieved through sound worklife balance strategies.  Worklife balance is not a tick in the box; it is a journey that takes time to implement and reap reward from – a journey fraught with tough terrain and a few setbacks on the way. However, organisations that stick to their plans, involve all of their people and adopt a tenacious attitude find that not only do results improve but so does customer satisfaction, retention of good employees and overall reduction in costs. This agenda requires clear leadership, role modelling and commitment to excellence in people management from the top.

My challenge is for each of you to look closely at driving out waste and driving down long hours. To end, I am always reminded of the story quoted in the book “The Heart of Success” by Rob Parsons, where a little boy asks his mum why does daddy work such long hours? His mother replies “Well, maybe daddy just doesn’t get all his work done in the time allocated”. The little boy ponders on this for a moment and replies “Then why don’t they put him in a slower class?”

Start as you mean to go on, use this year to really make a difference to your work and life and that of your team and remember; no one ever lay on their deathbed wishing they had spent more time at work.

 

Lynne Copp

 

A Day in the Life of a Working Mum and Carer

Due to the inflexibility and old hat management systems of many organisations, the UK workforce still appears to set off for work at the same time. Like lemmings we fight our way through fuel filled traffic-mayhem arriving at work feeling as though we have already completed a day’s work just from the drive! However, for women add to this the fact that 86% of caring responsibilities in a family are still theirs, and we see a very different sort of working day and week. Caring for children can often account for more than 50 hours in an average week, and if elder care is an added responsibility, then the caring role for women can take up most of their waking hours. Add to this a demanding job in an industry where leaders constantly demand more for less, and we soon begin to see the stress related cracks appear.

Employers would do well to raise awareness of the flexible working needs of all staff, but in particular those that have caring responsibility. I remember one team that I worked for where the leader would demand early morning meetings or meetings late in the afternoon. As a committed team player, I would pull out all the stops to be there; organising and paying for extra childcare, organising home life to make sure I could get there on time. I could count on one hand the actual amount of times that the meetings went ahead, but often they were cancelled at the last-minute. Unfortunately the invoice for the extra childcare was not! Parents need to be able to plan ahead, so having a working pattern that allows them to do so is important. Like all of us, parents also experience ad hoc emergency – like a child falling ill overnight. Being able to work from home or make up the time is important – the last thing they need is to be worrying about job security at the same time as worrying about their child!

This little tongue in cheek story is written to exemplify the day in the life of a mum…

Having found a car park space (3 miles from the office) and in the driving rain, I hobble through the front door feeling a small sense of achievement as I reflect on the amount I’ve done already; and it’s only 8am!… I spent the whole of breakfast resembling a six-armed Goddess: making up packed lunches, chopping up salad for my own lunch, making tea, coffee, hot chocolate and juice. I then single-handedly extracted burnt offerings from the toaster with a fork, (even though I knew the danger of being electrically catapulted into eternity at any moment), and at the same time removing the ‘free Kellogg’s toy’  from my toddler’s throat! I remembered to take something out of the freezer for tea, sign homework diaries, put on my make up, pack my laptop, downloaded my email to my Crackberry, handed out dinner money, packed the baby’s food for nursery, fed the cat and counselled my teenage daughter on the reasons why she could not wear that tiny skirt to school! This feat of military precision was only achieved because of the night before’s routines of laying out clothes, packing gym kits, organising meals, laying tables, doing washing and running through endless to-do lists in my mind!

Now, my day is filled with juggling the tasks, relationships and demands of colleagues. Email-weeding has become the mainstay of the job whilst my posture has become increasingly hunched, my eyes squared and my bottom  fast resembling a pile of baker’s dough from sitting down too much! I attend mind-numbing meetings where the air is contaminated with the strong stench of politics, competition, “I-take-the-credit” junkies and the acrid, nauseous smell of Corporate jargon. I fend off angry customers and hierarchical demons whilst thrusting my way through the thorny and menacing glades of deadlines, bullying, discrimination and egos. The result? Confusion, tiredness, stress and a feeling of never quite achieving anything of any real consequence!

