Friday6 March 2020 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 5

Women in Business

don’t concern men was a key roadblock

to their interest in gender equity,” says

Sandra Ondraschek-Norris, a vice-

president at Catalyst’s Marc (Men Advo-

cating Real Change)programme.

Separate US research fromFairygod-

boss, an online community for women

in the US to share information on emp-

loyers, pay and culture, found that 56

per cent of mendid not step forward as

women’s allies because they were “not

sure how to help”. Another 24 per cent

said there were not enough women in

their workplace and 20 per cent said

women “don’t seem to want” their

assistance.

Seventeen per cent of the men sur-

veyed also said they were afraid f ao

“backlash” for involving themselves

with the gender cause.

Some of those concerns are well-

founded.

Ronit Kark, a specialist in leadership

who works with the Center for Gender

in Organizations at Simmons College,

Boston, says that sometimes “women

have a feeling ‘men are entering a

women’s field’, and talk about feeling

men are taking control over gender

Continuedfrompage 1 equity issues that they are trying to pro-

mote.”

They may be seen as “forming a men’s

club to promote women issues, as pat-

ronising, or as trying to gain personal

value and credit for these moves. Vari-

ous women were quite suspicious

towards this move,” Prof Kark adds.

Mr Mensah is attuned to this. “I can’t

pretend to know how women feel in cer-

tain situations,” he says.

“I think being open and honest is

absolutely key. Listening to what

women say and how they feel. Learning

and taking on board constructive feed-

back and translating it into accountable

actions.”

To give men greater insight into the

challenges women may face, Citi runs

sessions where menexperiencebeing in

the minority.“Putting yourself into that

environment where women are every

day is eye opening,” says Mr Drury.

Ms Minashi at UBS says “authentic-

ity” is crucial.“If you behave in a way

that’s not congruent with what you said

in a public meeting, you’ll be found out

pretty quickly,” she says. Another basic

error is to turn up at a women’s gather-

ing to give a speech, but fail to stay for

the rest of the event.

At Goldman, Mr Lemkaufocuses on

“tangible change” and tries to follow

through on the detail of his commit-

ments. He cites Goldman’s 2018 pledge

to have an even male/female split in its

analyst intake.

The bank typically receives around

28,000 applications for 500 places. In

2019 Goldman’s human resources team

firstpresented ananalyst class that was

48 per cent female. After Mr Lemkau

and his colleaguespushed back, HR’s

second attempt was 49 per cent female.

The executives held firm. The appli-

cant pool is not split 50/50 between

men and women but, as Mr Lemkau

puts it, “the pool is so deep you can’t tell

me you can’t find 250 capable women

you can hire”. The class ended 50 per

cent female.

Male advocates on Wall Street

When PlayNext Lab, a Tokyo-based

technology start-up, made a hiring push

last year, it took the unusual step of tar-

geting women with young children.

The move followed several failed

attempts to hire applicants, all male,

who were lured away before the inter-

view phase by bigger, better-known

rivals. Leading recruitment agencies did

not bother to engage with a company of

only 60 employees.

PlayNext, which develops mobile ap-

plications and games, had faced a simi-

lar challenge when it set up four years

ago. The solution then was to hire engi-

neers from overseas, who now account

for 80 per cent of its workforce, in a

country where the debate toallow

immigrationto make up for its declining

population has just begun.

This time, the company recruited two

women who wanted to pursue careers

but who also faced constraints on their

working hours because of family calls on

their time.

“We felt we could win [against other

employers] because there are many Jap-

anese companies that avoid women who

cannot work long hours,” says Shinichi

Ide, an executive at PlayNext.

An acute labour shortage, with an

unemployment rate that fell to just 2.2

per cent in December, and a rapidly age-

ing society are forcing companies to

revampworking practices, including a

stricter cap onovertime hours.

That has emboldened women to pur-

sue more ambitious career opportuni-

ties, backed by prime minister Shinzo

Abe’s campaign o redress Japan’st

ingrained gender inequality, dubbed

“womenomics”.

Female workers in Japan have long

constituted an underutilised pool of tal-

ent. The lack of day care facilities and

caregivers, as well as cultural stereo-

types that place a bigger workload on

mothers, have forced many women to

lower their ambitions. Nearly half quit

their jobs after having their first child.

Japanese female participation has

reached a record high of 71 per cent —

higher than in the US and Europe —

while the ratio of jobs on offer to appli-

cants was at 1.60 in 2019, the highest

level since the early 1970s.

