The Secretary of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Allan Hawke, is right to say that improving women’s roles in the workplace is an economic issue more than a question of “”political correctness”. He argued that organisations, both public and private sector, benefit is their workers are able to meet their potential.
At present that does not appear to be happening, and there is passive acceptance of this state of affairs. Despite many initiatives in the Federal Public Service to enable women to achieve their full potential in the upper echelons it has not happened. Instead, women dominate the numbers at the lower levels and are scare in the upper levels. This has three adverse effects. Many women feel under-valued and that it is fruitless striving for higher positions. Many men get put under immense pressure juggling demands of a long working day and demands to be at home with spouse and children. The organisation does not get the best out of its workers and suffers accordingly.
Mr Hawke’s response has been to set a target for 50 per cent of positions in the seniors levels just below the Senior Executive Service to be filled by women. He intends to aim for the target while still applying the merit principle which he rightly says underpins promotion and appointment in the Public Service. He has set a difficult target, but not an impossible one. In aiming for it he runs the danger that some of the people deciding on promotions and appointments will mistake “”target” for “”quota”. There is a substantial difference. Quotas are incompatible with the merit principle. It means that where a vacancy comes up a mandatory quota might require a female be appointed over a male of greater merit. That can only result in resentment on the part of the male and the female being subjected to assertions that she only got the job because she was a woman. And then the organisation itself would suffer.
A target, on the other hand, means that the merit principle is paramount, but that in organising work patterns, job descriptions, works flows, career paths and organisational structures, upper management is aware of family responsibilities of both males and females.
In the past 25 years many more women with children have come into the workforce. In 1970, 32 per cent of married women were in the workforce. By 1990 that had risen to 53 per cent and 60 per cent of all mothers with dependent children were in the workforce. A far greater proportion of women than men are in part-time jobs.
But do the part-time jobs always have to be at the lower end of the pay and responsibility scale? Do women who have interrupted their career with five to 10 years of child rearing have to remain at the lower end for the rest of their careers?
Leadership, management skill, creativity, intelligence, adaptability, inspiration, diligence and so on are not solely determined by length of experience in a job or number of hours spent at a job per day. Indeed, there is an argument for saying that long days are a dampener on creativity and inspiration.
Changes in society have caused both economic imperatives and opportunities for women to pursue careers. The challenge now is to make sure that organisations both get the best out of people of both sexes and that people of both sexes get the best out of their work with organisations. That can be achieved with goals and targets, but not with quotas.