When one has children to pick up, or caring responsibilities of any kind, or even somewhere else to go after work, it is vitally important to leave on time! To do this I have worked very hard to be efficient during the day; multi-tasking at every opportunity. I have worked through lunch and cut through raft loads of work like a chef fan-chopping carrots. I have ran from meeting to meeting in a frenzy of effort that I had hoped would convey “look at me, I work so hard and well, please let me go off to pick up my kids without feeling bad about it!” Fat chance – no one notices the hard work; but they do notice the clock!

I rise from my desk, first of all pulling on my ‘coat of guilt’. This coat has two badges on it; “I feel guilty leaving my colleagues behind to carry on working.” The other states, “I feel guilty not being there for my family.” Once I have buttoned it to make sure the guilt coat doesn’t fall off, I pull on my hat of shame, which also has two badges; one that states, “I am probably not a good team player!” and the other that states “other women get it right, why can’t you?” I pull it tight over my ears to mask out what’s about to be said by those around me less empathetic to the demands of my life. First there is Shelley-the-dinky (double-income-no-kids-yet) whose ambition in life is to single-handedly prove to the world that you can have it all. Shelley flicks me a disapproving glance as she picks up the telephone, whilst hammering the keys on her laptop (which sounds to me like heavy summer rain on a bus shelter). Her disapproval is blended with an insincere pitying look that communicates “shame you’ll never make it”. Then in a flick of her mouse and her swivel chair, she is lost in conversational “career networking” with the Head of Marketing. Then I meet Madge’s glare, a scary troll that has neither empathy nor sympathy for the working mother as it is such a long time since her family were young (she of course stayed at home). She stares from above her spectacles, neck muscles twitching disapproval from beneath her mock pearls. She fidgets in her seat; a gesture that simultaneously convulses into a heaving sigh as she raises her lizard-like glare towards the office clock. This is the signal for Nigel (Nig) and Gary (Gaz) the office “lads” to launch into their hyena cackles and snarls “B****y part timers!” they yelp across the office in fits of hysterical, shoulder convulsing laughter. If that’s not enough, finally there’s my boss. He stretches his neck above the shell-like security of his desk in the corner, his pallid tortoise gaze searching for the cause of the noise. He wants a quiet life, he wants to meet his targets and then go home for dinner. He wants no hassle; he just wants the job done. He doesn’t know how to deal with these behaviours or how to deal with me. His desperate look says “I don’t know what to say, I don’t know how to manage women like you!” and I suddenly feel guilty for him too.

Finally I burst through the glass front door and back into driving rain for the second time today. My heart is racing, my mind is buzzing and the tightness in my stomach is nothing compared to the heaviness of my coat of guilt and the pressure of the shame hat on my head. The day is not yet over, my other full-time job is about to begin… again. Will I ever get five minutes peace?

Tips for Mums and carers:

1. Time Thieves – Understand how you currently spend your time; what takes up your time and what can you do to find support or stop doing some things?
2. Job swap – find a network of support who can do some of the chores for you. If you cannot afford to hire cleaners, ironing ladies, gardeners etc. Then job swap. I have two friends who take it in turns to pick up each other’s children freeing up the other to catch up with ironing etc. I have two other friends where one loves ironing and the other hates it, and the other loves cooking and the other hates it. So they swap jobs, the ironer does the ironing for both, whilst the other cooks meals that can be frozen! The result is freed up time and better mood for both.
3. Ask for flexible working – there are many ways to flex your time and work. Read the flexible working blog and put the business case together for your boss
4. Focus on your nutrition and sleep. Review your diet and make sure that you re eating well and supplementing as appropriate. After all, you could not drive a car without filling it with the right fuel and maintaining it regularly, so don’t do it to your body! Eat well, sleep well and take time out for you.
5. Get yourself a piggy bank! Every day, drop a £1 in for every thing that you have been proud of today. Then at your birthday, empty it out and buy yourself a personal gift with all the proud pounds.
6. Stop trying to be all things to all people! Get your own needs met too. Negotiate some time when you can do something for yourself, and leve the guilt and shame clothes behind!

