Guess what people? Your favorite status in the business world recently stopped. Look around you—on business flights, in executive meetings, on project teams—and you’ll see just as many women as men. That’s right, no more majority rule.
Sure the good old network still controls the top posts, but not for long. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, bachelor’s degrees are now earned at a 4:3 ratio in favor of women and they predict this will increase to 3 women for every 2 men by 2017. And women are now receiving more advanced degrees. . That men. The boys club still skews the pay scale leaving women at only 80% of men’s pay levels. This embarrassing imbalance is on the mend and has got attention all the way to the Oval Office, but it needs to be rectified before long.
The US Department of Labor predicted that women will outnumber men as the majority of the US workforce this fall: no one knows the day or time (and it’s only as accurate as its statistical sampling). , but it is happening while you are reading this article. . Women held 49.83% of jobs in June and have continued to gain ground over men. Of the 7.2 million jobs lost since the start of this recession, about three-quarters were men laid off from traditional male-dominated industries. While women have experienced employment increases in education, local government and healthcare where they have been the majority. In Canada, women solidly hold the majority of jobs at 50.6%. American women also hold more than 250,000 more second jobs than men and 6 million more part-time jobs.
The days of the senior executive (male) taking the young rising star (male) under his wing in the classic mentoring scenario are fast disappearing. With women taking the workplace by storm, companies have begun to realize that women will occupy more of their corner offices in the very near future. Many have been informed and formed company-wide mentoring programs to give equal attention to women and minorities, and their executives have been told to step out of their comfort zones to recruit the next generation of leaders.
As women take the reins of senior management, they must learn strong communication skills and develop more opportunities to garner cooperation from other executives, since, relatively speaking, they are outsiders breaking through glass ceilings. They have not been led down the road like many of their male counterparts. The latter helped senior executives establish credibility and trust with other key influencers in the company. Women have largely been left alone to create alliances, develop rapport and a positive perception by others.
It’s a new world out there, accelerating along the shots of the deepest recession, embrace it with open arms.