A certain top Bay Street investment bank recently held its directors' meeting in Florida. This firm has a small group of senior women, many of whom play excellent golf. All of the prizes provided for the company golf tournament were for men. Six in 10 women with senior jobs seriously think about leaving their organization. Male bosses think that women leave to be with their family more.
Women say they contemplate leaving because they are pissed off.
The top characteristic that distinguishes a company as the best place to work, according to the first annual ranking by Report on Business Magazine and HR consultants Hewitt Associates, is attitude. Annette Verschuren, president of Home Depot Canada, left a previous employer, Imasco Ltd., when she felt she was not going to reach the top there. Less than one year ago, Japan amended labour laws to explicitly prohibit discrimination against women in the workplace and to remove limits on the amount of overtime or night work a woman could do. Some companies began using bogus promotions of women employees involving untenable transfers to other cities as a means of downsizing. Working women who can't be available around the clock or travel without notice are widely seen by their companies as not committed to their jobs.