Week 4: Women in SET – that’s me (I)

Make a list of the strategies aimed at attracting women back into the workforce suggested by the Government response to the Greenfield Report and in the Conclusions and Recommendations section of the Maximising Returns report.

The strategy implemented by the Government is detailed in a previous post.

The Maximising Returns report suggests the following:

Overall “…a key issue is the extent to which SET employers can change their working practices to accommodate work-life balance practices for the five to ten years when employees’ children are young.”

More specifically:

1. Government should intervene to provide both industry- and academic-focussed approaches to facilitate the return of women to SET. These schemes should provide technical training and reskilling as well as funding for specific research posts via the relevant research councils. Any scheme should be flexible, and promoted both nationally and locally so as to reach the maximum possible number of potential beneficiaries. Some sort of monitoring scheme should be built in, and best practice should be identified and incorporated at all stages.
2. In industry, line managers should be made aware of the business case for flexibility and diversity in the workforce. Current opportunities in SET, particularly non-traditional careers, should be more widely publicised in an effort to attract and retain more SET graduates (not just returners). All involved should be made aware of the negative impact of stereotyping by gender.
3. Schemes aimed at returners should do more to match returners with potential employers and should provide returners with access to a database of likely employers.
4. Consideration should be given to the provision of Government funds to academic laboratories for the recruitment of a ‘head of laboratory’ which could be part-time. This position would allow the returner to bring their skills and knowledge up to date over a fixed-term (3 – 5 year) appointment, and would provide for a steady flow of returners as each one moved on to a more permanent post.
5. Grant conditions should be reviewed in order to eliminate unintentional discrimination e.g. those designed to help at the start of a career are often age-limited and would therefore exclude someone who had taken a career break.
6. Unions and other professional organisations should provide support to individuals who are seeking to change working practice to accommodate specific work-life balance issues. This is particularly relevant if a sector is seen to be slow in adopting modern work-life balance practices.
7. Small and medium-sized enterprises will require specialist help which could be provided by business support intermediaries (presumably this is Business Gateway and similar) in terms of identifying local skills requirements and publicising local opportunities.

Interestingly, according to this report I am not considered likely to return to SET. They define a likely returner as:

…a person with a first degree in a SET subject who had begun a career in a SET occupation but who was not currently using their qualifications and experience in the labour market and who would consider returning to a SET occupation.

Ah well, someone else to prove wrong!

Which of these strategies do you think are relevant to you?

Of the Government proposals, I am currently benefiting from the establishment of the Resource Centre, and from the provision of funds for the OU course aimed at women returners. I do feel that these should be more widely publicised, perhaps during all SET degree and postgraduate courses, so that if women do take a career break they are aware of the options available to them.

Having access to a list of potential employers, or even a list of employers who are known to be less hide-bound than is the norm in SET, would be a help.

 

Week 4: Women in SET (resources)

The Resource Centre

There is a UK Resource Centre for women in SET – set up as a result of the recommendations in the Greenfield report, I presume.

Part of this week’s activities is to explore the site for information of relevance.

I’m finding the site difficult to navigate: the search function simply gives a list of hits without any context, and it can be tricky to work out where you are in a subject tree. It’s a Government department, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. The website of the Scottish Office is similarly arcane. That said, there is a lot of good information, and the possibility of applying to join a mentoring scheme as well as to ask for specific help and advice, so I will be going back to the site over the next few days.

We are supposed to find a discussion area specific to this course, which I have done. I can’t see anything of relevance there at all, but perhaps it will become clearer in time.

Professional Bodies

We’re also supposed to contact any relevant professional associations if they appear to have networks or subgroups of interest to women in SET. I’m a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and they have a Women’s Network as well as a local Section for Edinburgh and South East Scotland. The Edinburgh section doesn’t appear to have any activities scheduled on the RSC website, and my request for information on the next Women’s Network event in Cumbria has also resulted in dead silence. I will try old technology next, and telephone.

One unfortunate feature of the RSC is that their ‘career break’ category of membership only applies to those:

The RSC offers a reduced rate of membership for up to 7 years for those members taking a career break to bring up a young family and not receiving any income from the chemical sciences (in the sense that the subscription no longer qualifies for income tax relief) – contact our Membership Administration for more details.

