Developing Women at a UK University

Developing women at a UK University

Judith Secker

Deputy Head of Personnel Services, University of Oxford

My paper describes, against a background of general action to address women's under-representation in key roles at Oxford, the early evaluation of two specific initiatives. These are: (i) the impact for participants, and potentially for the University, of the Springboard women's development programme, and (ii) a career development fellowship programme aimed at bridging the gap between post-doctoral research and a university lectureship at this and similar universities.

Recruitment monitoring at Oxford University has established that, when women apply for posts, they are as likely as men to be appointed. But the data show that women do not apply in the same proportions as men for key positions. The University’s staffing structures therefore continue to be dominated at the senior levels by men. This paper will focus on two initiatives underway to address the resulting concerns. These are:

(i) The Springboard women’s development programme, which encourages women to set clear career goals: some 200 women have graduated from the programme at Oxford. The University is monitoring their progress and evaluating the programme. Springboard graduates report increasing self-confidence, which is reflected for many in the successful development of their careers.

(i) Positive-action career development fellowships to bridge the gap between research and lecturing: all of those appointed in the first intake were women. All have progressed to academic posts at this university or at similar universities in the UK or elsewhere. The second intake is now in post and an increase in the proportion of women applying for academic posts generally has been observed.

1. Early positive action measures

Since 1988 the University has monitored the proportions of men and women in all areas of its workforce and amongst applicants for its posts. Analysis of this comprehensive data bank has enabled us first to identify key concerns, primarily the low proportion of women in senior roles, and then to develop appropriate positive action measures to address those concerns. Well-established responses[i] include:

(i) Support for parents

The University offers exceptionally generous maternity, paternity, adoption and parental leave arrangements, which take particular account of the needs of women joining the academic staff in mid-career and at an age when they may also be considering having a family. We currently have three day nurseries for children under five offering between them 150 places. A school holiday play scheme runs during every holiday, including half terms, when childcare is a particular difficulty for academic parents because they fall within the university term.

(ii) Support for contract research staff

The University has an established Research Careers Initiative Project Group with a remit to investigate the further training and career development needs of its contract research staff, of whom some 40 per cent are women. The initiatives introduced to date include a designated careers service for research staff, extensive training for both researchers and their managers, and specific personnel services, such as a fund to bridge temporary shortfalls in external grant funding.

(iii) Career development for women

In 2002 the University for the first time offered women employees the opportunity of participating in the Springboard women development programme. This is described and evaluated in section 2 of this paper.

(iv) Work-life balance

The University is currently introducing more flexible working arrangements so that staff at all levels are better able to balance the commitments of their lives outside work with their working lives.

(v) Networking

Over 700 women, including many contract researchers, short-term teaching staff and support staff, are members of the Oxford Women's Network (OWN), which operates as an email network with occasional meetings, and which provides one excellent means of disseminating information about the University’s other equality initiatives.

2. The Springboard women's development programme[ii]

Unlike recruitment monitoring, pay auditing looking at the comparative salary positions of men and women is only relatively recently developed both at Oxford University and in the UK generally. Data analysed for the first time at Oxford in 2002 showed that:

·  Women were represented in each of the University's staff groups (academic, administrative, research, technical, clerical, and ancillary).

·  Men predominated in some staff groups (academic, technical, and ancillary), while 80 percent of the clerical group were women. In other staff groups (administration and research) the numbers of men and women were more equal.

·  There were no significant pay differentials between men and women in each salary grade. (Each staff group is broken down into five or six grades or salary bands). However, in each of the staffing structures men were more likely than women to be in more highly graded posts and, therefore, paid more than women who tended to be concentrated in the lower grades in the same staff group.

·  Women are less likely than men to apply for more senior posts, but are at least as likely as men to be successful when they do.

Steps are currently being taken across higher education in the UK[iii] to introduce new pay and grading structures based on analytical job evaluation free of sex bias. This will to some extent address the impact of job segregation (for example the predominance of men in the technical structure compared with women in the clerical structure) by ensuring that jobs done predominantly by one sex are graded and paid in the same way as jobs done predominantly by the other. However, given the underlying trend for men to be more highly graded than women, it is inevitable that men will be more likely than women to assimilate to the higher grades in the new structure.

To help address concerns about women's application rates for more senior posts, the University's HR Strategy[iv] provides resources enabling the delivery of Springboard at Oxford. Through four workshops spaced a month apart and a workbook used in self-study, the Springboard women's development programme encourages women to set and achieve goals at work and in their lives more generally. To date nine programmes have been run at Oxford, with all but the first two led by the University's own licensed Springboard trainers. The programme has been vastly over subscribed; demand for places continues to be heavy and a lunchtime 'taster' session has been introduced to maintain the interest of those women who have to wait more than one term for a place. In order to meet demand in the longer term five additional trainers have been licensed to deliver the programme at Oxford. This degree of investment in the programme, and in the women who participate in it, means that it is important for the University to monitor participation to ensure that particular groups of women are not inadvertently excluded, to evaluate the impact of the programme for the women who graduate from it (and potentially for the University), and to consider what further support women may need after completing the programme in order to achieve their full potential. Initiatives in each of these three areas are discussed below.

