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Employee Forums. Discussion Document. DATE. Focus Group Inquiry Exercise – Objective, Output and Process. Focus Group Inquiry Exercise - Logistics. Focus group instructions (page 1 of 4).
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Employee Forums Discussion Document DATE
Focus Group Inquiry Exercise – Objective, Output and Process
Focus group instructions (page 1 of 4) Each Male Champion has committed to running three focus groups within their business (minimum of 20 people).It is recommended that the target audience for the conversations include the following discreet groups: Senior Women who have successfully “made it” to leadership positions. Here, we want to understand the conditions and cultural factors (internal and external) that they believe enabled them to advance/thrive. High performing / talented women in early and mid-level management positions with Executive / Senior Executive aspirations or potential. Here, we want to understand their aspirations, how they differ from women already in Senior positions and the conditions and cultural factors (internal and external) they believe will support their future success. Senior Male leaders within your business. Here, we recognise that men dominate leadership positions in business, and are critical to our goals to expanding the pipeline of senior women through their recruitment, development and promotion decisions. Suggestions regarding focus group make-up and dynamics: For each group, ensure a mixture of people with and without caring responsibilities, and to the extent possible, we should ensure that any differences in views are surfaced. (e.g. assumption is often that talented women with caring responsibilities need special conditions, whereas many women say that regardless of caring responsibilities all women would prioritise “supportive line managers” who have the belief and confidence in them to push them to take up stretch opportunities; bigger roles etc). A mixture of people from frontline and enablement/support functions. (e.g. hypothesis is that many women capable of frontline leadership roles are often tracked (by themselves or HR) into support functions in order to progress into leadership roles as this is where the main opportunity for female promotion exists. Male leaders, especially those leading large workforces, making recruitment/promotion decisions etc within your business. Support staff attending should be kept to an absolute minimum (ideally the Implementation Leader only) to ensure the sessions are set up as open conversations, where participants are completely free to challenge conventional wisdom (e.g. “I’ve been told part time employees can’t hold customer facing roles”; “there is no such thing as a 4-day week at senior manager level and above. If I accept 100% of the accountability and deliver 100% of the expected outcomes; I should get 100% of the pay”). The focus should be on listening and probing for future state, with very little reference to existing policies and paradigms - “just the way it is around here”.
Focus group instructions (page 2 of 4) “Myself and other MCCs are conducting a series of focus groups within our businesses to understand more deeply the conditions and culture that enable women to thrive and succeed into leadership positions. We have committed to working together to identify and implement 3-5 progressive and high impact actions to change the unacceptably low levels of women in our executive positions & pipelines. Our focus will be on listening to understand, identify, respond and institutionalise the conditions and culture that will enable more women to thrive. We will collate the feedback from all of these sessions and develop an action plan that we will commit to within our organisations, while also using our collective influence to achieve change on barriers that might exist at a societal level. I have a few questions / thought starters, but this this session is really about listening to your ideas and feedback.”
