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 responsesi 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

2 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 programmeii

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 UKiii 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

3 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 Strategyiv 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.

4 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.

5 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 menv. 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

6 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.

These responses suggest that the programme increases confidence amongst a significant proportion of participants. Although it is necessary to be cautious about outcomes based on the numbers of respondents represented so far in this survey, and it is, of course, not possible to evaluate the impact of the programme for those women who have not responded, nor to make comparisons with women who have not experienced Springboard, it is clear that, for some women employed by the University, Springboard has been a powerful development tool.

It is interesting that, where respondents have painted a more negative picture, for example that their work does not stretch them, or that they have concerns about making career changes, they have often attributed this to their age. It remains to be seen whether the steps that the University will need to take in 2006 to implement UK government regulations on age discrimination will eventually change these perceptions. It also, of course, remains to be seen whether Springboard, coupled with the University's other initiatives in this area, will have an impact on the relative positions of men and women in our staffing structures.

7 (iii) Developing Springboard graduates

Because it seemed likely that Springboard graduates would need continued support to achieve their longer term goals and because it was thought important that the University should continue to gain from their participation in the programme, consideration has been given to providing additional support for themvi. This has for the most part been informed by discussions held with participants during the course of their final workshop. Initiatives currently underway include the provision of:

 a list of appropriate life coaches who can assist with setting and achieving goals  more assertiveness training  job application skills workshops  information about other career-related courses offered by the Oxford Learning Institute, such as the Introductory Certificate in First Line Management  a peer group mentoring scheme in which women who volunteer to be mentors are trained to mentor others  an interactive website for graduates to exchange ideas and information

3. The position of women in the academic staff of the University of Oxford

The University has been particularly concerned that women continue to be under represented amongst its academic staff. Key findings derived from our workforce and recruitment monitoring include:

(i) Workforce monitoring - academic and research staff

 Between 1995 and 1999 the proportion of women in the non-clinical academic staff group was increasing very slowly, from 17 per cent in 1995 to 19 percent in 1999 (a rate of increase of 12 per cent over the five years).

 In contrast to the 19 per cent in academic posts, in 1999 women made up 39 per cent of the non-clinical research workforce.

8  Following a positive action programme initiated in 2001 the proportion of women in the non-clinical academic staff group has increased to 23 per cent in 2005 (a rate of increase of 21 percent over the six years from 1999.)

 Over the same period the proportion of women in the non-clinical research workforce has increased from 39 to 43 percent.

(ii) Recruitment monitoring - academic and research staff

 Typically, in the second half of the 1990's women were approximately 20 percent of applicants for academic posts and 35 per cent of applicants for research posts, In both staff groups women applicants had a better success rate than men and were being appointed disproportionately to their applications.

 In 2004, following a positive action programme women were 29 per cent of applicants for academic posts and 34 per cent of appointees, while research application and appointment rates remained steady.

These findings suggest that there is no discrimination against women at the appointment stages of the selection process (although there is, of course, no room for complacency here). Discussions with colleagues at other research universities suggested that this pattern of low appointment rates coupled with appointments in proportion to them was typical of research institutions in the UK. It seemed clear, therefore, that the key to increasing the proportion of women appointed to academic posts would be an increase in the proportion of women applying for such posts.

4. The Oxford Athena positive action programmevii

In 1999-2000 the University of Oxford applied successfully to the national Athena Projectviii for funding to assist with a programme of work aimed at encouraging applications from women scientists for academic appointments at the University. In broad summary the conclusions of an initial research phase were that:

 the University needed to project a more positive image of itself to women in the recruitment pool of potential applicants,

9  a number of changes were required to the University’s recruitment advertising and selection procedures in order to make these more transparent and readily understood by potential applicants, and

 employment practices needed to be reviewed and overhauled to ensure that they become more effective as a means of recruiting and retaining women in the academic staff of the University.