(i) Monitoring Springboard

The University's objectives in running Springboard are common to all staff groups. It is, therefore, important that women in all staff groups take up the opportunity to attend. An analysis carried out following the first five programmes showed that:

·  as might be expected, the largest proportion of participants came from the two staff groups where there are the largest numbers of women (the clerical and research staff groups),

·  for the majority of staff groups, the take-up of Springboard was between 3 and 4 per cent of the women in those groups, and

·  there was a lower than average take-up amongst both academic and technical staff and no technical clinical or ancillary, parks, and gardens employees had participated.

The under representation of some staff groups has been successfully addressed by a variety of targeted approaches. First, all women technicians were individually invited to attend a Springboard 'taster' and around a third of those who attended booked onto subsequent programmes. Anecdotally, it seems that the best publicity for Springboard has been by word of mouth. Increasing numbers of women tell us that they applied because a colleague or friend has told them about the programme. It seems likely that having increased their participation rate may help to spread the word about Springboard amongst women technicians generally and it is not thought that further targeting will be necessary for this group although take-up will, of course continue to be monitored.

Turning to the low take-up of Springboard by academic staff, discussion with a small number of women academics, some of whom have taken up the programme either at Oxford or elsewhere and found it useful, suggests that a complex mix of factors might be involved. These can be summarised as follows:

·  Academics, both men and women, tend to be very clear about their career objectives; this is particularly the case early in a career at Oxford, and therefore women are not likely to be drawn at that stage to a programme which assists with the identification and achievement of goals.

·  Springboard was developed for women who are not in senior positions. Both national and local publicity is, therefore, perhaps more likely to be attractive to women in the support staff groups (although the relatively high take-up by researchers at Oxford suggests that this is less a concern than might have been thought).

·  For female academics career progression may not be an issue given that there is no promotion bar at Oxford to the attainment of the maximum salary.

It was thought by those consulted that the programme could be particularly relevant for academics at certain stages of their development. This might vary from woman to woman. For some women, for instance, one or more of the stages of combining family life with academic work can be more difficult than for others. Informal contacts have been used to provide Senior Tutors with information about Springboard and it is hoped that this will enable the information to be provided to individuals for whom it may be most beneficial at a time that is right for them.

Finally, there have been no Springboard participants from amongst the ancillary, parks, and gardens (AGP) staff or from amongst the specialist technicians who work in medicine. So far as the latter are concerned, the provision of a future Springboard programme at a venue close to the hospital sites where they work is being planned. So far as the AGP staff are concerned, it is thought that, because many employees in this staff group will not have benefited from formal school education to the same extent as employees in other staff groups, they might be less comfortable initially with joining a course such as Springboard for which a reasonable degree of literacy is required. The HR Strategy includes the investigation of the Return to Learn programme developed by the trade union Unison, and equivalent schemes designed for people who want to improve their writing and reading and gain confidence in learning more generally. Women ancillary, parks, and gardens staff who attend these programmes will be encouraged to attend Springboard programmes as the next step in their development.

(ii) Evaluating Springboard

There is evidence both from within the University and externally that, at all stages of their careers, women experience lower self-confidence than comparable men[v]. This seems likely to be one reason for women's apparent reluctance to apply for more senior posts. This view is supported by the responses to a questionnaire that women enrolling on Springboard are asked to complete before taking the programme. These suggest that women lack confidence in many aspects of their working lives, including dealing with their managers and expressing their views.

To date 51 out of a possible 184 participants at Oxford have responded to a similar questionnaire sent to women a year after their Springboard programme (a 28 per cent response rate). A summary of responses is set out below:

Many Springboard participants identify lack of confidence and/or poor relationships at work as key reasons for entering the programme:

·  88 per cent of respondents report an improvement in their confidence at work

·  71 per cent report an improvement in relationships at work

·  84 per cent said that they behave more assertively at work

Participants are asked about the extent to which their work helps them to develop:

·  overall respondents felt that there had been an improvement in the extent to which their work helps them to develop but

·  44 per cent felt that their work at the University does not help them to develop

A key objective of Springboard at Oxford is to encourage women to set and achieve career goals:

·  75 per cent of respondents have clarified their career goals

·  47 per cent of respondents had applied to have their post re-graded and 62 per cent of these applications have been successful

·  64 per cent of respondents had applied for higher graded posts and 67 per cent have been appointed to such posts

·  79 per cent of respondents reported initiating other changes in their current role, for example taking on additional role-enhancing duties.