So the Australian Public Service has a women problem. With women making up 60 per cent of the service, questions are once again being asked why they only fill 42 per cent of Senior Executive Service level positions.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
While the Australian Bureau of Statistics' "blind recruitment" process may have worked wonders during its 2015 recruitment drive, lifting its percentage of senior executives from 21 to 43 per cent, the telling admission from ABS chief operating officer Jonathon Palmer is that perhaps employers should just be asking women what they want.
Such a vexed question in many ways, yet such a simple one.
On the one hand, many women, whether they are working mothers or not, want flexibility in their working arrangements. Compressed weeks, school hours, the ability to work from home, recognition that there will be times where the kids, or, increasingly, ageing parents take priority. Good employers, ones who value the contribution an engaged staff member can make, recognise this and, as Palmer says, should be looking to rethink traditional practices of employment to make it work for everyone involved.
He also said there was a need for supervisors to actively encourage women to apply for jobs, to keep conversations happening with their staff about what opportunities they were keen to seek.
Too many women come back from maternity leave, or start a new job with children in tow, and are automatically put on the mummy track. She has to leave occasionally to get the kids when they're sick, she might knock back travel because she can't arrange childcare, she's been seen getting the groceries online during her lunch break, she actually takes a lunch break to maybe get out for a walk. But that does not mean she doesn't want to be taken seriously and be considered for promotion.
But perhaps one thing holding women back from entering the ranks of the senior executive service is that they're actually sensible enough to recognise that there comes a point where enough is enough. That striving to have it all is the impossible dream, one not worth chasing. They've seen the hours their supervisors work, the demands on their time, in and out of the office, the bureaucracy and red tape that holds up policy, the politics at play. They don't want that. Perhaps their partner has a similar position, and, having read Annabel Crabb's The Wife Drought, they recognise that they'll still be the "wife" and it's all not worth it.
So if the Australian Public Service is serious about fixing its women problem, perhaps it should be looking beyond a gender divide and thinking about what it is that is stopping the best people, whether they be men or women, looking to the SES for a career.