Tips for Bosses of Mums:

Job for a day

Do your employee’s least preferred task for a day! Find out what job they hate doing the most and you do it for a day! That way you can both look for ways to make it more interesting and they get to have a day off from it!

Pay-slip Message

Each month at pay-day, send a note with the employee’s pay-slip that is personalised and praises what they have done well this month! Say it with sincerity!

Time and Attention

Listen to those things that cause her greatest angst – it could be rushing to get to work for a certain time, or leaving at a certain time to pick up children, or having meetings at a certain time. Find out what would work better for her and see if it could be accommodated. Remember, she will feel like she is in a tug-of-war; wanting to be loyal to you and to her family!

Last minute Cancellations

It’s life; these things happen! However, when a meeting is cancelled at the last-minute that was scheduled to happen either very early in the morning or last thing in the evening, be aware that your employee might still have to carry the cost of any extra childcare; even if she doesn’t use it! Try, wherever possible, to stick to plans or look for ways to compensate by re-organising the meeting for a time when extra childcare won’t be a financial burden for her.

Time!

Give “time off” as recognition for something special; a mum will prefer that to money any day of the week. Giving a mum money to go out to dinner is often not seen as recognition because of the extra cost of babysitters. Or, if you give her store vouchers, she will be happy; but guess who she will spend them on? The children! So if you really want to recognise her efforts; give her time!

Worklife Balance Workshops – 90 minute, 1 day and 2 day workshops available on request. Email, info@theworklifecompany.com

A Glass or Concrete Ceiling?

There is not a week goes by when I do not refer to, or hear the phrase “war for talent”. As companies strive to attract, and more importantly, retain their top talent, they do so using every innovative technique at their disposal. Still, many organisations struggle to retain – especially women. Are these companies using the wrong techniques or are they just missing an obvious opportunity?

Recent research has shown that women are leaving organisations faster than you can dismantle a glass ceiling. Women are becoming disgruntled by the lack of flexibility and the lack of recognition of their needs, motivations and talents. Of the total number of working age women (more than 26 million), only 11% are in senior management roles. However, whilst women do better than men in every phase of school & further education, and businesses suggest that brains rather than brawn are the secret to successful bottom lines, women are still a rare breed at the top. The fact is that the less intelligent of the two genders still holds the wheel and only invites his own type to ride with him in his business car. In the FTSE 100, less than a quarter of companies have even a single woman director and only one in eight of senior roles go to women. Sadly, it doesn’t get easier if a woman leaves to establish her own business either! Of the total funding available from venture capital and angel networks, a stonking 2% is awarded to female run businesses.

Why is this happening? Female run businesses are not a new thing. We have been doing it for hundreds of years. Our contribution to society goes back to our ancient ancestors – and I bet cave-women could manage a business re-selling 2^nd hand designer mammoth furs! No, we are not new creatures who have just slipped out of the undergrowth, but the fact is that women today are still struggling with the same issues in business that women had to contend with in the past.

A survey conducted by the Hay Group suggested that men were far more ambitious than women and more motivated at work. Is this because men are generally more motivated, or because workplaces don’t motivate women as much? I believe that it may be the latter. In my work with women as part of my Dancing Round the Handbags® book and workshops, I see women whose passion and commitment to be successful motivates them beyond words. They are ignited by the personal power and commitment they have to achieve great things. We also have great role models, women with vision and passion – most of whom were rejected by their banks too! However, I also see that there is a time when women become tired of knocking on the sound-proofed ceiling of corporate businesses. The ceiling is indeed concrete and impenetrable for many women and the reasons whilst many, include:

• Dinosaur management practice
• Women undervaluing their own talent
• Direct discrimination
• Worklife imbalance and lack of flexibility
• Unwillingness to “be male” or adapted female

…to name but a few, but the real fact is that it is certainly not due to talent, knowledge, brains and skill.