My next step is to investigate the Biochemical Society as my PhD was awarded in that field. We will see if they are any better at responding to emails….

March 9th and finally a response from the Biochemical Society:

“The career break membership is only available to existing members you cannot actually join at
this level, it is also only available for one year.”

Week 4: Women in SET (how do we keep them there?)

Sir Gareth Roberts undertook a review of the supply of scientists and engineers for the UK Government in 2001. The review was published in 2002:
‘SET for success: The supply of people with science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills’.

According to the course notes, points raised by the report of particular relevance to women were:

1. the shortage of women in post-16 and higher education choosing to study SET subjects
2. the need for better job design in order to allow more flexible working
3. the use of short-term contracts, which make career planning difficult – this was identified as a significant factor in discouraging women from entering scientific careers.

Something which I find sad and a little worrying is the assumption made by both the report and the course notes:

SET employment seems to offer less flexibility to employees than other areas of work and so was unattractive to women who need more flexibility in their working practice because of their multiple responsibilities.

We’ve come a long way since the time when every woman was expected to be one of the Stepford Wives, and instructed to greet her husband at the door with a clean ribbon in her hair, the children safely in bed, and fresh makeup on. We’ve quite clearly not come far enough.

In January 2002, Baroness Susan Greenfield was asked to prepare a separate report specifically to look into the shortage of women in SET. SET Fair: A Report on Women in Science, Engineering and Technology was published later that year.

Baroness Greenfield chose to focus on three key career stages:

Firstly, for those starting out, balancing decisions about family or career break with a sustained publication record or gaining experience for career development.

Secondly, being appropriately represented in mid-career on grant panels, on key administration committees and gaining enough management and organisational strategic planning experience.

Thirdly, there was the issue of breaking through the now-notorious glass ceiling.

The report gives a long list of ‘what women perceive to be the problem’ and two in particular resonate with me:

having to work against the perceptions of what women want and what women can do

women having to work harder to convince and persuade their managers that they want and need more responsibility which they see being given to their male colleagues

Every day and all the time, even in this non-scientific role, I am faced with people (mostly men, but not exclusively) who cannot accept that a woman can be an equal partner in business, or that a ‘young girl’ (of 30!) could take on a project of this size and succeed. “Where is my family, my desire to have children, my traditional role as wife?”

Suggestions made in the Greenfield Report which I believe are of relevance to my situation are:

1. In reference to the difficulty faced by women in returning to SET after a break

…funding should be allocated to enable SETqualified women to retrain and update their skills and knowledge. A fellowship scheme that allows women to study, work on a specific project within a company or undertake research to facilitate a return to academic or private sector employment is urgently needed. It is important to include an element of work experience and management training. This will build on the excellent work of the Daphne Jackson Trust.

I had never heard of the Trust and went looking. It is based at the University of Surrey in Guildford, and the site does terrible things to my internet browser.

• In relation to the lack of women in senior management posts across the field:

The pool of women with SET qualifications and experience as well as core management skills for senior positions needs to be expanded in order to ensure more women get to senior positions. Large corporations may offer these programmes, but women employed in smaller organisations may not have access to the right training. A high flyer training programme with women drawn from employers and professional institutions will deliver core skills for middle managers to prepare them for senior roles .

Yes, please! I have learned my management techniques by watching senior management at previous jobs: notably my PhD supervisor who was also Dean of the faculty; and the head of IT in the pensions office where I worked after graduating. The head of IT was female, and and extremely effective manager. I owe her a large debt of gratitude for providing me with a model of what management should be like.

Muddling along here as a self-employed hotelier, one of my great frustrations has been the need to learn everything the hard way. There is no-one to learn from, and even when I find a successful way of achieving my aims, I always wonder if there isn’t a better, more effective approach that I’m simply unaware of.

• To address the fact that women, who are affected by scientific knowledge and science-based policy decisions

A science, engineering and technology advisory panel to the Chief Scientific Advisor to meet, discuss and be consulted on key scientific issues of the day.

The Baroness suggested that this should become gender-balanced within three years, from a starting position of 75% women.

