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For Alison Maitland, the case for flexible working is common sense, but she wants to see a much bigger cultural change in business. Maitland, co-author of a new book Why Women Mean Business, is in favour of “womenomics”, the case for businesses embracing the different ways women work during their different life stages. She and her co-author Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, chief executive of 20-First, a top European gender consultancy which works with companies interested in “gender bilingualism”, point out that 59% of graduates are now female and this number is not likely to decrease in the near future. Moreover, women are key consumers so it is vital for companies to have them on board.

Yet our working lives still very much follow a male path. Maitland, a senior visiting fellow in the faculty of management at the Cass Business School, City University, London and herself a working mother [she has two daughters], says a combination of things need to happen before “womenomics” becomes reality. This includes both changes in public policy and private sector initiatives. “Companies have to be reminded that women’s career patterns, aspirations and attitudes are different from the traditional male model. There is a very, very powerful case for why organisations need to adapt to women rather than women adapting to the organisation’s model,” she says. In practical terms, Maitland, who directs the Work-Life and Diversity Council of the Conference Board Europe and was on the advisory board of the Equal Opportunities Commission’s 2007 report Transformation and Work, wants to see flexible working being opened up to all workers. “It needs to be taken out of the working mothers’ ghetto,” she says. “It should be something employers think about for all employees at different times in their lives. People will not necessarily want to work flexibly throughout their career.”

Promotion

Another area ripe for change is promotion: Maitland says a lot of the decisions on promotion are made in a narrow age band – in a person’s late 20s or early 30s when women may be thinking about starting a family. “It’s a terrible crunch for them. Unless employers rethink their model of promotion so they can spot potential later they will continue to lose women,” she says. “They need to understand that careers are extending. Often women, after years of juggling work and family in their 30s and 40s, come back with renewed enthusiasm and energy in their 50s. Employers need to see that the male linear model of career progression is increasingly out of date in terms of the workplace as a whole.” Fathers too are keen to play a greater role in bringing up their children and could benefit from such changes, she adds, and many want their parenting role recognised. “It’s very noticeable in this country. A lot of people are now operating at a very high professional level but working for a virtual network in service firms. These are very flexible models so those involved can control their lives more.”

Good practice

The book describes examples of good practice around retaining skilled women workers. At the moment, however, admits Maitland, “many women face a choice between working flexibily and rising up the career ladder. That is complete madness given that women make up 57% of graduates,” she says. “If employers are looking at their future talent pool then that is more than half of it. Companies that are losing these women are losing key talent along the way.” And it’s not just a question of women as employees, but they are also the main deciders of consumer spending. Maitland cites statistics such as “women between the ages of 18 and 24 make up the largest single group of internet users”. “Women are setting trends in spending and technology use and are accumulating wealth independently in a way they never have before. There are more female millionaires,” she says. “These are extraordinary statistics. There has been an amazing shift in the marketplace so employers who miss out on this are losing doubly.” She argues that to change the current work culture, women need to appeal to the bottom line and employers need the case to be made to them that they are losing out financially through not adapting their work practices to women. They are losing out in company performance and in the recruitment costs of replacing female workers who leave. “There are three solid studies that show that a greater gender balance in a company, with a third of women in senior management, leads to greater profitability.”

The stigma of flexible working

She notes, however, that there is still a long way to go and that flexible working still carries a stigma. “Women tend to be apologetic about the arrangement.” Addressing the imbalance in childcare roles between parents could help, she says, citing top executive Barbara Cassani who said: “Even the issue of childcare, it is not a women’s issue; it is a family issue. And frankly some of the people who pose this question of people like me are implying that women should feel guilty about the work life balance and should feel more guilty than men.” Maitland believes policy changes are necessary to counter this imbalance, such as opening up flexible working to everyone and encouraging fathers to take parental leave. “There’s still the assumption that women are the parents,” she says. The book looks at the European picture. In France, for instance, women tend to work full time and have families. “Parenthood and working are not seen as incompatible,” says Maitland. “It’s ingrained in the French culture.” Surveys indeed show the top qualified professional women have more children than the national average and over 80% work throughout their careers. This, says Maitland, is due to the huge public infrastructure: children go to school full time from age three; there are after school clubs, good babysitting networks and there is no long hours culture. Maitland says things are changing in the UK and more companies, particularly the larger ones, are implementing flexible working and using it to their advantage, for instance, to provide a 24-hour service to customers. Indeed the book has had the backing of a number of top companies and some have hosted launch events for the book. Things are moving in the right direction, and, for Maitland at least, the case for changing our working culture is clear. It’s just a question of convincing everyone to get on board.

Why Women mean business: understanding the emergence of our next economic revolution is published by John Wiley & Sons, price £16.99.

What do you think? Email mandy@workingmums.co.uk