Workplace culture favours men

September 30 2002 - Canadian women executives don't feel fully accepted into executive-level culture, according to a POLLARA survey. 69% of respondents said that men's lack of comfort in dealing with them on a professional level was a barrier to their advancement, and 66% said their exclusion from "the boys' club" and the "meeting after the meeting" was holding them back.

"While women are present during formal meetings, they say they're not always part of the informal networks through which many decisions and deals are made," said Angela Marzolini, Vice Chairman of POLLARA. "They say this is a highly significant barrier to their professional success, and a big component of the 'glass ceiling'."

Some of Canada's most successful women executives cited their own persistence, determination, networking and contacts when asked to name the tools that have helped overcome or avoid the barriers to career advancement, "They said they've learned not to take 'no' for an answer, and to be highly pro-active. Some have even established 'alternate networks' of their own," according to Marzolini.

These findings came as no surprise for Pamela Jeffery whose founded the Women's Executive Network in 1998. "WXN is made up of 7,500 highly successful women across Canada who learn a lot from each other. It's a group of women executives who have achieved considerable success already through sheer persistence and determination; who want to develop further professionally and at the same time meet others who are facing the same challenges," said Ms. Jeffery.

"It is no secret that although women represent 46 per cent of the workforce in Canada they still are tremendously under-represented in the senior ranks of most corporations. There are things organizations can do to address these issues. For example, at Scotiabank, we offer both formal and informal leadership development programs aimed at providing women and men the opportunities to develop and build on their skills. Our approach to leadership ensures that our next generation of leaders is ready for tomorrow's challenges," said Sylvia Chrominska, Executive Vice-President, Human Resources, Scotiabank.

Two-thirds of executive women also believe that the barriers to women's advancement onto corporate boards are either falling slowly (53%) or not at all (13%). Just 3% said that these barriers were falling quickly, while 20% said change was occurring at a moderate pace.

"Executive women are frustrated by the lack of progress being made by corporate boards in appointing female directors," said Marzolini. "They flatly reject the notion that there aren't enough qualified women available to create a gender balance. Female executives attribute the current situation primarily to gender-based discrimination, but they also cite the fact that they are not part of the informal networks that lead to directorships. There's a good opportunity in the current climate, as part of reforms to corporate governance, to take steps to reduce the huge gender imbalances that exist on today's boards."

The results of Moving Forward 2002 are based upon 350 telephone interviews with executive women in seven Canadian urban centres, conducted by POLLARA between June 25 and July 5, 2002. It is accurate to within +/-5.3%, nineteen times out of twenty.