I would love to be involved in something like this: not necessarily because I would provide a female perspective, but because I enjoy the challenge of translating current scientific jargon from the heights of nerdlandia into language which conveys the information accurately to those who have only a basic understanding of science.

The UK Government responded to the Greenfield report with its own strategy:

1. A new resource centre aimed at supporting, advising and working with SET employers and professional bodies; raising the profile of women in SET; running an expert women’s database; producing good practice guides; and developing a means of recognising good SET employers. The centre will draw on the experience of women and women in science organisations to do this, and co-ordinate their activity to achieve critical mass.
2. Pump-priming funds held by the centre to support innovative pilot schemes, for example, for mentoring and networking, or to help with mobility needs. The centre will be expected to draw in private sector funds for such projects.
3. Funds for returners to be held by the centre.
4. Using cross-Government machinery to ensure that all Government Departments, as employers, contractors for research and agency managers, are good SET employers.
5. A new independent implementation group to oversee the strategy’s progress and impact during the next two years.
6. A new role for the Office of Science and Technology Promoting SET for Women Unit.
7. Improved statistical monitoring, to enable the position of women’s participation in SET to be accurately monitored and tracked.

Of these initiatives, I am currently benefiting from the creation of the Resource Centre, and I hope to benefit from a mentoring scheme in future.

Week 3: First Assignment (4)

List the three most important aims you have in studying this course. Reflect on how far these are being achieved in what you have done so far in the course.

My aims:
In no particular order

• To increase my potential circle of contacts by meeting with individuals in a similar situation, and thereby to assist both them and me to move forward
• To update my knowledge of the current state of research in my field (interdisciplinary, between chemistry and biology) and increase my confidence as I attempt to re-enter the field.
• To find a position which will fulfill me as a scientist and as a person, using as many of the skills I have developed over the years as possible

Effects of the course:

• So far, despite the availability of conferencing software, I have not made any meaningful contact with fellow students. I hope that the networking event in Newcastle on 8 March will fill this gap.
• So far, the course has focussed on self-knowledge, CV creation and re-entry to paid employment. I feel that I am putting a great deal of time and effort into duplicating information I already hold when I am already struggling to fit 48 hours into 24.
• At this stage in the course I would not expect to have found a job. However, the time I am spending on assigments is time I had been using to search for jobs. I can’t do both.

On balance, the course is more a negative than a positive at the moment. I am questioning the wisdom of continuing when the focus is so strongly on women returners to work, rather than women returners to SET.

Week 3: First Assignment (3)

Write a short summary (no more than 400 words) to describe the main issues that you will need to consider when you return to working in SET and how you plan to address these.

Most of the ‘issues’ involved in moving from my current position to one in SET are positives. I will be working in a field I love, with the potential for social interaction with fellow employees, the possibility of extending my knowledge and experience, and getting back a little of the work-life balance I have lost.

Things which need to be addressed are:

1. Commuting: If I have to travel for more than 2 hours each day, I will look for a place to spend several nights a week which is closer to my place of work.
2. Relationship: We currently have very little time together, with DH away from Monday morning until Friday night. It’s not perfect, and once he takes up his full role as Chef it will be difficult to find time together. I may look for non-standard work days or hours, but this is not a priority.
3. Finance: My current worth to the business is very much based on the hours I work as well as my strategic input. We intend to take on two full-time members of staff to assist with starting food service. This leaves the need to find someone to cook breakfast and to stand in the pub for around 4 hours a day more than is currently staffed. Initially, my taking a job will leave the business worse off, but we have agreed that this is necessary for my wellbeing
4. Studying & Reading: I am horribly out-of-touch with current research unless it has featured in the pages of New Scientist. I will need to set aside time to review my undergraduate notes to ensure that my knowledge of the basics is sound, and discuss ways of bringing myself up to date with any potential employer. I do not think that this is something I should try to hide.

Week 3: First Assignment (2)

Prepare a very brief summary (no more than 400 words) projecting who you are to a potential future employer.

