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THREE MEN
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ofice. One group it’s helping is
people with young children. It’s
okay because you’re at home and
you’re able to balance and you don’t
feel like you’re contributing less
than others in the ofice.
Cundari: About ive years ago, I had
this idea that we were a service
business so you have to be there
ive days a week and then [women
on] mat leave would come back
and ask for a four day a week
[schedule] and I’d say no. We’d lose
people. I didn’t know any better
then. So I said, let’s try it. We had
four ladies on four-day weeks,
and I realized they were putting
ive-day weeks in. Technology does
not allow them to walk away from
their job. The biggest hurdle we
have is collaboration. We’re trying
to implement new tools to do
desktop-to-desktop conferencing.
It seems to be working to a point –
some people are still visual. I don’t
know if it will solve everything.
Vonk: If you have the right
employees it can work. But having
the open mind to try things and
be open to experiment is a great
irst step for the employer. And to
make employees feel that they’re
welcome to come forward with
what they need to succeed [is of
equal importance]. I knew one
woman who just had a baby and
went to her boss and said, “I’m
supposed to be in Vancouver for six
weeks. Can I take the baby?” And
it was ine. It doesn’t have to be
revolutionary.
Lloyd: I think you have to be careful
that [only looking at family]
prevents businesses from looking
at other issues that are underlying
[the lack of diversity at senior
ranks] as well. It’s certainly a
large percentage [leading to the
problems.] But there are other
systemic things that are nobrainers.
When we look at our store
leadership, we assumed it was
family obligations [pulling women
out]. What we found was a drop
off on training, sometimes in the
“fresh food training.” The women
are often in the non-fresh, nonproduce,
non-meat departments,
and store leaders require this
knowledge. [Now we have] a
“fresh” training program and we
try to ensure women are taking
advantage of it.
Leung: Rather than focusing on what
percentage [of senior leadership]
is female, we’re really focused on
preventing women from selfselecting
themselves out. A few
years ago, if you were a female
brand manager and said, “I just
want to stay at this level,” we would
have said, “I don’t know if there’s a
LUXEMBOURG-BASED REGUS PLC FOUND THAT 43% OF CANADIAN COMPANIES OFFER
SOME SORT OF FLEX TIME, AND 66% OF BOSSES SAY IT SAVES THEM MONEY.
March 2013
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