The key challenge for policymakers

remains to increase the ratio of working

women who are engaged in full-time

jobs. Lower-earning, part-time roles

still account for 56 per cent of jobs taken

by women, says the government.

LatestOECD figures how that Japa-s

nese women earn an average of 25 per

cent less than men, the second biggest

gender pay gap after South Korea

among OECD countries.

When 28-year-old Shoko Awamura

returned to work at a property devel-

oper after the birth of her second child

in 2018, she quickly realised that her

prospects for holding a managerial posi-

tion were remote because of the con-

straints she faced on working after 5pm.

“The biggest reason why I changed jobs

was because I wanted to build my career

even as I raised my children,” Ms Awa-

mura says.

After looking for another job, she rec-

ently joined Tokyo-based real estate

start-up Renoveru, working 8am to

5pm. The best-performing employee in

her department is a woman who never

works extra hours or during the week-

end, she says: “I found a role model that

I should aim for.”

The new job came through a recruit-

ment service that focuses on working

women with young children who cannot

work long hours.

Yudai Sakai, general manager at

ecommerce-to-recruitment group BBO,

which has provided the women-focused

service for nearly a year, says many

female applicants are willing to move

from a big employer to a start-up if it

might lead to better career prospects.

Japan has one of the most generous

parental leave benefits in the world,

withworkers enjoying the option of

extending their one year leave for six

months if they cannot find childcare.

But that often means the women do not

regain their position or fall off the com-

pany’s career ladder when they return.

“Some of these women find them-

selves moved to a completely different

department and their pay gets dropped

to an entry level position due to shorter

working hours,” Mr Sakai says. “They

see little prospect of expanding their

career and choose to change jobs.”

One of BBO’s own staff, Kaori Tanaka,

quit her accounting job at a big listed

Japanese company after getting mar-

ried, and was hired by the agency

shortly after the birth of her first child.

“A start-up was perfect for me bec-

ause you basicallyhad to do everything

on your own,” the 36-year-old says,

explaining that she enjoys the chance to

take more responsibility.

Finding new, more family-friendly

jobs remains a challenge, she adds, “but

once you go out and seek information,

there are job opportunities out there”.

Japan’s skills-starved

hirers woo mothers

to fill vacancies

Recruitment

Female applicants spy new

opportunities from labour

shortage, saysKana Inagaki

Moving up: women in Japan are taking advantage of revamped work practices

N

icky Wells was sexually as-

saulted as sheapproved

crucial paperwork for a sec-

tion of the £17bn London

Crossrail project. She was

one of the most senior managers on the

site, but she was afraid of the conse-

quences of reporting theman who had

groped and cornered her. The event had

taken place on the most prestigious site

she had ever worked at.

“I struggled with it for weeks because

I’ve worked so hard to be taken seri-

ously in the industry,” she says. “Al-

though the individual that did this to me

wasn’t necessarily high up.. .he was

very well connected, and well respected

within [the subcontractor]. The fear of

being the one whose name and reputa-

tion was being marked and dirtied was

what prevented me from reporting it

immediately.”

It was a male colleague who witnessed

the assault who eventually reported it.

Although their employer, the site’s lead

contractor, took the complaint serious-

ly, action against the offender did not

progress. Ultimately, he did not answer

to the company that ran the site. The

subcontractor’s leadership were made

aware of the incident but no effective

action was taken.

The incident, a couple of years ago,

and how the complaint progressed,

were a stark reminder that while lead

contractors insist on a workplace cul-

ture or behavioural rules these remain

at the mercy of a fragmented supply

chain that accounts for most workers on

a site. “I refer to it as the gentleman’s

club mentality because it’s ‘all for the

boys’,” says Ms Wells. “It [was] because

of that male, old school mentality that

they think they can do it.”

She was approachedby a rival not

long after the complaints process failed

to deliverresults and decided to leave.

She now leads the quality team, a tough

management job,at O’Keefe Group, a

company she chose in part for its atti-

tude towards women and diversity.

Construction sites around the world

remain some of the mostmale-domi-

nated working environments, according

to consultancy McKinsey. Overall fem-

ale participation in the industry globally

is just 12 per cent, but for site-focused

roles the figure is far lower, with per 2

cent of machine operative and trades-

person positionsheld by women.

Women do outnumber men in office-

based or administrative jobs, where

they represent 80 per cent of the total.

