I read an interesting article in a UK care providers magazine this week which asked a number of interested parties in the care sector such as consultants, financial institutions etc who would be in their ‘dream team’ if they were to start a new venture in the care sector. What hit me was the sheer overwhelming amount of men in those teams, with only one woman being mentioned. Quite extraordinary when you think that this is an industry which has an employment ratio of 80% women to 20% men.
Of course what this does is automatically raise the question of whether there is a glass ceiling within the industry to which my immediate response would have to be ‘yes’. It is an industry in which those that are close to the coalface, whether they be care workers, care home managers, operations managers or indeed directors, are, for the most part women, yet chief executives, chairmen, rarely are.
Equally, although care industry experience is essential for those at the core of the business, those at the helm are invariably lawyers, accounts or developers. It does beg the question of whether the ‘career development programmes’, ’succession paths’ etc commonly spouted by care home groups are merely rhetoric, and that a mentality of ‘they are happy as they are’ pervades the industry. One wonders whether if those who do actually care were developed with the skills to run a successful business or at least given the opportunity, it wouldn’t be a much happier and more successful industry and not just financially…
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