Part time doesn't have to equal career pause
Are your job vacancies structured to allow diversity?
It’s an interesting phenomena.
So many of us in mature markets are talking about the lack of diversity in senior leadership roles. Various reasons have been cited for the “glass ceiling" syndrome inclusive of
Bias and discrimination - overt and/or unconscious
Gender and ethnic stereotypes
Lack of effective networking opportunities between minority employees and “mainstream” leaders
Work-life balance pressures
We certainly see that work-life balance, or "career & personal interest integration", continues to be an issue. Despite the ongoing push of corporations to open senior level career options for women for instance, we see so many female professionals bowing out from their ascending career roles. Instead they choose to spend their time on families, and/or to pursue other interests eg: tertiary studies, coaching, charity projects, or relocating and putting their own jobs “on hold” to support a spouse’s career.
Even prior to the Covid pandemic, we were observing an “opt out of corporate career” trend that was spanning both genders, given the rise of stay at home dads and single parents.
Why are executive hires always a full time job?
However, despite many corporations showing commitment to boost “diversity” hiring (be it for gender, ethnicity or sexuality) we still so rarely see instances where the actual work commitment required, especially for senior level hires, is anything other than a full time work contract. With all that we’ve already observed on generational expectation differences for work-life balance, and the increasing importance of that concept to employees at all experience levels; we wonder why corporations aren’t actively changing work practices to factor in this growing risk for securing and keeping high quality staff.
Does it not make sense that the more experienced and senior you are, the more the company needs your intellect, rather than your physical presence day in day out? Has the Covid19 crisis not proved that with the right supply of technology enabling virtual work arrangements, senior level professionals can be remain effective and productive at work whilst also having flexibility to pursue their personal commitments and interests?
It seems particularly ironic, that within the HR function, we’re busy advising business leaders on the need to create options for workplace flexibility in order to attract and retain key talent; but so rarely apply those principles within our own patch of turf!
Part time HR leadership works if you want it to
One of our employers of choice is determined to lead the way in showing that you can maintain a global role at senior level as a HR professional, and pursue personal interests outside of work as well. This US$ 13 billion business spanning both mature and emerging markets utilised our HR executive search service to hire a Global HR Business Partner to support a key corporate function and it's C-suite leader. They were clever with their thinking on this and structured this role to appeal to a wide variety of HR professionals, be it a working mum or dad who wanted to balance a career with family commitments; or a HRBP who who wanted to also invest time in sports or charity interests or further studies and other personal commitments. This hire was successfully effected on a salaried part time basis and the business leaders have since been raving about how effective the arrangement has been, to the point that they’ll try this now for future hires and across other functional areas.
When you think that many Global HRBP’s are already double or triple hatting with their remits, it seems so very obvious for how a high performance HR leader could effectively manage to support a key population within a business whilst working part time; so kudos to this company for offering this unusual career role.
It does however remain an unusual arrangement. Today for instance, on LinkedIn we see that of 2,648 advertised jobs at HR Director level within the USA, only 6 are available for a part time work arrangement. There are 0 advertised jobs on that same site for part time HR Director roles within the UK. Granted, it’s not the most scientific analysis of the market, but it serves our point!
If your company has had success in effecting senior level hires, for any functional area on a part time basis – we’d love to hear about it. After all, changing this basic work time arrangement may well be the key that allows companies to make sustainable headway with leadership diversity.
About the Author
Leanne Morris is well known as a both an outspoken advocate and critic of the HR profession. With long standing networks across 94 countries in all specialist areas of the function, and a multi- continent work history, she is a sought after subject matter expert on international HR hiring trends and HR hiring best practice.