NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Women's careers are being stymied by more than a glass ceiling. Bosses believe women have more family-work conflict, which is a misconception that is holding them back, according to new research. And it's not just male managers who have the wrong idea. "These perceptual biases held for both male and female managers," Jenny Hoobler, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and her co-authors said. "Even though female employees actually reported slightly less family-work conflict than their male counterparts, their managers still perceived them as having greater family-work conflict, a perception that had significant implications for women's organizational advancement." Hoobler and her co-authors, Sandy Wayne and Grace Lemmon, ironically found than problems often emerged as a result of company-sponsored programs meant to assist workers in managing family-work conflict. Their findings, published in the The Academy of Management Journal, showed that employees participating in such programs may send the wrong signal to their managers, particularly that they have family demands and need assistance in balancing home and work domains.
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Women's careers are being stymied by more than a glass ceiling. Bosses believe women have more family-work conflict, which is a misconception that is holding them back, according to new research.
And it's not just male managers who have the wrong idea.
"These perceptual biases held for both male and female managers," Jenny Hoobler, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and her co-authors said.
"Even though female employees actually reported slightly less family-work conflict than their male counterparts, their managers still perceived them as having greater family-work conflict, a perception that had significant implications for women's organizational advancement."
Hoobler and her co-authors, Sandy Wayne and Grace Lemmon, ironically found than problems often emerged as a result of company-sponsored programs meant to assist workers in managing family-work conflict.
Their findings, published in the The Academy of Management Journal, showed that employees participating in such programs may send the wrong signal to their managers, particularly that they have family demands and need assistance in balancing home and work domains.
Following eight years of a relatively business-friendly administration in Washington, D.C., companies can expect to be under the microscope as the Barack Obama administration gears up to look into alleged patterns of discrimination and other potentially litigious issues, according to attorneys who gathered at a North Jersey labor and employment law conference sponsored by regional law firm LeClairRyan.... "President Obama has increased funding for staffing at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and is adding labor economists who will be looking for [trends that indicate] systemic discrimination patterns," said Judy Keenan, a trial attorney with the New York District office of the EEOC who served as a panelist at the LeClairRyan conference. "So companies that use credit checks or even criminal background searches as part of the employment process may be reviewed to see if their investigative actions have a disparate negative racial or gender-based impact." The EEOC is also looking into alleged cases of wage discrimination, where employees who engage in similar work are paid differently according to their nationality, Keenan said. The EEOC is also looking carefully at severance or separation agreements -- where a company provides an involuntarily terminated employee with cash or other benefits in return for the employee's agreement not to sue over the layoff, Keenan said.
"President Obama has increased funding for staffing at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and is adding labor economists who will be looking for [trends that indicate] systemic discrimination patterns," said Judy Keenan, a trial attorney with the New York District office of the EEOC who served as a panelist at the LeClairRyan conference. "So companies that use credit checks or even criminal background searches as part of the employment process may be reviewed to see if their investigative actions have a disparate negative racial or gender-based impact."
The EEOC is also looking into alleged cases of wage discrimination, where employees who engage in similar work are paid differently according to their nationality, Keenan said.
The EEOC is also looking carefully at severance or separation agreements -- where a company provides an involuntarily terminated employee with cash or other benefits in return for the employee's agreement not to sue over the layoff, Keenan said.
