Media
Collaborating with Men – Transforming Workplace Culture Together
08 Mar 2017
The Women’s Studies Research Centre of the University of Hong Kong held an event “Collaborating with Men” on March 8 (Wednesday) to celebrate International Women’s Day.
The event featured Dame Barbara Stocking, President of Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge and former Chief Executive of Oxfam GB, who gave a lecture about new research from the University of Cambridge into the behaviours and perceptions of men regarding women’s workplace experiences. The event comprised a Lecture delivered by Dame Barbara Stocking to a full house of more than 150 participants, and chaired by President Peter Mathieson of the University of Hong Kong, the first University in the world to commit to the HeForShe initiative.
Entitled “Collaborating with Men” (which served as the title of the event), the research was prompted by a survey among Murray Edwards alumnae which found that women felt workplace culture was inhibiting their career progress. Looking into existing research, Dr Jill Armstrong, research associate at Murray Edwards College, found that the debate focused on women’s perceptions of the challenges they face - with very little written about men’s view of the workplace culture problems that women describe.
- Do men see the problems women report?
- What they can personally do to help change the workplace?
- What support do they need from leaders?
Believing that gender equality is only going to be solved by men and women working together, Dr Armstrong decided to change this and interviewed 40 men in early career, middle management and senior management roles in SMEs and large organisations, across public and private sectors, about their perceptions of women’s workplace experiences. A collaborative conference in which men and women worked together on ideas about what individual men could do to change workplace culture was held at Cambridge. The recommendations emerging from this work include:
- Changing the way meetings are run; chair training for those running meetings.
- Not being a bystander: amplifying what women say and crediting their ideas to them.
- Holding networking events during office hours, to be inclusive.
- Setting up reverse mentoring: early career women paired with senior men.
These recommendations are now being discussed with a number of organisations, including Baker McKenzie and Barclays Hong Kong, who are keen to make workplaces more inclusive.
The lecture was followed by panel discussion among HeForShe Male Impact Champions comprising President Mathieson, and five men from Corporate Impact Champion for HeForShe Barclays Women’s Initiatives Network, including, Anthony Davies, Chief Executive of Barclays, Hong Kong Branch & Senior Relationship Management, Asia Pacific; Stephen Callander, Chief Financial Officer of Barclays, Hong Kong; James Wang, Director, Head of Hong Kong & Greater China Operations at Barclays, and Director, Investment Banking Legal at Barclays; and Andy Yu, , Head of Credit Risk, North Asia at Barclays.
They shared their experiences as male allies for gender equality inside and outside the workplace. The panel was moderated by Dame Barbara Stocking followed by an open forum of questions and answers with members of the audience.
President Peter Mathieson said: "I consider that men need to be active participants in the work towards gender equity, and this was one reason why the HeForShe movement appealed to me. As a man, I am part of the problem and therefore I need to be part of the solution. Dame Barbara's work provides a novel and informative contribution to the debate and we are proud to have hosted her at HKU on International Women's Day 2017".
Dame Barbara Stocking, President of Murray Edwards College, said: “Men’s willingness to work beside women to change workplace culture is crucial to getting more women into senior positions. We are delighted to be in Hong Kong this International Women’s Day - the opportunity to talk to organisations here about turning this research into practice is the ideal celebration.”
For media enquiries, please contact Ms Melanie Wan, Senior Manager (Media), Communications and Public Affairs Office, HKU (tel: 2859 2600 email: melwkwan@hku.hk).