DM Coaching and Development

Nominations for 2009 Women in the City Awards Now Open

To nominate your potential candidate for either the Jaguar Woman of Achievement or the Coutts Lifetime Achievement Awards please visit the Women in the City website, to fill in

the on-line nomination form with your contact details, together with the contact details of the woman you are nominating and then briefly explain why you think she deserves to receive one of the highly coveted Awards.  This is the perfect opporutnity for women in corporate settings and women in leadership positions overall.  This year, as well as the Category Awards, the winners of which go forward to compete for the Jaguar Woman of Achievement Award, they've also introduced the Coutts Lifetime Achievement Award.  The awards will be given at a prestigious lunch on November 27th. Remember, you can nominate yourself, too...which is a great way to raise your profile!

 

Free Job Search Guide Perfect for Career Women

My friend, Janet Davies, author of Rebuilding Your Life after Redundancy,  is the the Queen of the Career Search with her website www.newlifenetwork.co.uk  which is aimed at anyone looking to start a new career after redundancy or even if they just want to explore new options. She has just published a timely e-guide which I think is perfect for career women who want to do some desk top exploration as to what opportunities are out there. "Surf Your Way to a New Job" which is all about using the internet to find a new career with the latest resources that will help you with career stategic planning. And best of all - it's free to download here!  

Attend "Generation Y: Young Professionals’ Perspectives on Work, Career and Gender" on June 30

On 30 June, I'm going to be attending what promises to be a fascinating event hosted by the European Professional Women's Network and the London Business School.  "The Reflexive Generation: Young Professionals’ Perspectives on Work, Career and Gender" will run from 6-9pm at the London Business School.

 

The event will address how Generation Y’s (those born in late 70's to early 90's) perspectives on work, career and gender is currently impacting organizational management in institutions all over the world.

Visit the EPWN site, to register or get more information. I'd love to see you there!

 

Cast Your Vote for Most Influential Woman Scientist

Visit the New Scientist site  to cast your vote for the most influential woman scientist of all time. Sponsored by L'Oreal, a new website has been unveiled - - to find the most interesting and notable female scientists to help inspire the next generation. The website pays homage to 40 exceptional women dedicated to the sciences, including the dozen who have won the Nobel prize. Online readers are invited to read their stories, vote for their favourite and also add their own nominations for the quest to discover the most celebrated female scientist of all time. On the site, you can also find out information about L'Oreal bursaries and fellowships which are intended to retain and develop women in the sciences. 

The Rise of the Female Breadwinner

Forbes recently reported about career women and the emergence of the female breadwinner in the US economy where over 75% of job losses have been among men. The article In This Recession, Men Drop Out Elizabeth Eaves reports " We've heard a lot over the years about the increase in women in the workforce, and the numbers are indeed dramatic: The percentage of adult American women who are employed climbed from about 37% in 1965 to about 55% in 2008, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Bureau of Economic Research. We hear less concerning the percentage of adult American men who are employed, which fell from about 81% in 1965 to 69% in 2008. The share of men in the United States with a job is at its lowest point ever - and the number of men who are out of the labor force and who have stopped looking is increasing. That may end up making a woman the family breadwinner in more households. But something else even more unusual is also going on: Men are not merely becoming unemployed in greater numbers than ever before. They are actually dropping out of the labor force at greater rates than before, which is different."

ForbesWoman Online Magazine Launches

Doing my last Internet trawl during a lunch break, I found that Forbes magazine, that long established publication on all things corporate, has just launched a new online magazine dedicated to women in business, ForbesWoman. It is being published by Moira Forbes, established business woman and granddaughter to the scion who started the magazine originally. 

I had a little browse, and while it was understandably very heavily focused on women in corporate settings, it had lots of good articles ranging from How To Manage Money And Marriage and A Circle of Advice on how a group of senior Wall Street women are helping rebuild the US economy to Seeking The Perfect White Shirt. I give it a thumbs up as being interesting for many of the professional females I coach and those interested in women and work issues more generally. 

"Art of Delegation" - Evening Workshop in London at Women in Technology

In conjunction with womenintechnology.co.uk, I am running an evening workshop on the "Art of Delegation" on May 27th. Would you love to be able to delegate to others successfully and without feeling guilty? For many women, delegation is a dirty word; in reality it’s about sharing workloads effectively so that everyone has enough time and energy for the people, projects and goals that are most important to them.  In this practical and interactive evening workshop, you will learn how to build strong, supportive relationships that enable you to assign tasks and distribute workloads effectively and efficiently to get the right things done...in less time. Through a dynamic blend of training and coaching, I will help you learn how to decide which work to delegate, to whom, and how best to do it, in order to achieve the results you and your teams need to succeed, both in your professional and personal lives.

The workshop runs from 6pm-9pm at womenintechnology offices in 114 Middlesex Street, London, E1 7JH and the cost is just £57 + VAT (£65.55) There are a maximum of 14 places available on this course and spaces fill up fast, so please get in touch asap if you'd like to attend. For more information and to download the booking form please go to: http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/the-art-of-delegation or please email Sarah Lilley on slilley@womenin.co.uk or call on 020 7422 9213. See you there!

Are Women Following in Dad's Professional Footsteps?

When I did my PhD looking at what drew some of the few females engineering students into the field, I often heard stories about scientific fathers or other male relatives who were influential to their interest. Clearly, I'm not the only one according to a podcast within Scientific American. Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Maryland examined surveys of more than 40,000 women who were born between 1909 to 1977. There was a clear rise in the number of women entering previously male-dominated fields, and as time progressed, there was a distinct change. Women born in the 1970s were three times more likely to follow in their dads’ footsteps. Researchers can’t say exactly what this means about father-daughter relationships. Maybe dads are investing more time in educating their daughters. Maybe they’re talking more about their own jobs.  But dads and daughters appear to be taking career paths that bridge both the generation and gender gaps. Do you have a father who influenced your career path?

Female Industries Will Be Hit Hard as Recession Spreads

The global unemployment rate for women in 2009 is projected at 7.4% compared to 7.0% for men in the latest report from International Labour Office.   The UN’s Labour body predicts numbers of unemployed women worldwide could rise to 22 million this year as the global economic crisis deepens.  With initial impacts felt in male dominated sectors such as finance, construction and manufacturing, the shock waves are spreading into service-orientated sectors and wholesale retail trade which in most industrialised countries are dominated by women as both business owners and employees.  ‘Global Employment Trends for Women’ claims that the impacts on women can be alleviated if governments sign up to gender equality measures, and ensure that new jobs created by economic stimulus packages guarantee fair salaries and social protection measures. 

Few Women on Boards Despite Higher Degrees and Wide Sector Experience

A recent Times Online article reports on women's under-representation on boards. Within the article they quote research from Elisabeth Marx, a partner with Heidrick & Struggles, the executive search company, shows that the women who do make it on to FTSE 100 boards are highly educated: 48 per cent have attended Oxbridge or an Ivy League school; 68 per cent have an advanced degree such as an MBA. It is more common, according to Dr Marx, for women aged under 50 to have attended an elite university and obtained an advanced degree. In an earlier study she found that only 45 per cent of male chief executives had an advanced degree." So clearly lack of education is not to blame? The article continues by quoting Susan Vinnicombe, director of the International Centre for Women Leaders at Cranfield University  “What we have shown time and time again is that it's not human capital that holds women back from boards — it's social capital. It's nothing to do with their degrees. Many more of the women at this level have MBAs and they have far more multiple sector experience. Overwhelmingly they have far more diverse experience than the new male directors.” How long will it take for companies to realise the amount of talent they are missing out on by not helping women reach these most senior positions?