Therefore, in your war for talent, look under your nose, learn a new language – female leadership style, and then design your organisation to release female potential and motivation. It is different to male talent and motivation, but it burns with the same brightness.

Finally, consider this; if you were to go to the gym every day but only ever exercise the right-hand-side of your body, what would happen to the other side? It is the same if you only ever promote and stretch one gender in the workplace; the result is a business that is half as good as it could be.

 

 

Profile: Mrs Lynne Copp | Modern Muse

Profile: Mrs Lynne Copp | Modern Muse.

Lipstick Leadership Research – Calling all Excellent Female Senior Leaders!

Introduction

Since the beginning of 2009, I have been conducting an extensive piece of research entitled ‘Lipstick Leadership™’. I have interviewed hundreds of women up and down the UK, and will continue to do so for the remainder of this year.

I have interviewed women who are currently Director level or Senior Management level in businesses across all sectors. So far, the response has been fantastic, and the women have been very supportive and so willing to share their skills for the development of other women. However, I need more senior women to volunteer to meet with me and give me an hour of their time. I am particularly keen to interview women in the Health sector, Construction, Finance and Education. I continue to collect data for all sectors and would ask you to get in touch or to pass to me the names and contact details of women that you would recommend.

The objective of the research is to:

• Explore female excellence in leadership and model behaviours, skills, values and expertise that contribute towards excellence
• Explore female leadership responses to specific scenarios in the workplace including managing change, dealing with crisis, strategy development etc.
• To document the findings and then formalise those into techniques, self-development tools, coaching tools and models, in order to successfully transfer those to other women striving to become senior leaders in our organisations.

Process

The research is carried out by Lynne Copp, Managing Director of The Worklife Company. Each face to face interview takes no longer than 1 hour. The research does not compare men with women. However, a small number of men have been interviewed in order to distinguish those things that are common to both genders. The findings will document those skills, abilities, values and approaches that are typically used by excellent female leaders. The research has also interviewed non-exemplar senior women and middle management women to further identify the key behaviours of excellent female leaders.

The online survey, is available on our website at:

www.theworklifecompany.com

or on survey monkey at:

www.surveymonkey.com/s/LipstickLeadershipSurvey

Confidentiality

No personal information or details will be collected or reported and interviewees confidentiality will be maintained at all times. Please be assured that all information is held in the strictest confidence, and that no data will be used by third parties or for any other reason apart from the research. The intention is to research female leadership excellence and preference, as part of ongoing work in this arena. Some Organisations have offered multiple candidates for interview and are keen to be case studied as part of the research. Those organisations offering one candidate, whilst being listed for their involvement, will only be included in the overall data and therefore not identifiable. A summary report and findings will be made available to all participants.

Timing

Interviews will be conducted before the end of December 2011.

Cost

There is no cost involved in participation and we have not sought sponsorship.

and finally…

My thanks to the hundreds of women who have already willingly given their time and energy to support this research. In the spirit of support and eagerness to share with other women their techniques, behaviours, skills and values. By creating a community of support, we can begin to create balance for both men and women.

Lynne Copp

 

 

Making Flexible Working Work

It is no longer appropriate to run organisations based on management practices that served us well in previous decades. The world of work, and the world of life, has changed too much for them to be appropriate today; or indeed tomorrow. Out of date ‘command and control’ leadership style merely guarantees the flood of attrition, negativity and mediocre bottom lines. In the metaphorical wardrobe of leadership practices, these styles are still worn by some, but no longer fit. It is time to de-clutter all the old and well-frayed leadership approaches and clear space for new and exciting styles that will take your business and people forward.  Technology development, customer demands, employee demographics and the cost of doing business, means that the workplace, and its people, must be managed and lead differently.

