Mobility for Federal Women Managers: Is Training Enough?

• Published date: 01 June 1994
• DOI: 10.1177/009102609402300207
• Author: A. Carol Rusaw
• Date: 01 June 1994
• Subject Matter: Article

Mobility

for

Federal Women

Managers:

Is

Training

Enough?

Despite

impressive

gains

in

employing

women

as

managers,

the

federal

government

continues

to

promote

women

slower

and

promote

them

less

than

their

male

counterparts.

Agencies

have

used

training

programs

to close

grade

and

pay

gaps

on the

assumption

that

skills

acquisition

will

make

women

more

promotable.

The

author's

recent

doctoral

dissertation

assessing the

role

of

training

and

development

in

career

histories

of 14 women

managers

in five

different

federal

organizations

found

training

as a mobility

strategy

of limited

impact.

The

article

highlights

reasons

for this and

recommends

strategies

which

human

resource

professionals

and

policy

makers

can

use to

strengthen

the

role

of

training

and

development.

By

A.

Carol

Rusaw

In

spite of affirmative action and equal employment opportunity

legislation

and recent numerical gains in the labor

force,

women remain

underrepresented and

underpaid

in the federal government. This is

par-

ticularly

true

of women in management positions. According to

Office

of

Personnel Management statistics for

1987,

women's participation in white-

collar

jobs

was

48%.

Since

1985,

white collar women increased by 3.5%

overall,

women supervisors by

7.1%,

and women managers by

21.3%.

Federal

women, like women in non-government organizations, however,

continue to cluster in

clerical

positions; and even when they are employed

in professions, the women experience salary lags compared to men.

Women

hold 85.2% of all clerical

jobs,

but men have two-thirds of all

professional

positions. Only 12% of all managers in government are

women, and their average salaries were

$31,251,

compared to

$41,712

for

men in professional positions.1

To

prepare

more women to become managers as well as to move

women already in management

upward,

many agencies look to training

and development programs. An assumption is that training and develop-

ment can equip women with skills necessary to advance. This underscores

Nadler's

(1970)

view that training is used to enhance present or future job

performance.2

A.

Carol

Rusaw is an Assistant

Extension

Professor

with

the

Insti-

tute

of Public Service at the Uni-

versity

of Connecticut,

Storrs,

Connecticut

She teaches

man-

agement

and organizational de-

velopment

and

consults

with

state

and

local government in

Con-

necticut

In

contrast, Knowles

(1978)

regards training and development as

parts

of organizational change strategies. From this perspective, changing

individual performance cannot be done effectively unless other structures

in organizations change concomitantly.3

A

broader argument in these two instances is the concept of self-re-

sponsibility

versus structural conditions in bringing about change: in this

case,

individual

mobility.

Several

research studies have pointed to individ-

ual

characteristics,

such as motivation, risk taking, and achievement orien-

Public

Personnel

Management

Vol.

23

No.2

(Summer

1994)

257