Have you ever sat in a fast bullet train going at three hundred kilometres an hour? If you have you will have noticed that the landscape flashes past at such a speed that it is often hard to distinguish what you are observing. Time just flashes by and three hundred kilometres fades into insignificance, almost unnoticed. Normalised within an instant.
The Australian work environment is like that bullet train. Everything is happening so fast it is hard to recognise the changes let alone keeping pace with those changes. For example, the deconstruction of the traditional domestic relationship, of mum dad and the two kids with the mother being the primary caregiver now only makes up 18{01332a80e2e652688e18927fa9a6162580960d47bc08263a3993439d666dcd52} of an average street in Melbourne.
Yet this stereotype is still a deeply held and prevailing belief within many parts of Australian society including current work practices and policies. A quick scan indicates that many polices are centred around getting women who have children back to at least part time work. It is much more accepted that women rather than men take parental leave. There are few if any policies which centre around families or singles without children.
Yet domestic partnerships more than ever are being driven by career choices and economic circumstances of each partner rather than traditional gender roles. The specific decisions women are making about their careers and choice of partner are accelerating those changes at lightning speed. Like the fast train it is happening so fast that almost no one is noticing.
Advocates like Sheryl Sandberg, who is the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, encourages women to be decisive about their careers. Sheryl has advised graduating women “that the most important career decision you’re going to make is whether or not to have a partner and who that partner is.” This is a reversal of the traditional script and many women are taking her advice.
In my Executive Coaching practice many women are the primary breadwinner and have actively made choices about their partners considering their career choices. Many state that they would not be able to advance their career and achieve their objectives without the support of a partner who primarily cares for their children. As with any relationship renegotiation of boundaries are ongoing and are not always seamless.
In America already 23 percent of wives out earn their husbands, according to a study by the Pew Research centre and accordingly a 2012 Bloomberg found that almost half of the 18 female chief executives of Fortune 500 companies, husbands were the primary caregiver.
No longer is there a logical expectation that the male will earn the highest income. There is no longer an expectation that women will automatically travel to follow the man’s career. Quite the reverse. This is becoming more relevant as women become more highly educated than men and more men value the role of parenting. In 2015 alone, forty-five thousand more women completed tertiary qualifications than men in Australia. Female university graduates continue to outnumber males at record levels.
Attitudes are changing so rapidly that in the same year 2015, only one third of women graduates stated they wanted to be the primary caregiver. One third wanted a partnership that has a dual career and children. One third stated they did not want children at all. If the women graduates entering the workforce follow through with their current attitudes, combined with the existing trends, many policies will have to be seriously re thought and recalibrated based on the demographics of the future workforce.
For example, one workforce policy states that women who come back to work within a certain time will be paid five days’ pay for four days’ work for a period of a year. This has been hailed as a progressive workplace policy. However, it assumes that most people within that age bracket intends to have children. If one third choose not to have children, what impact will such a policy have on those employees?
Some employees have already expressed that they find these arrangements discriminatory, demotivating and are demanding their own version of flexibility. For example, people who have pets not children, are requesting paid pet bereavement leave, time off to take their pets to the vet and to work from home if their pets are ill.
Others have suggested that as they don’t have the benefits associated with having children that paid educational sabbatical leave, or six-month unpaid leave is a reasonable trade off.
If one third of couples intend to have dual careers, and plan to share being primary parenting duties at different times during their careers, it may be mutually beneficial for organisations to employ couples rather than individuals, particularly if their talent is highly sort after.
Whatever the options, policy makers have an opportunity to create a competitive advantage for their organisations if they take the time to notice what is happening in the domestic landscape. This knowledge will help them create fair and progressive policies that will attract and retain more employees. The key is to take the time to notice irrespective of how fast the train is going.
