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THREE MEN<br />
A<br />
W<br />
ofice. One group it’s helping is<br />
people with young children. It’s<br />
okay because you’re at home and<br />
you’re able to balance and you don’t<br />
feel like you’re contributing less<br />
than o<strong>the</strong>rs in <strong>the</strong> ofice.<br />
Cundari: About ive years ago, I had<br />
this idea that we were a service<br />
business so you have to be <strong>the</strong>re<br />
ive days a week and <strong>the</strong>n [women<br />
on] mat leave would come back<br />
and ask for a four day a week<br />
[schedule] and I’d say no. We’d lose<br />
people. I didn’t know any better<br />
<strong>the</strong>n. So I said, let’s try it. We had<br />
four ladies on four-day weeks,<br />
and I realized <strong>the</strong>y were putting<br />
ive-day weeks in. Technology does<br />
not allow <strong>the</strong>m to walk away from<br />
<strong>the</strong>ir job. The biggest hurdle we<br />
have is collaboration. We’re trying<br />
to implement new tools to do<br />
desktop-to-desktop conferencing.<br />
It seems to be working to a point –<br />
some people are still visual. I don’t<br />
know if it will solve everything.<br />
Vonk: If you have <strong>the</strong> right<br />
employees it can work. But having<br />
<strong>the</strong> open mind to try things and<br />
be open to experiment is a great<br />
irst step for <strong>the</strong> employer. And to<br />
make employees feel that <strong>the</strong>y’re<br />
welcome to come forward with<br />
what <strong>the</strong>y need to succeed [is of<br />
equal importance]. I knew one<br />
woman who just had a baby and<br />
went to her boss and said, “I’m<br />
supposed to be in Vancouver for six<br />
weeks. Can I take <strong>the</strong> baby?” And<br />
it was ine. It doesn’t have to be<br />
revolutionary.<br />
Lloyd: I think you have to be careful<br />
that [only looking at family]<br />
prevents businesses from looking<br />
at o<strong>the</strong>r issues that are underlying<br />
[<strong>the</strong> lack of diversity at senior<br />
ranks] as well. It’s certainly a<br />
large percentage [leading to <strong>the</strong><br />
problems.] But <strong>the</strong>re are o<strong>the</strong>r<br />
systemic things that are nobrainers.<br />
When we look at our store<br />
leadership, we assumed it was<br />
family obligations [pulling women<br />
out]. What we found was a drop<br />
off on training, sometimes in <strong>the</strong><br />
“fresh food training.” The women<br />
are often in <strong>the</strong> non-fresh, nonproduce,<br />
non-meat departments,<br />
and store leaders require this<br />
knowledge. [Now we have] a<br />
“fresh” training program and we<br />
try to ensure women are taking<br />
advantage of it.<br />
Leung: Ra<strong>the</strong>r than focusing on what<br />
percentage [of senior leadership]<br />
is female, we’re really focused on<br />
preventing women from selfselecting<br />
<strong>the</strong>mselves out. A few<br />
years ago, if you were a female<br />
brand manager and said, “I just<br />
want to stay at this level,” we would<br />
have said, “I don’t know if <strong>the</strong>re’s a<br />
LUXEMBOURG-BASED REGUS PLC FOUND THAT 43% OF CANADIAN COMPANIES OFFER<br />
SOME SORT OF FLEX TIME, AND 66% OF BOSSES SAY IT SAVES THEM MONEY.<br />
March 2013<br />
23