Working with a team of women

Working with a team of women

Hi all,

The subject line might not tell the whole story... But bare with me!

I watched the very interesting 'Things we don't say about race (that are true) on Channel 4 this weekend. Even though I'm not sure that Mr Phillips added much in way of a solution and that some of his statistics were quoted as gospel without any questioning (where they were sometimes obviously flawed), it was an interesting take on a topic always worth discussing. As someone active in HR it's of course part of what I do and perhaps therefore even more relevant.

It made me think about my own profession and I considered if there might be a conversation to have around gender wequality. Let's look at some stats provided by xperthr via their annual survey before I add an experience I had relating to the subject line of this blog post.

  • Three-quarters of UK HR professionals (75.4%) taking part in the 2014 XpertHR Benchmarking survey on HR careers survey are female.
  • The proportion of women in the UK HR profession is up very slightly from two years ago. The previous XpertHR Benchmarking survey of HR careers found that the UK HR profession was 75.1% female in 2012.

Does this mean anything? Is this why I'm often asked why on earth I've chosen HR as my career path? Could it mean that I'm more likely to stand out in a positive way in an interview situation, or do I risk being discriminated against?

I can't say I have any problems with this myself. It's a career I like, I've had a most wonderful time as an HR professional so far and I  haven't stopped to think about my colleagues gender (except when asked to monitor or report on this). Whether they are women or men doesn't really concern me. Apparently it down have a different effect on other people.

I remember being in an interview last year where I was asked a slightly unexpected question. I was being interviewed by two HR business partners to potentially become the third one working alongside them. We had good chemistry and I felt I was managing to answer questions really well. Then, out of the blue, came the question I certainly hadn't prepared for:

"What do you think it will be like to work with a team of only women and how will you manage that situation" (this might not be a 100% accurate wording but the message is undeniably the same). 

What was this? A curve ball? A test? 

I must have given them what they wanted as they put me through to the final round, but I always felt that question was odd. That an HR professional asked me to judge a potential future working relationships with, to me, unknown people was odd enough. To ask me to judge them based only on their gender was enough to put me off that company.

What are your thoughts? Have you had any similar experiences?

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Comments

  • Mikael,

    great blog and a really good question to reflect on. 

    I love competencies and the question raised rings alarm bells for me about hypothetical questions. (and just how useless they are.)  If you are working in HR where there are 75.1% female staff - they could have asked you about previous experience with working in HR.

    Oh well, good decision of yours not to proceed -if the HRBP's are using poor tools, like hypothetical questions, then that is worrying!

    great post, thanks

    John 

  • It is indeed a very strange question to ask in an interview. I have never been asked it or anything like it! Perhaps they had experienced a previous difficulty that made them want to ask the question.

    How big was the team? Were there any men in the workplace or was the whole workplace "women only"?

    I'm feeling quite puzzled about it! Maybe someone else will have a better idea. :)

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