QA with Jane Bamford, Regional Director, Hays Spain Viewpoint careers advice blog

QA with Jane Bamford, Regional Director, Hays Spain In this interview, Jane Bamford, Regional Director, Hays Spain, based in Valencia, shares her experience of gender diversity in the workplace, speaks about her progression into a leadership role and assesses the survey results in Spain. What was your route to Hays? I started working for Hays in London in 1997, as a consultant in banking. I was in London for two and a half years until I left Hays and moved to Spain. I wanted to learn Spanish and spent a year getting it to a good enough level to work in a professional environment. In 2001 I started to work at Hays again in the start-up of the Madrid office. I spent seven very challenging and exciting years building up the business in Madrid, managing and leading a large team of consultants. In 2008 I moved to France to work in the Hays Paris office as Director of the Finance and Banking sector. After four years in France I moved back to Spain and have been living in Valencia ever since, managing the Bilbao, Seville and Valencia offices. Tell us about your progression into a leadership role, what challenges did you face along the way? My progression into a leadership role was actually relatively straight-forward. If you are in a management position and are seen to be leading from the front, for me that meant business development and generating fees, then a natural step is to move into a leadership role. I think leadership means behaving differently depending on where you are working. In Spain you have to be more conscious of the culture, people are more emotionally driven. In the UK you would not get involved in certain aspects of people’s lives. In France there are cultural differences also. No matter where you are you have to fit in with the people you work with and immerse yourself in their culture. It is not beneficial to be seen as a Brit in Spain or a Brit in France. Leadership to me is about coaching and motivating your team, and knowing how to react in various situations. Coherency is very important. If a manager or leader is coherent in the way they deal with people, then that will foment relationships based on trust. In your opinion is there a difference between how men and women progress in their careers? Women have to be able to manage home life and work life, as do men in theory but in many cases the onus is still on the woman. I think that there are equal opportunities available to both men and women but if women progress less quickly it is because they have proactively decided to take a step back to have/raise children. I think it is all about setting your own limits and ambitions. I think that there is still work to be done in Spain regarding women in Senior Management/Board level positions.   In 2007 the Spanish Parliament approved the Law of Equality which recommends listed companies appoint a minimum of 40% of women in all board seats. This has had some impact, from October 2011 to April 2014 the percentage of female board members in Spain increased from 11% to 16%. Although board membership has risen slightly the number of women in senior management positions remains small. Have you encountered any gender specific obstacles in your career? I am pleased to say that I have not encountered any obstacles because I am a woman but then again I have never let anything I’ve done get in the way of my career and I have always been very focused and on top of my game. Do you have any advice for female professionals who are in, or looking to work in, a leadership role? My advice would be to try not to feel intimidated when you are in a male dominated board room environment. For me this has been a challenge, especially when you have to come to an agreement all together. I would also suggest that you build relationships with women in leadership roles in your company or in other companies in your region/industry. This way you will feel like you have a support network if or when needed. In Spain, 39% of respondents said that their organisation did not have formal gender policies in place and 30% weren’t sure. What do you think are the implications of these statistics? The implication is that there is a small percentage of women in leadership roles in Spain. However, out of the respondents who said their organisation had formal gender policies in place, 99% feel they are adhered to well/fairly well. This implies that gender policies are valued in companies that have them. Is this something you agree with? Yes I think that this would be the case in large multinational companies. Globally, 48% of women do not think they have the same career opportunities as men. In Spain 68% of females do not think they have the same career opportunities as men. What do you think about this? Spain is still traditional from the point of view that it is rare to find an exchange of roles where the man looks after the children and the home. Although I think attitudes are improving with new generations. 53% of female Spanish respondents believe there is equal pay between genders, compared to 70% of male Spanish respondents. Is this an expected trend? Possibly, although I don ´t think that there is a difference in Spain between what a male and a female would get paid to do the same job. Spanish respondents under the age of 25 are less likely to think there is unequal pay between genders. Is this a trend you agree with? I would say more Spanish respondents under the age of 25 are less likely to think there is unequal pay between genders because of a lack of knowledge about the workplace. It is not uncommon for young people in Spain to be in full-time education until they are 24/25 years old and live at home for many years after. At the moment in Spain 50% of recent graduates are unemployed, which means they have no experience in the workplace. Globally respondents (both male and female) believe that allowing more flexible working practices and changes in workplace culture through education across the business, will have the biggest impact on diversity in the workplace. What do you think about this? Flexible working practices have to have a positive impact on gender equality, for both men and women. I think that any action that increases awareness of these kinds of issues is a positive thing. Share this blog: