Executive Summary

What If She Has A Baby?

Lawrence Perlman
President & CEO of Ceridian Corporation

May 1993

The place of women in the workplace is not just a feminist issue, a liberal issue, or a fairness issue. Ultimately, it is a question of U.S. business competitiveness. Because, to the extent that we in the United States deny women the opportunity to develop in business to their full potential, we are ruling out contributions from some of the most capable people in the workforce.

But we are also talking about a men's issue. Because the changes we make in organizations will also help the millions of parents in the workforce, men as well as women. Men, because if we value family as much as we say we do, we should be encouraging men to participate more fully in the care of their children and the lives of their families. Women, because they still must manage career, childbearing and child care with little support from society and their companies.

How society and companies treat parenthood must be seen in the context of other forces at work in society at large. U.S. companies are struggling as never before with change. Individual businesses and whole industries are dealing with the need for increased profitability and productivity. We are losing markets we may never regain. We are unable to invest adequately for a robust future. The education system fails to provide adequate numbers of skilled workers and fails to educate whole groups within society.

Nowhere is the inadequacy of U.S. business' response to the problem it faces more obvious than in its unwillingness to tap the potential of the thousands of talented women who are ready and eminently qualified to step into leadership positions.

Approximately 80 percent of the CEOs interviewed for a 1990 study on women in corporate management acknowledged being aware of the barriers to women's advancement. Most of these CEOs perceived women as equally or better prepared than male counterparts in terms of education, technical training, management skills and interpersonal skills. But women were thought not to be equal to men in career commitment.

"Career commitment" is a euphemism for "what if she has a baby?" Well, what if she has a baby? Surprise: Work goes on. She redistributes the work among her colleagues, she stays in touch by phone, fax and modem. Very much the same as when a male CEO has a heart attack, breaks his leg skiing, or has an automobile accident, and is out of the office for a period of time. If any CEO (male or female) has not built depth and quality into the management team so that he or she is not indispensable, then we should all suspect there is a terminal case of the "CEO disease" at work.

It is time for companies to acknowledge the primacy of family in the value systems of both men and women. Too many women still have to choose between career and family. And too often men sacrifice participation in the lives of their families to meet the demands of their jobs. The costs to both people and the companies they work for are too high.

Adapted from the keynote speech at "Work-Family Issues and the Work Ethic," a conference sponsored by The Conference Board and the Families and Work Institute.

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