Food manufacturers that are serious about getting more women into senior leadership positions need to start getting serious about flexible working.
Flexibility – or lack thereof – remains one of the biggest barriers to women’s progression in the workplace. Close to 40% of women in food manufacturing say it is a major or significant barrier, according to our latest Gender Representation report.
Women aged 26 to 45 feel this most acutely. This is the point at which careers often begin to accelerate and it’s also the life stage when many are navigating pregnancy, young children, fertility treatment, caring responsibilities or a return to work after parental leave. Our research showed that women in this age bracket are four times more likely than men to see lack of flexible working as a barrier.
Applying flexible working in practice
Crucially, it’s not a lack of flexible working policies that’s the issue, it’s how these policies are applied in practice. While many organisations now have policies in place, only 36% of employees believe flexible working has improved. Meanwhile, 48% said it needs to be a higher priority in the future.
Women told us their employers are generally happy to offer flexible working hours, remote working and job sharing to people in junior roles. But as soon as you’re in the running for more senior positions, those options can disappear. As one employee put it: “Although the business offers flexible working for more junior colleagues, flexibility reduces for senior positions. It’s a significant barrier to progression.”
What starts as a conversation about flexibility quickly becomes a conversation about career progression and leadership.
When talented people look at management roles and decide the personal trade-offs are too high, they turn down an opportunity and often step away from leadership altogether. Over time, businesses are left drawing from a smaller pool of future site and operational leaders.
Outdated ideas about leadership are part of the problem. At some companies, leadership continues to be associated with being constantly available and always on site. It’s a standard many women find impossible to meet alongside their caring responsibilities at home. “I can do the job – but I can’t do it under current expectations,” one woman said.
Getting flexibility right
Getting flexibility right in food manufacturing isn’t easy. Factories need people on site, shifts need covering and many businesses operate around the clock. Managing multi-site operations is not a job that can easily be done remotely, so it’s easy to see why offering flexible working is not straightforward.
We also heard that mindset is one of the biggest challenges. “As soon as a crisis hits, flexibility is the first thing to go,” one HR leader told us. Another said: “We’re actively looking at job-share, but the mental block comes before trialling it.”
One company working towards a solution to this is Greencore. I spoke to Matthew Watson, inclusion & diversity manager, who described flexible working as having historically been a “postcode lottery”, with experiences varying between sites and managers. What was really interesting was how practical their solutions were. While the business has reviewed its policies around parenthood and flexibility, Matthew was clear that policy only gets you so far.
“Managers know their teams best,” he said. Greencore has provided managers with the tools they need to have practical conversations, understand individual circumstances and make sensible decisions.
Importantly, many of these changes aren’t expensive, he said. They created the conditions for managers to respond with empathy and common sense, which in turn helps businesses keep hold of experienced people and avoid losing future leaders at the very point their careers should be accelerating.
Other businesses we spoke to are also making progress. We heard examples of paired leadership roles, phased returns from maternity leave, redesigned shift patterns and greater flexibility around start and finish times. These businesses are also tracking whether colleagues who work flexibly have the same opportunities to progress and reviewing roles to make sure career development isn’t dependent on being constantly available.
Flexibility and leadership can work hand-in-hand
They’re also making it easier for employees to see that flexibility and leadership can work hand-in-hand. “When a senior man took parental leave, it changed how people thought about using the policy,” one leader told us.
This single action had a huge impact. It showed that taking leave or working flexibly isn’t career-limiting and gives others confidence to do the same.
These businesses understand that operational knowledge is difficult and expensive to replace, and leadership vacancies create pressure across entire sites.
Ultimately, the question is whether leadership roles have evolved enough to keep pace with the realities of modern life. Because if flexibility remains hardest to access at the very point people step into leadership, food manufacturers risk losing capable future leaders long before they ever reach the top.
Laura Ryan is founder and global chair at Meat Business Women
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