It’s not good enough to yell: “I don’t

 

vs A damannos

just get me a new girl.” Figure out wha sort ofjob-you’re
trying to fill—most men don’t have a clue.

 

the labor force after raising a family.
She says: “Fifteen years ago we were
inundated with responses for recep-
tionists’ positions, jobs that demanded
nothing more than eight hours a day.
Now we can’t fill them. But an ad that
mentions the word ‘promotable’... we
have hundreds of women on file who
want a job that will give them a chance
to be creative, take some initiative and
dig in. And more than three-quarters of
them want an opportunity for advance-
ment,”

A few months ago, Mrs. Davis sent
several stenos to an ad agency executive.
None of them fit the bill. The problem,
she says, was not that the women she had
suggested were incapable but that the ad
executive really needed an assistant,
not a typist.

“Most men don’t know what kind of
support person they are looking for
when they come to us,” says Mrs. Davis,
“and that’s because they have no idea
what the job is that they are trying to
fill.”

Nor do they understand that there are
rules to the office game. Herman Smith
sees the office as a sociological group as
well as a functioning operation. “Every
office has a Fuehrer, a Big Man on
Campus, a James Bond and a Uriah
Heep. Women play Snoop Sister, Doris
Day, Marilyn Monroe and _ today,
Germaine Greer. These people come
together every day and interact — like
T. S. Eliot’s cocktail party. It’s logical
if the Big Man on Campus hires Doris
Day.” Unfortunately he rarely thinks of
personalities when he is making his
choice,

Job definition and the relationship
between employee and employer are
the key issues when hiring a new woman
for an office position. Most men simply
don’t give them enough weight. Men like
the executive vice president of a Toronto
insurance company, whom we'll call Fred
Miller. He simply yelled, “I don’t give
a damn who, just get me a new girl!”

Like a lot of men who are in top
management positions, Fred’s attitudes
towards his female employees haven't
changed in 20 years. As far as he’s
concerned, the ladies are at work to
earn extra money from nine until five.
They don’t want responsibility and can’t
handle it anyway. They book off sick at
the drop of a hat, have a higher rate of
turnover than men, and leave you flat

for husbands and kids. Fred doesn’t
know exactly how he arrived at these
conclusions; he’s just always believed
them. And that’s that.

The truth of the matter is that Fred’s
just plain wrong. Over 40 percent of
Ontario’s working women are self-sup-
porting — either single, widowed, di-
vorced or permanently separated. They
are not working for pin money. In °72,
1.95 percent of the men in Canada’s
labor force had an absentee rate of one
week or more; fewer women — 1.76 per-
cent — booked off sick for the same
length of time, Fred is right about
higher turnover for women; at low-
income levels they do change jobs more
often than men, But in middle- and
upper-income brackets where they have
more responsibility, women stay at their
jobs for the same number of years as
men. And 60 percent of Canada’s female
labor force is married with children.

It’s more difficult to measure women’s
attitudes towards their work. Not all
women are clamoring for positions in
the ulcer ranks, Neither are all men. But
surveys in both Canada and the U.S.
have shown conclusively that women,
like men, are in the work force for ful-
fillment and money. And in that order,
In a ’73 study, an American psychologist
found that contrary to the generally
held opinion of managers like Fred
Miller, there was no difference between
what men and women rated as important
in their jobs. Achievement, responsibility
and financial rewards ranked far higher
than working conditions, status and job
security. An introduction to the hand-
some young accountant next door or an
hour off to go to the beauty parlor
isn’t going to be what makes your new
secretary happy and more productive. A
decade ago it might have worked. But
today you'd do better to give her some
authority and challenge. She probably
could have written those last 10 letters
you dictated word for word. That irate
customer on the line the other day
needn’t have bothered you at all.

“Working with that nit-picking ego-
maniac was about as challenging as
peeling potatoes,” was the comment of
Barbara, the 28-year-old woman with
five years of secretarial experience who
was the reason why Fred Miller was
yelling, ““Get me another girl.”

“He saw me as a mindless, coffee-
making typist whose role was to take a

letter and a message. He complained
constantly of being overworked, but the
thought of delegating responsibility never
crossed his mind. During the first
couple of months I took some initiative
— when straightforward letters came in,
I simply answered them. One day he
noticed a few in my out box and told
me that I should really have let him
check them. A high-school dropout
could have handled those letters without
trouble. He, of course, was worried that
I'd screw up and leave him to take the
blame... You know, after'a few months
T knew almost as much about insurance
as he did. But after that episode I just
did what he told me to do and kept my
mouth shut. And my eyes open for
another job.”

There’s a key word in Barbara’s
comment. Working with Fred Miller,
not for. No matter what he thought of
her, she regarded him (at least for the
first while) as a partner in business. A
team working towards corporate goals.

To complicate matters further, Bar-
bara’s evaluation of her boss’s opinion of
her — a mindless, coffee-making typist —
was also incorrect. ‘““She seemed to be as
bright as any secretary I’ve ever had,”
said Fred. “She never blew any of the
assignments I gave her... she was
efficient too. She’d often have everything
done by. 4:30 and have her coat on by
the stroke of five. What more could a
woman want? Frankly I was surprised
when she said she was leaving.”

A little late to be surprised. Fred
should have thought about establishing
a decent working rapport with his
secretary the day she arrived.

“That first day on the job sets up
more attitudes than the first six months,”
says Herman Smith. “It’s essential that
you take time to focus on the'employee—
share attitudes and values about work.”

Barbara clearly remembers her first
day of employment with Fred Miller.
She walked in at 10 minutes to nine. He
waltzed in at 10 o’clock, muttering:
something about a business appointment
that had gone on longer than expected.
He spent 15 minutes pointing to files
and asking her if she had any questions.
She asked one. While he mumbled the
answer, he dialled a phone number. She
didn’t ask a second.

“It’s a good idea,” says Herman
Smith, ‘‘to take her to lunch the first day.
The secretary is in the exclusive position