November 4, 2009
Edited and Written by Ira S. Wolfe
Published by Success Performance Solutions. Major Sponsor,
2008 Best Places to Work In Pennsylvania
What's Inside this issue of The TotalView:
1. It's No Longer A Man's World
2. Perfect Labor Storm Warnings
3. Generational Gaps - Age or Attitude?
4. eSKill Office Skill Testing
5. Quotes from the Hire Authorities
1. It's No Longer A Man's World
Can you imagine the fallout today if a physician requested the approval of a husband "to sign the form authorizing a mastectomy?" (Yes, Gen X and Gen Y - that was the norm just a few decades ago. )
Or how about a manager using these guidelines offered in the 1943 Guide to Hiring Women:
- Pick young married women ... over their unmarried sisters.
- When you have to use older women, try to get ones who have worked outside the home at some time in their lives.
- General experience indicates that "husky" girls - those who are just a little on the heavy side - are more even tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.
Yes folks, those guidelines were best practices for a generation of workers, many of whom who are still working today. So imagine their surprise just about two weeks ago, when The Center for American Progress released The Shriver Report announcing "it's no longer a man's world."
Time magazine's cover story this week features "The State of the American Woman." The opening paragraph in the corresponding article told a tale that defined the situation facing Baby Boomers (and women from previous generations) 40 or more years ago.
If you were a woman reading this magazine [Time] 40 years ago, the odds were good that your husband provided the money to buy it. That you voted the same way he did. That if you got breast cancer, he might be asked to sign the form authorizing a mastectomy. That your son was heading to college but not your daughter. That your boss, if you had a job, could explain that he was paying you less because, after all, you were probably working just for pocket money.
Today, this same husband isn't even permitted to confirm an appointment on behalf of his wife, no less approve or disapprove treatment. The boss would be sued for discrimination.
The significance of females as primary breadwinners is a huge deal for Boomers; it's not breaking news for Gen X and Gen Y who have grown with opportunities unavailable just a few decades ago. For many Baby Boomer and Veteran women, choosing a career condemned them to a lifetime of being a bad mother. When family values become the political agenda in the 1990s, working women were again the spouse forced to choose between career and family.
When I attended college and professional school in the 1970s, the joke was that men earned a B.S. or B.A. and women earned an MRS. Today 57% of college students are women and over 60% earn master's degrees. Today it's just as likely that the female graduate is competing for a position in law, medical and dental school while the men are struggling to find jobs.
But everything has changed. The ripple effect of the Great Recession has altered the working landscape and a new normal has been created. Equality (or at least near-equality) between male and female is all young adults know. For Baby Boomers, the paragraph above described a place in time that was reality then but is only history today. The new normal is a place where 50% of the workforce is female and nearly 40% of these female workers are the primary breadwinners.
If the battle of the sexes is over, what changes are you seeing in your workplace to accommodate a workforce of female primary breadwinners? Post your comments here.
Perfect Labor Storm Warnings 
Nearly 4 in 10 mothers (39.3 percent) are primary breadwinners, bringing home the majority of the family's earnings, and nearly two-thirds (62.8 percent) are breadwinners or co-breadwinners, bringing home at least a quarter of the family's earnings.
Source: The Shriver Report
For more workforce and hiring trends. subscribe to the Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 blog.
Purchase the NEW Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 books (soft and hard cover versions) at PerfectLaborStorm.com.
Generational Gaps - Attitude or Age?
Listen to Ira S Wolfe explain in this interview with David Greenberg the importance of age and attitude in creating generational clashpoints.
Social Media and Manager Training for the "Wired and Tired"
Attention Meeting Planners, Program Chairs, HR Professionals
Don't miss out on the opportunity to schedule Ira S Wolfe for your next meeting on one of the following hot topics:
Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization
When Boomers and Young Workers Collide
Social Media 101: Link Me, Tweet Me, Nudge Me
Marketing Your Business: Using Facebook
Learn more about these seminars. Contact us today.
Test for Office Skills Accurate & Affordable
eSkill assessments are an effective method of ensuring your candidates have the skills needed for your jobs before an extensive interview process. eSkill's online testing tool creates valid, job-based tests by combining multiple subjects and skill levels as needed into a single assessment.
- Accounting
- Bookkeeping
- Arithmetic
- English and grammar
Click here to learn more
Quotes from Hire Authorities
They say genes skip generations. Maybe that's why grandparents find their grandchildren so likeable.
Joan McIntosh
| |
|
Follow us on |
Permission is granted to consultants, managers, business owners and
HR professionals to reproduce content from this newsletter for your
internal publications, or to distribute copies to your workforce, on
the condition that you reproduce the credits and contact information
as follows: "Reprinted with permission from Ira S Wolfe and Success
Performance Solutions. Copyright 2008 Ira S Wolfe." We also hope you
will forward the newsletter in its entirety and recommend to others
that they subscribe.
Ira S. Wolfe Copyright 2009 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission only. |