These conclusions are being addressed by a comprehensive action plan. However, this paper focuses on one specific action arising from the common observations of the women researchers and lecturers who were interviewed during the research stage of the Oxford Athena project that it is a big career jump to move from a typical researchship to an academic appointment at Oxford or a similar research institution. Such appointments are often more akin in terms of salary and status to a professorial appointment than a lectureship at some other UK institutions and are, therefore, seen as perhaps the final, rather than the first, stage of an academic career. Men in the early stages of an academic career were thought by those interviewed in the project to be more prepared to take a chance and apply for such a post at Oxford, while women were thought likely to be less confident of their chances of success and more concerned about failure, and, as a result, less likely to apply.

We envisaged that it might be possible to bridge the perceived gap to this senior career-grade level with the entirely new concept of a fixed-term career development fellowship. These fellowships, which were initially of two years duration, have been carefully designed; they include the full range of academic duties, so that appointees are expected to carry out a programme of research, to teach, and to contribute to college life at Oxford. However care has been taken to ensure that the duties are not so onerous as to preclude participation in a tailored package of professional development, which includes being allocated an academic mentor.

Commitment to the idea has been high and this together with funding secured through a special initiative requiring universities to set HR targets resulted in 13 career development fellows being appointed in the first cohort in 2002-4. Employment legislation in the UK permits single sex recruitment only in very constrained circumstances and it was, therefore, not practicable to limit the fellowships to women applicants. Nor, it must be said, did the University wish to limit the pool of applicants in this way. First it is imperative that a leading institution such

10 as Oxford is able to recruit the very best person for each post, regardless of sex, and second there were also concerns about the general under representation of ethnic minorities, both men and women, amongst applicants for posts at Oxford. The advertisement, therefore, welcomed applications from both women and ethnic minorities. The application, shortlisting and appointment rates for men and women are set out in the following table:

Table 1: CDF recruitment monitoring data 2002-4 cohort

Applicants Shortlisted Appointed (% total) (% total) (% total) Men 36 (46) 4 (25) 0 (0) Women 42 (54) 12 (75) 13 (100) Total 78 (100) 16 (100) 100 (100)

All of the fellows appointed in the first cohort were women (and over 50 per cent were from minority ethnic backgrounds). Over 50 per cent of the applicants were women compared with an average at that time of around 20 per cent in normal academic recruitment exercises. Heads of departments (for the most part men) who led the recruitment are adamant that the disproportionately high rates of women shortlisted and appointed genuinely reflected the very high calibre of the female applicants compared with the men. This tends to confirm the views expressed by interviewees in the research stage of the Oxford Athena Project that some of these women might have been good candidates for normal academic posts at Oxford but would be less likely than men to apply, and that men are more likely to take a chance on applying for a post for which they may not be very highly qualified.

So why did such highly qualified women apply for these posts? The view of the fellows themselves is that women were given the confidence to apply by the emphasis placed in the advertisement on career development, including the opportunity to undertake the University’s postgraduate diploma in learning and teaching, by the offer of a mentor, and by the very positive image of the University conveyed in general by the advertisement.

Turning to the destinations of this first cohort of career development fellows, During the academic year 2004-5 we evaluated the first scheme so that the second scheme could be designed to reflect the comments that we had received. All of the fellows and their heads of departments and mentors spoke favourably about the fellowships. However, one frequent comment was that a two-year fellowship was too short: by the

11 time that a fellow had settled into the role it was time for her to look for her next job. As a result the second scheme has been designed to take place over three years.

Table 2 shows that the scheme has clearly succeeded in its objective of enabling the fellows to move on to the next stage of a successful academic career. Listed below are the destinations for 11 of the 12 fellows. (One destination remains unknown.) Most of them have gone into lectureships either at Oxford or at other universities in the UK and abroad. Arrangements are being made to track their future careers.

Table 2: Destination of Oxford career development fellows 2002-4 cohort

Destination of Career Development Fellows 2002-4

University of Durham – lectureship University of Birmingham – lectureship University of Chester – lectureship King’s College, London – lectureship University of Cambridge – lectureship University of Geneva – lectureship St Etienne University, France – lectureship University of Oxford – lectureship (2) University of Oxford – Junior Research Fellowship (2)

In September 2005 we wrote to the 2002-4 cohort asking them to reflect on the programme one year after completing it and on their future plans. Five women responded: all commented on the range of activities that the fellowship offered them, often in the context of enhancing a CV and as a result enabling them to become better placed as applicants for academic posts. All of these women intend to continue their academic careers, mentioning senior lectureships and readerships amongst their goals for the next five years.

