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Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc. | |
DIVERSITY
Glacial progress
A new report from the Canadian Chamber highlights the persistent barriers for women in management, leadership and entrepreneurship
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FRESH OFF THE press for last week’s International Women’s Day, a new report from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce is painting efforts to improve gender parity in a pretty bleak light, warning that Canada is slipping behind in terms of women being promoted into management positions and estimating that current trends won’t have us reaching real parity until 2129.
“When it comes to the share of women managers, Canada is behind nearly half of all OECD countries,” the report warned. Here in Canada, women make up only 35.6 per cent of the management class ― slightly more than Austria, slightly less than Finland. “Women in Canada face not one glass ceiling, but several; not one broken rung in the promotion ladder but many ― all of which hinder their ascent to full equality.”
What is behind this gap? The lead researcher behind the study, Dr. Samantha Dodson, told Canadian HR Reporter that it’s likely a mix of things. You have the pandemic setback, for one, which forced many women to leave the workforce temporarily. But on the other hand, you still have a lot of soft barriers in place.
“There’s going to be institutional forces that are going to make them feel like they can’t, or that it’s not safe, or they just don’t want to because they don’t want to be in that kind of environment,” Dodson said. “You need to be active in your efforts to create spaces that women feel safe in, where they feel like they can do their best work in. Put in the effort to recruit them.”
Over the long term, progress is being made. Women’s wage gains over the past few decades have done a lot to close the gap. But the last ten years have seen that movement plateau. Women in management still make only around 88 cents on the dollar, and a report from the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce last week found that between 2012 and 2024, the wage gap only shrunk by a measly two percentage points.
So, it should be a reminder that we’ve still got a lot of work to do.
“Canadian businesses, non-profits, governments and public sector employers all have a role to play in bridging the representation and compensation gap still experienced by women today,” the Chamber report concludes. “Redoubling our efforts now will ensure that future generations won’t face the same challenges experienced by today’s women in business.”
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CAREERS
Where have all the accountants gone?
Looking for an accountant to help with your taxes this year? Yeah, good luck with that
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IF YOU DON’T already have an accountant doing your taxes, we’ve got some bad news: you’re probably doing them yourself this year.
“It will be difficult for individuals to find CPAs to do the work for them unless they already have an established relationship,” John Oakey, VP of taxation at CPA Canada, told The Globe and Mail last month.
One of the main culprits is new taxation rules for trusts, which has many accountants “racing against a March 30 deadline to help existing clients satisfy new filing obligations for trusts,” and it has meant there are fewer accountants to go around.
But that’s just one aspect of the trend. The number of new accountants has been trending downward in both Canada and the U.S. for some time, with the profession struggling from a bit of an image and compensation problem, said Kim Moody at the Financial Post.
“I’m concerned that this slow-moving train of incomprehensible new tax legislation combined with a decline in the number of accountants will eventually crash in a horrible wreck,” Moody wrote. “Obviously, this would not be good for Canada.”
So, get ready to open up Wealthsimple or TurboTax and dive into your own taxes this year. Or get ready to suck up to any accountant you can find.
“If you work with a good accountant, give them a hug this tax season,” Moody suggested. “It may be tough for you to find a replacement.”
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Terry Talks: The real cost of employee turnover and what you can do about it
| It costs money to replace your people. Every aspect of losing an employee and hiring another has a price tag: recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and developing talent all have hard costs. But there are invisible costs to employee turnover that may not even be seen directly on a financial report. Intangible costs include reduction in employee morale and engagement, increased burnout, and the loss of organizational knowledge when a key employee leaves suddenly. | | | |
WORKFORCE
Pay bumps, shiny new titles and flex work
Easy-peasy: Employees reveal what employers can do to keep them happy
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CANADIAN WORKERS ARE relatively easy to please, according to LinkedIn’s latest Workforce Confidence report. What do Canadian workers want? Hybrid work, a promotion and better pay. Simple as.
“A combined 58 per cent of respondents to a LinkedIn survey of 2,658 professionals in Canada surveyed from September to December 2023 said they preferred to work either on a hybrid basis where they’re frequently remote (33 per cent) or fully remote (25 per cent),” LinkedIn found. That, they note, is higher than the 20 per cent of people who are currently working from home most of the time.
On the pay front, only 55 per cent of people said they got a pay bump last year, and only 46 per cent expect one in the next six months.
On the surface these results aren’t totally out of line with what we’ve seen in similar surveys over the past two to three years, and roughly reflect what we’ve come to see as industry standard. But the data exposes some long-term liabilities. “Employers have been beating the drum on return-to-office mandates. But are companies at risk of alienating their employees with this strategy?” asked LinkedIn’s Riva Gold.
Survey data shows that the workforce is growing a little weary of waiting for change, and in 2024 four out of every five workers is planning to look for a new job, according to Robert Walters. Pay raises that haven’t matched inflation are a core part of it. But so is career mobility. LinkedIn’s data reveals that younger workers ― millennials and gen Z ― are expecting to start moving up the ladder, with half of gen Z workers expecting a promotion this year. Millennials, now entering the age where they are expected to start families and care for children, are for their part statistically least enthused with returning to the office.
Both have material reasons to be a little restless and frustrated with a Canadian job market, where pay increases are better accessed through job hopping than by internal promotions, and where childcare access grows strained while companies order people back to the office. At the same time, though, the labour market is cooling ― so while Canadian workers are getting a bit restless, it remains to be seen if that will translate into a year marked by increased rates of job turnover.
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CULTURE
The ugly side of work
Workplace bullying is on the rise — and it’s hitting Gen Z the hardest
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ONE POSSIBLE REASON why Gen Zers are so reticent to return to the office might be because they are getting a chilly reception from their older colleagues when they do show up, according to a new study from ResumeBuilder.com.
The survey of how workers are experiencing the return to office found that gen Z employees are nearly twice as likely to report being bullied at work ― and almost half of them have experienced “creepy” behaviour at the office.
We’ve seen additional data to suggest that workplace bullying has spiked across the board since the pandemic, with Ethisphere surveying two million workers globally and finding that bullying had jumped nearly 13 per cent. “Something I don’t think we’re discussing enough is the fact that Covid-19 was a major global trauma, and a large percentage of the population has not fully recovered from it,” said Summit Search Group’s Matt Enhard. “Not everyone has transitioned fully back into engaging with people face-to-face.” As a result, people’s behaviour can be a little bit erratic.
Some experts suggest that the data might be shaped by Gen Z’s willingness to speak up about workplace bullying, where other generations have kept quiet. “I find Gen Zers have a lower tolerance for this type of behaviour than older workers,” Enhard said. “They are also more dubious of the traditional workplace model overall.”
However, many are also reticent to make formal complaints, according to Ethisphere’s Salmon Byrne. They are “less likely to raise concerns because they don’t have a lot of comfort in the system,” and “are not completely convinced that they won’t experience retaliation as a result.”
Some others disagree that there is much of a problem, though, and think that Gen Z might just be too sensitive. “The people of this generation do not know the difference between somebody being rude, somebody being mean and somebody bullying you,” said Rosalind Wiseman, a workplace speaker and author. “Those are different things.”
Sure – but are any of them things we want in the workplace?
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