Employees come to work to do a good job and if given the right environment, give their best in return. That environment must be built on trust, dignity, respect and choice. When working cultures provide no choice but the demands of presenteeism and long hours, imbalance and de-motivation are the result. This in turn creates stress, absence, turnover of staff, reduced productivity and stunted business results.

For great employers, real balance comes from the knowledge that you have developed an organisation worth working for and staying with. The business results speak for themselves and employee satisfaction, motivation and retention is high. You attract and retain the best talent; whatever their age, gender or cultural background. The buzz of working for your organisation is evident in your profits, costs, people and customer loyalty.

It is time to structure our organisations and our people systems differently otherwise we run the risk of killing our businesses. It is the trusting and the visionary who have taken the first brave steps towards a new horizon. These organisations understand that to survive, they must change; and change quickly.

Flexible working is just one of the tools that these organisations adopt, but it is not just all give and no take! Flexible working practices are generally put in place to suit both business need as well as employee need.

Flexible working makes business sense from a customer, as well as an employee perspective. Flexible working covers a wide range of options from part time to annualised hours. Flexibility can be considered for short-term as well as long-term needs. Remember, about 70% of your people will want to retain the pattern that they work already; not everyone needs or wants to change! That means that you are managing exceptions not opening floodgates!

Providing flexibility is the most effective method of attracting and retaining diversity of staff. For example, people over the age of 50 often want to reduce hours to take up other life pursuits, and parents sometimes need to look after school age children during holidays. Why not combine the two generations to create a job share over a year? The older person can cover the school holidays when the parent is at home with the children, and the parent can cover term time? This is a win-win for everyone: the organisation gets the job done and the employees meet their work and life needs.

If flexible working is new to your organisation, then why not focus on one area to pilot new ways of working? Focussing on one area allows you to test and measure the impact before rolling it out. Alternatively, you may wish to focus on a specific group, like parents, carers, generations, ethnic backgrounds or faiths. Each area of focus is legitimate, but make sure that you always retain a vision of flexibility is for all.

Faith-friendly workplaces are increasing as our employee populations become more diverse. Many organisations respect the employee’s need to honour their particular faith or belief. For example, quiet rooms are set aside for prayer, or separate eating and storage areas for vegetarian food and of course flexible working to respect rituals and festivals. The  benefits of creating a faith-friendly environment means that employers are now able to attract and retain a more diverse workforce, are able to create a more inclusive environment and are able to remove the need for rigid holiday periods that no longer serve the business or the customer.

Typical Flexible Working Patterns

Flexible working can be divided into two: Reduced hours patterns and Re-Arranged hours Patterns and used for Reasons and Seasons of life and work. For example, parents may want reduced hours when their children are little, or a sports person may want re-arranged hours to manage their work and their sporting commitments. Some of these patterns affect terms & conditions of employment, some do not. For example, an employee who needs to work flexibly for a few weeks whilst they study for exams, probably do not need an amendment to their T&Cs. Short term changes are normally reasons/emergencies, where season based are generally longer term or permanent change. Below is a list of the typical patterns under each heading:

 

Reduced Hours

• Part time
• Job share
• Annualised hours
• Term time working
• Zero hours contracts
• V-time working
• Interim & portfolio working
• Flex force working
• Sabbaticals
• Career breaks
• Phased return and leave
• Company share

Re-Arranged Hours

• Compressed working year/month/fortnight/week
• Flexi-time
• Staggered hours
• Shift working
• Self rostering
• Teleworking
• Flexi-place
• Working from home/ Home-based working
• Ergo-hours
• Career breaks
• Time Sovereignty

 

 

For a guide to implementing flexible working, contact me at:

info@theworklifecompany.com

Dance Your Best Life!