The second Career Development Fellowship Scheme has been launched to run from October 2005 to September 2008 with 15 posts available across the University's five academic divisions. A key change in the administration of the second scheme compared with the first was that recruitment and selection was handled centrally in 2002 and was devolved to the University’s five academic divisions in 2005 using a model advertisement and further particulars for the posts. This seems to have had a

12 significant influence on the number of applicants, which in turn has influenced the gender composition of the shortlists and appointments:

Table 3: CDF recruitment monitoring data 2005-8 cohort

Applicants Shortlisted Appointed (% total) (% total) (% total) Men 320 (58) 39 (55) 8 (53) Women 230 (42) 32 (45) 7(47) Total 562 (100) 71 (100) 15 (100)

Comparing the data for 2002-4 and 2005-8:  The number of applicants increased in total by 88 per cent, with applications from men increasing by 80 per cent and those from women by 69 per cent.

 The proportion of applications from women remained high compared with the proportion of applications received from women for academic posts generally.

 Women were shortlisted and appointed to the 2005-8 cohort in slightly greater proportions than would be indicated by their presence in the filed of applicants.

The career development fellowship programme would seem to be achieving its objective of attracting a more diverse field of applicants. The University will continue to track the fellows in their subsequent careers and will be particularly interesting to compare the progress of the men and women in the mixed 2005-8 cohort.

5. Some tentative conclusions

Evaluating the Springboard women’s development programme at Oxford and the University’s career development programme is enabling us to begin to assess the impact of such positive action measures specifically targeted to tackling women’s under representation in key areas. So far as recruitment and workforce monitoring is concerned it is, of course, not possible to separate the effect of a specific programme from attempts being made more generally to increase diversity in the University’s staffing and to support women in the workforce. It is only over a period of years that we will be able to see if the apparent trend for increased applications from women for academic posts is sustained and whether women will become better represented in more senior posts generally. In advance of having sufficient data to undertake such

13 statistical analyses it is clear that dialogue with women who have participated in the University’s positive action schemes is worthwhile and that for significant numbers of women such initiatives can make a difference to their confidence and to their career goals and achievements.

14 i Details of general support for staff at Oxford are available on the University’s personnel website: http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/ps/ Childcare arrangements and the Oxford Women’s network are described on the Diversity and Equal Opportunities website: http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/eop/ ii For more information about the Springboard women’s development programme visit the Springboard Consultancy’s website: http://www.springboardconsultancy.com iii The National Framework Agreement for the Modernisation of Pay Structures covers the whole of the U.K. higher education sector. It is available on the pay modernisation section of the website of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association: http://www.ucea.ac.uk iv The University of Oxford Human Resources Strategy is available on the University’s personnel website: http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/ps/ v On women’s relative lack of confidence see, for example, Mellanby, J., Martin, M., O'Doherty , J. British Journal of Psychology, Vol. 91 No.3 August 2000 The 'gender gap' in final examination results at Oxford University; Chesterman, C., Ross-Smith, A., and Peters, M. Changing the landscape? Women in academic leadership in Australia. McGill Journal of Education Vol 38 No 3 Autumn 2003. vi The full range of support for the University’s Springboard graduates is described on the Oxford Learning Institute website: http://www.learning.ox.ac.uk (click 'seminars and courses' and scroll the alphabetical list to 'Springboard'.) vii The Oxford Athena programme is an example of positive action (action designed to counteract the effects of past discrimination and to help eliminate sex stereotyping). See the University’s Diversity and Equal Opportunities website: http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/eop/gender/Athena.shtml viii The Athena Project operates under the auspices of Universities UK. Its aim is the advancement of women in science, engineering and technology in higher education. To achieve its aim, Athena works with higher education institutions to develop, share, encourage and disseminate good practice: http://www.athena.ic.ac.uk/. The University has extended the coverage of its own Athena project to include women in disciplines other than science.