No clear path

Promotion out of reach: Why young women see no opportunity to lead

IN CELEBRATION OF International Women’s Day, a nice gesture to the ladies in your life is warranted and very likely appreciated. But one thing Canadian women are really looking for, at least in their professional lives, are opportunities for promotion — and sadly, those are seriously lacking, states a new report.

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According to the report from Fora: Network for Change, women in Canadian workplaces are feeling increasingly stuck at work, especially early in their careers. Ninety-three per cent of women under 30 say they see no pathway to promotions at work; 85 per cent said they do not feel challenged or stimulated; and 51 per cent said they were stuck in entry level positions and not moving anywhere.

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“The opportunity for promotion, the opportunity for increased salary, it’s really being barred and prevented at that very early career stage for these young people, which then impedes and slows their progression of climbing into leadership,” said Fora CEO Emma Asiedu-Akrofi. “If they miss that first step into promotion, it slows the wage growth, it limits their access to stretch opportunities. When you compare that to their male counterparts, it’s even more pronounced.”

It’s something you can see in national data. Statistics Canada finds that while women occupy around 47 per cent of all management positions, they hit a glass ceiling at around 40 per cent of senior management positions — not an enormous gap, but a persistent one. And the stats produced by Fora offer a contrast to long-celebrated improvements to women’s labour participation rates. Higher workforce participation is often assumed to be a good thing, but Fora’s data suggests it has come at the expense of quality — that the talents of a large cohort of young women are stuck in an underemployment and underutilization rut. As much as the workforce participation gap has closed, the gap between being employed and being fulfilled appears to be widening.

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How then can women be better supported? HR experts say they want to see industries of all stripes moving beyond some of the more performative supports that have become common in the last few years.

“Women have too much mentoring and not enough sponsorship,” stated Toronto Metropolitan University Diversity Institute’s Wendy Cukier, speaking to HR Reporter. She and others say that while mentorship has helped women develop skills, few are seeing themselves be championed and advocated for in formal and informal networking spaces. “They focus on performance and task as opposed to those informal networks and relationships that actually, at the end of the day, often matter as much or more than talent and accomplishments.” Kieran Delamont