“In all the companies I have worked

in, women are seen as predominantly

having ‘female-type’ roles,” says Ms

Wells. This has an impact in an industry

where on-site accomplishments and

engineering expertise are vital currency

for career progression. In the past this

has put her at a disadvantage in senior-

level discussions: “It was a case of ‘hang

on a minute, you haven’t earned your

right to be here, lady, you don’t know

nothing about engineering’.”

While the number of women in lead-

ership positions in the UK matches the

overall number in the sector (12 per

cent), the number of female chief exec-

utives or chief financial officers isex-

tremely low.

Construction ompanies do recognisec

the need to create more inclusive envi-

ronments and cultivate a more diverse

workforce. Not least becausea global

skills shortage s crippling the sector.i

The UK is in particularly bad shape,

with anageing domestic workforce,

nearly half of whom are aged 45 or over,

propped up by migrant labour. In a bid

to combat this many of the big compa-

nies, includingWillmott Dixon, Wates

and Lendlease, have set ambitious targ-

ets for achieving a better gender balance

in their staff intake and senior positions.

Yet, for Holly Price, training and dev-

elopment director at British demolition

specialist Keltbray, targets are meaning-

less nless accompanied by culturalu

change. “We’re very good at identifying

the problem and responding immedi-

ately because we’re engineers naturally,

we’re people that fix [and] build things,”

she says.

“It’s like ‘we can fix this, we’ll do an

initiative now and then that will be it

done’, but.. .if we’re going to create a

more inclusive environment and [have

a] more diverse [workforce]these

things have to become the norm, and

not something that we do to tick a box to

win a project.”

As a 16-year-old Ms Price saw a demo-

lition using explosives and knew imme-

diately it was what she wanted to do. “I

don’t know if you’ve ever seen a set of

tower blocks being blown down,” she

says, “but it’s kind of cool”.

Since then she has worked her way up

in demolition, a specialism with a noted

macho culture. Now the first female

president of the UK’s National Federa-

tion of Demolition Contractors, she too

has experienced the challenges that

come with holding a site-based position.

Operatives move from job to job,

often travelling across the country and

spending extended periods away from

family. As deadlines approach, particu-

larly on the most prestigious schemes,

workers are incentivised to work long

hours and come under immense pres-

sure to finish.

In such an environment being ne of ao

small number of women, or the only

one, can feel ntense. “I would finish thei

day with the brave face and go off in

some Travelodge somewhere... and

feel pretty down,” says Ms Price.

Despite the challenges, Ms Wells and

Ms Price still love the industry. In fact,

they call for more women to join it. This

would not only create a more diverse

environment, but would also improve

how companies in the sector do busi-

ness. This is “not because we’re better at

the job”, says Ms Wells. “Women think

differently to men.”

Women are able to apply empathy

more often than men, she says, and that

helps in the smooth running of a site.

‘You haven’t earned your

right to be here, lady’

Construction argets toT

include more women

mean little without

cultural change, writes

Zak Garner-Purkis

Structural setback: building sites around the world remain male-dominated working environments. But on-site experience is important for career progress.

(The picture above is unrelated to the alleged incident reported below) —Getty

Sweden has some of the most

progressive laws relating to gender

equality and one of the highest female

employment rates globally. Yet the

construction sectorhas a 91 per cent

male workforce. Elin Kebert, at the

Swedish Construction Federation,

outlinesinitiatives to drive change:

Feminist government targetsCreating

a more equal construction industry is

policy of Sweden’s so-called“first

feminist government n the world”. Ini

2018, the industry set a ational goaln

to have 25 per cent female new

recruits by 2030.

Women only apprenticeships

HousebuilderIkano Bostad, an

offshoot of Ikea Group,was the first to

offer women-only apprenticeships in

carpentry. They have been followed by

multinational contracting giant

Skanskaand local residential

developerJM.

Targeting an older demographic

Initiatives to recruit women often

focus on younger generations. But a

programmebacked by the Swedish

Construction Federationis seeking to

fast-track olderprofessionals into site

manager positions.The scheme is

popular and helps to fill previously

vacant places on vocational courses

for both men and womenseeking a

career change.ZG-P

91% maleSwedish construction workforce

‘Sometimes women have a

feeling “men are entering a

women’s field’’’

Ronit Kark

MARCH 6 2020 Section:Reports Time: 3/3/2020- 18:30 User:harriet.arnold Page Name:WAB5, Part,Page,Edition:WAB, 5, 1