Sometimes I’m surprised the gender gap in senior executive leadership isn’t actually worse than it is.
That’s because I keep hearing so many anecdotal stories of women being ripped off, short-changed and left behind, particularly in professional services. One of the most common times this occurs is right after returning from maternity leave.
This is a time when even with the best of intentions and ambitions, many new mothers feel forced to step off the leadership ladder, at least for a while. Some will get back on, as AECOM Chief Lara Poloni told me she did, when she turned down a promotion opportunity while she had young-twin babies, off the advice of a sponsor who told her other opportunities will come up in the future.
But other women will never see such opportunities again, or get offered them in the first place. They may feel stuck in the part time work rut, being given lesser responsibilities because they simply can’t adhere to a set time-table of how a leader should work. They might get frustrated with their workplace and step out altogether, either into their own business, a different industry sector, or into full time caring responsibilities.
Indeed, many women feel they need to ‘restart’ their careers after having children. That’s a term used by Victoria Curro in a Q&A with Women’s Agenda that we’ve published this week. She said that after having her daughter, she took a 50% pay cut to work flexibly, in a role that enabled her to get her foot back in the industry. “Only now have I reached the same salary I was on seven years ago,” she says, after being appointed MD of LIDA, the customer engagement specialist business of M&C Saatchi Group three months ago. And we wonder why he national pay gap average is still over 17%
But while some may think of the period of returning to work after having children as a time for ‘restarting’ a career, others will see it as stagnating. This can become a time to play it safe, because it feels like there are simply no other options. Often flexible work and an employer who “understands” that you actually really, really need to leave the office at a set time to pick up a child, can seem like a luxury. A luxury many women feel is too good to risk on taking a better position elsewhere. So instead of progressing, or instead of restarting, they stagnate: waiting, expecting, hoping, things will change in the future.
Women shouldn’t have to restart their careers after having children, nor should they have to stagnate or wait in careers or jobs they no longer want to be in.