Smashing through the glass ceiling

The factors

The long hours culture is so common in the UK, that many people assume that it’s inevitable. When women talk about wanting flexible or family friendly hours they are seen as at best unrealistic and at worst uncommitted to the company. Few people question whether these long hours are necessary, or whether people might actually work better if they had more time off. In many workplaces there is a macho ‘culture of presenteeism’; you have to be seen to be there, and nobody wants to be the one to go home on time, let alone early. But in many European countries the opposite is true – if your car is still in the car park after six o’clock it’s a sign of failure, proof that you can’t do your job properly.

Women are still suffering from the assumption that the average employee is a man, with a wife at home to look after his children, and arrange his social life so that he doesn’t have to worry about losing touch with friends and family. This doesn’t work for women, and increasingly it doesn’t work for men either, who don’t want to have the distant relationship with their children they had with their own father, and whose female partners are not willing to take on the full burden of childcare and housework. Ultimately smashing the glass ceiling is about re-thinking the balance between work and home, recognising that a change in hours is not just better for women, it’s better for men too.