Women continue to report that they commonly experience behaviours and assumptions from male peers and bosses in the workplace that frustrate them and impede promotion by merit. These behaviours include being interrupted and talked over in meetings and being side-lined from many informal conversations where decisions are often really made.
The report presents the results of research interviews with 40 men in early career, middle management and senior management roles in SMEs and large organisations, across public and private sectors. A collaborative conference was then held at Cambridge in which men and women worked together on ideas about what individual men could do to change workplace culture.
The College conducted this research to help shape the workplaces into which its ambitious all-female graduates are heading.
Dr Jill Armstrong, who led the research comments: “Small, incremental changes in the behaviour of individual men will add up to big changes for women’s advancement into the top levels of careers. Many men involved in this research have suggested ideas to help their understanding of the problems women report, to improve relationships between male and female colleagues and help level the playing field for women. Men and women in middle and early career stages have a lot to get done. The best solutions will be those that adapt easily into the normal working day and positively improve the workplace culture for men as well as women”.
Suggested solutions for men to improve the workplace culture for both women and men are:
- Just ask: Facilitated, supportive meetings within teams for women and men to air issues they think they experience because of their gender and discuss how issues can be addressed.
- Mix up the mentoring: Many of us seek a mentor or sponsor of the same gender because we perceive there will be more common ground. The report suggests picking a mentor of another gender to help people appreciate what the workplace looks like from a different point of view and, importantly, learn from each other’s strengths.
- Active review: A mixed gender team to lead a review after a project is finished to make visible how and where decisions were made to improve the way gender diverse groups work together.
- Building closer relationships: Create opportunities for the informal networking that leads to career opportunities. An example could be ‘Wednesday Walkabouts’ in which everyone is expected to have coffee with someone new of the opposite gender.
- Bystanders Amplify: Men to amplify and credit ideas coming from women in a meeting and be prepared to challenge sexist comments and behaviour in the workplace.
Murray Edwards College now aims to work with organisations to trial these methods in the workplace.
Dame Barbara Stocking, President of Murray Edwards College, said: “Men’s willingness to work beside women to change workplace culture is crucial to getting more women into senior positions. Yet, until now, men have rarely been asked whether they see these behaviours as a problem for women and what they think can be done about it."
Tunde Olanrewaju, Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company, London, said: “All businesses need to think more about men, more systematically than just asking women about their view of workplace culture – making the unconscious conscious. We advance and promote gender diversity in our own workplace, in our clients and in society more broadly. Tackling mindsets and building a favourable environment for all organisations is critical to success.”
Simon Williams, Director of DMW Group, said: “I was struck by the idea that women are excluded from networking opportunities. Some of this is probably unconscious and some a factor of men seeing networking as an end in itself. An idea I would like to adopt is making sure our networking events are gender inclusive. A mixed gender team recently took part in a ‘tough mudder’ challenge and it was a great bonding experience that helped everyone feel like an equal part of the team."
Ann Francke, Chief Executive of the Chartered Management Institute, commented: “The problem of how to close the gender pay gap is stubborn but it’s solvable. Empowering men as agents of change is a big part of the solution, so these recommendations are a great way of understanding how to make this happen. According to recent CMI research, male managers are 40% more likely to get promoted than women, and this is holding us all back. Diversity is proven to deliver better financial results, better culture and better decision making.”
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