Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno (l) spoke about issues impacting women in the workforce at the Womenomics panel discussion at Monmouth University on May 30. KRISTEN DALTON When Women Work, New Jersey Works. That was the theme of a “Womenomics” panel discussion at Monmouth University on May 30.
But it turns out, according to the panel, thatmost women actually don’t know how to navigate the work world.
“The word I come up with is ‘self-promotion,’ ” said Melanie Willoughby, senior vice president of the N.J. Business & Industry Association.
“One of the things that I find in so many women is that they wait for recognition like they’re the good little girl,” Willoughby said. “And the good little girl definition has changed. It really means that you have to be someone who self-promotes themselves.”
According to Willoughby, a once-a-year self-promoting statement to bosses and senior level management is not enough to get noticed. Instead, it should become a regular habit.
“Self-promotion is a very important part of letting people know what it is you’ve done and also to be part of a team, so colleagues see your work and what it is you’re capable of,” Willoughby said. “That can also be very important for your ability to move up in a company.”
Never mind being efficient at the job. Or going above and beyond its description. “Men act. They speak up,” Willoughby said. “But the women are the ones you want to cultivate so they are also speaking up and making their voices heard.”
For this reason, the panel noted that women don’t know how to climb the corporate ladder, which is why only 19 percent of themhold top positions, as compared to men.
“We [women] start out as 53 percent of entry-level employees. When you get to the top of that pyramid, the C-Suite, we occupy 19 percent of those offices,” said Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande (R-11th District), host of the panel discussion.
In an attempt to better understand the disparity, Casagrande asked the panel if companies are doing all they can to tap into the pool of female talent. She did not, however, ask what women could do to maximize such talents for their companies.
“I think one of the reasons why the pyramid is pretty wide for women at the bottom is because — thank you, women — you took the time to get educated, to get a fine degree from a university or college,” said Candace Straight, director of Neuberger Berman Mutual Funds.
But most women tend to stay in entrylevel positions. Straight argues that the number of women in higher-echelon jobs is significantly less than men because corporations don’t understand that women have different needs and are therefore not groomed to advance accordingly.
In the meantime, women should define their own success, she said. “We should celebrate that success, and we should nurture that success because we want to grow the economy in New Jersey,” Straight said. “Whether you are male or female, to advance on the corporate ladder or possibly as an entrepreneur, you need to network to understand the culture you are in and how that culture works. And you need to plan — you have to make plans.”
But as Willoughby mentioned earlier, networking could become problematic if women don’t learn how to speak up and self-promote, which is why Terry Boyer, executive director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers’ School of Management and Labor Relations, believes that CEOs should be held responsible for meeting the needs of women by offering career counseling and a transparent pathway to advancement.
“I think that a lot of CEOs don’t necessarily know how to encourage women because it takes a little bit of thinking outside the box,” said Boyer.
“Women here are in the majority at the bottom of the pyramid at the entry level, Boyer said, “but the cultural shift hasn’t changed because the drivers of that shift are up in that 19 percent, and they are not the majority of women yet.”
But even if men — the majority holders of executive positions — don’t yet understand how to motivate women to work as effectively as their male counterparts, Boyer said that conversely, women are often unaware of what needs to be done to advance anyway.
“We [executives] aren’t typically transparent in what needs to be done,” Boyer said. “There’s kind of ‘the old boys network’ they have in certain places, where it’s an unspoken agreement as to what it takes to get ahead.
“Unless you give people the opportunity to know what it is that will advance them,” Boyer added, “you don’t necessarily give themthat opportunity to perform, to advance. So making that pathway to advancement transparent is particularly effective to women who are interested in advancing to that next level.” Even if the career path is unclear, Virginia Alling, managing director of PNC Bank and co-chair of the N.J. Technology Council, offered a more proactive approach for women besides sitting on their hands and waiting.
“Sit down with your goals. Be specific,” Alling said. “You need to be able to define for your specific position and what the definition is of ‘best in class.’ If you can’t, change your goals. Make sure they’re measurable. The minute you think you’re doing all you can — with anything you do in life — your competition is going to surpass you.”
The question then is, Do women even know how to compete? Willoughby isn’t so sure and drew on the fact that there were no team sports for women when she went to college.
She also said this is why men have an advantage: they understand how to compete with fellow employees for the top spot while simultaneously working together as a team to better the company.
“Teamwork is very important,” Willoughby said, “and I find that certainly men understand teamwork coming into the workforce far better than women have because of the fact that they usually have played team sports along the way.”
And as for women who have also played sports? Well, they know “how to play nice in the sandbox,” described Willoughby.
Unfortunately, the corporate ladder is not a sand castle. Instead of fetching water and molding sand, Alling insisted that women need to constantly evolve by evaluating and measuring individual progress every day, like an athlete.
“Can you imagine any type of athlete who said they’ve got it? ‘I’ve got the golf swing, I have the tactic for the football game, I’m going to win everything here on out?’ Never!” saidAlling.
“The last thing you want to do is be at the end of the year and watch a peer get promoted and not understand either why that person got promoted ahead of you or feel like you deserved it more.” Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who addressed the audience prior to the panel discussion, asked ifwomen are cutting themselves short of their own potential.
“What does the lieutenant governor do in New Jersey? The answer is sometimes she does three jobs at once and gets one salary. Anybody else face that problem?” she said.
“Are we cheating ourselves?” she asked. “Or are we making conscious decisions about our pay grade and our salaries? In my case, I made a conscious decision.”
Prior to holding the top female position in the state, Guadagno, who is married with three children, worked part time in order to take care of her family.
“It worked for me because I could take care of my family during the day and make a few pennies and keep my fingers in my profession at night,” she said.
Now as lieutenant governor, Guadagno encouraged women to seek out resources, ask others for help and find a job that suits their needs.
“There are people who have walked in your shoes,” she said, “and there are people who are there to help you if you just ask the question Can you help me find a job? Men do it all the time. They’re not afraid to ask for help.”
Guadagno added, “And that’s the way we’re going to close the gap, and that’s the way we’re going to put you back to work and your friends and your family.”
While men are notorious for refusing to ask for directions while driving on a road trip, it seems they have no problem stopping at the door of every senior executive’s office on the corporate world map.
Even if it’s just to say hello, at least the people in those C-Suites know who’s knocking.