Promotion of Women to Managerial Position

Abstract

This paper looks at promotions of women to managerial positions and the factors preventing such promotions seen in the light of the relationship between selection for such positions and the skills needed to qualify, based on the results of interviews at five regional banks. In particular, the paper discusses the effectiveness of past policies, gaining an understanding of at what point in their careers most women are faced with the choice between work and family, by analyzing work systems and the career formation process.

The most significant discovery was the existence of three steadfast walls blocking the advancement of women in the workplace. Women working in financial services, an industry that is characterized by overtime and irregular working schedules, encounter the first wall. The problem is especially compounded when women attempt to expand into corporate financing, an important service in the industry.

The second wall exists when moving into public relations. This profession requires the worker essentially to adapt to the customer's circumstances, which entails further overtime and even more irregular schedules. As a result, the public relations experience vital for moving up the ladder is often found lacking in female employees.

The third wall lies in transfers between branches. Transfers necessitating moving house are a requirement for acquiring the business sense needed when promoted to a position of responsibility, often coming as a result of extensive experience in many geographical regions. Since this creates difficulties for women looking to raise children and maintain households, advancement by women to managerial positions equivalent to store manager and above is complicated.

In this way, skills formation in the banking industry has changed little from past methods, as has the fact that women feel the burden of trying to advance while raising children and maintaining households. These facts combine to paint a picture of a situation facing women which cannot be said to have undergone much reform. Women's opportunities for horizontal career expansion have not seen significant improvement, and as a result vertical promotion remains difficult. Methods for acquiring skills are closely interrelated to a company's competitiveness, and as such the outlook for easy change in this area looks bleak. Put differently, the problematic choice between work and family remains unresolved, regardless of different personnel policies which have been implemented.

Based on this analysis, this paper discusses the shape personnel systems should take in order to provide a greater tolerance for diverse work-life cycles as part of overall policy direction. Specifically, this would mean eliminating age conditions on training and promotion/advancement and allowing employees to select at what age they want to perform those jobs required for acquiring skills. If it were possible for employees to form their careers whenever they wished within their lifecycle, they would be able to arrange periods of concentration on work with periods of emphasis on family within long-term life plans. This would mean not just creating a situation where it would be possible for a worker to choose his own work style different from others within one period, but to consider the necessity of a situation where workers could switch back and forth between work and family, in other words where workers would have a variety of options in their work-life cycle throughout their lives.