Having worked at the sharp end of tourism in Scotland for the past two years I am aware of the importance of exceeding expectations at all times. As a small business owner I understand the need for excellent communication, committed staff and clear leadership in achieving excellence. As a PhD graduate, I know how to bring disparate information together to create a coherent whole, and have proven my ability to bring a complex project to completion.

I believe I have a unique combination of experience and training, as well as proven practical abilities in communication, running projects effectively and sheer persistence.

Stuck in a rut?

Kathleen has an excellent posting on her blog, Fashion Incubator, about dealing with a loss of inspiration, mojo, whatever.  It’s aimed at creative types, but I think it has a lot to say to the rest of us as well.

Have a look.

Week 3: First Assignment

Things are getting serious: this is the first time we’ve been asked to provide work for formal assessment.

To do:

1. Use the OU’s proprietary databasing software ‘Profile’ to generate a report and full CV. Not something I’m quite ready to do, as the CV I need, with all the ‘old’ details is on an obsolete iMac which isn’t connected to anything at the moment. Profile seems to be good for record-keeping if you don’t have a current CV, but as it’s forcing me to use Windoze and re-enter all the information I already have, including some I regard as out-of-date and irrelevant, I’m not enjoying it.
2. Prepare a very brief summary (no more than 400 words) projecting who you are to a potential future employer. Hell, that’s going to be tricky if I don’t have a specific employer in mind. Who I am doesn’t change, but the skills and personality traits I emphasise may well do.
3. Write a short summary (no more than 400 words) to describe the main issues that you will need to consider when you return to working in SET and how you plan to address these. OK, that’s not going to be particularly difficult, being as I’ve got two complete blog postings to refer to. I’m not sure how I address the need for a rediculously high (or so it feels) starting salary, but I’m sure we’ll come up with something.
4. List the three most important aims you have in studying this course. Reflect on how far these are being achieved in what you have done so far in the course. Most important, and way above everything else: find a job that I can do well and which gives me a sense that I am using my skills and abilities rather than just being a set of hands, brain optional. I can do front-of-house very well, it seems, but I need to feel stretched, and to have the opportunity to learn new skills, in order to be fulfilled.

This is all due as a zipped file by Thursday at latest. I’m struggling to find the time, what with DH being away so much, but will do what I can.

Week 3: What do you want (part II)

Do you have interests that you need to make time for?
Oh yes. Lots. I really enjoy my creative hobbies (sewing, knitting, photography), choral singing and live music. However, I don’t have time for much of those now, so things might even improve if I was working.

What about fitness and health – how will you make time for regular exercise?
Again, I struggle to get any exercise that doesn’t involve work at the moment. Cleaning, running up and down stairs with stock for the bar, and carrying luggage are about it. Scampering down the road to the Co-Op for bread is as exciting as it gets.

We do have a gym and swimming pool in the town, and I’d love to get there more often. I definitely need to work on making time for me: one of the truisms of being self-employed is that if you’re in the building, you’re at work.

Apart from those dependent on you for care, how much time do you want to have available for your family and friendships? How might your social life be affected when you return to work?
It will very probably improve beyond all recognition. I don’t have a social life at the moment! DH and I are lucky to spend more than 30 minutes together in a day, and that’s usually as we’re falling asleep.

Are you involved in any groups or activities in your local community? If so, how much time do you need to set aside to maintain these?
Not any more. I was realistic about the time I was likely to have when we took the hotel on, and didn’t volunteer for anything. I used to help run a cub scout pack in Glasgow, and enjoyed that a lot, but I don’t think I’ll have time for something like that any time soon.

Do you envisage that your return to work will involve extra learning and studying? Particularly if you are returning to a scientific or technical job, you may need to build in time to develop your skills and expertise and keep up with new developments.
Almost certainly. I’ve been out of the lab for over three years, and I know how fast things change in science. I’m also very aware that my mental library isn’t as easily accessible as it once was, and I’m going to need to do a lot of reading and thinking to bring myself back up to the level that is expected of a PhD.

How will it feel to go back to work?

Apart from practical considerations, there are emotional issues that you will need to think about in returning to work. If you live with other people, what do they think about your plan to go back to work? How will it affect them? Will they have to take on more responsibility for housework and cooking? How do they feel about this? How do you think you will feel? What will others in your extended family think?

Seeing as I’m already at work (see above) this whole topic just makes me annoyed.

My DH is fully supportive of my need to find a job that is fulfilling and has never been the kind who regards housework as women’s work. About the only thing I do better than him is ironing. We both know that it will be hard if I’m away through the week, but probably not a lot worse than when he was doing night-shift and I was studying.

My extended family can’t believe I’ve stuck it out at the hotel for as long as I have, and are cheering me on as I start the hunt for a new job. Even if I had children, I know the family would be fully supportive. I don’t know of anyone in the family who has young children who isn’t working.

Have a think about what your priorities are and which things you would be prepared to give up. What can you delegate to others, or what can you let go of completely or leave until you have more time?
Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.

We have both pared everything but the absolute essentials from our life in order to take on the challenge of bringing “Scotland’s oldest continually-licensed hotel” back to life. Knowing that the to-do list will never be done, and that you will always feel that you could have done better, are just part and parcel of our situation.

One thing that isn’t negotiable is each other. We have always said that if our relationship started to suffer because of the business, we would sell up no matter what the financial cost. That’s at least partly why DH is encouraging me to find work away from the hotel. This is the wrong place for me, and although I’m apparently doing a good job, the job isn’t good for me.

Week 3: What do you want (part I)

The next stage of this week’s tasks takes us through a process which will ideally provide a template for our ideal work situation. Not in terms of actual role, but in terms of how work fits in to the rest of our life.

To that end, there are a number of questions we are to answer. As it involves a fair amount of navel-gazing, I’m going to split my responses over several posts.

Your own preferred work pattern (full- or part-time):
Definitely full-time for me. In purely practical terms, I am likely to have to travel a significant distance to get the kind of job I’m looking for, and I might as well have all the benefits in terms of salary, career progression, and potential responsibility. It’s a generalisation, but part-time is still seen by many employers as a dead-end role.

Your own preferred work location and what arrangements you would need to make.
Well, my ideal job involves a minimum of commuting. I don’t love sitting in traffic so much that I’d go out of my way to travel at rush-hour! However, given that I’m currently living roughly half way between Edinburgh and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, I’m almost certainly going to be spending a significant amount of time behind the wheel. I already have a relatively new car which is a pleasure to drive (a Honda Jazz) and which is fairly fuel-efficient. That’s important when the nearest decent-size city is over 50 miles away.

I’m quite willing to travel for the right job, and would be happy to be away from home several nights a week if it was necessary. Ideally, I wouldn’t be so far away that I couldn’t come back in an emergency. I’d probably consider finding a place to stay closer to work if I was sure to be in the same place most nights – some sort of shared flat arrangement with other young-ish professionals might be the way to go.

Now make notes on what childcare (or other care) arrangements you will need to make. How much will it cost, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of different options available?
No children, so no childcare. What is it with this course (and most people) that when you say you’re on a career break, they assume that a) you’re not working, and b) you’re off work to raise a family?

In terms of making arrangments to cover my responsibilities, things get a little complicated. I’m currently working in excess of 100 hours a week, and that workload isn’t likely to diminish in the near future. As I’m a partner in the business and self-employed, in order to go out and get a paying job, I will need to be earning enough to cover not just my own costs, but the costs of three employees.

A back of the envelope calculation for the minimum cost of employing three people for 35 hours a week goes as follows:
Minimum wage: £5.35/hour to cover 35 hours = £187.25/week
Employers NI contribution: (£187.25 – £84) * 0.11 = £11.34/week (based on calculation on page 8 of C38 from HMRC)

For three employees on the minimum wage: £595.82/week

That means that just to cover my replacement, I would need to be earning in excess of £30 000 a year after tax, and that’s assuming that I was paying the minimum….

That figure, of course, doesn’t cover any costs associated with my job like travel, clothing or food, and doesn’t leave me with anything left over at the end of the month either. I’m not currently paying myself anything, as we’re still at the stage of trying to build the business up, so the benefits of doing a job I love and which stretches me may well be enough. I’m already working flat out for no monetary gain, so I could put up with that for a while, and hopefully the business could take on more of the cost of employees as things improved.

It all sounds a bit daunting though.