What to Expect When You Are Expecting a Promotion

Women in executive board experience more stress than their male counterparts

If you are a working women and mom like me, then you are among millions of working moms juggling with work, family, school activities, grocery shopping etc… You are also among the millions of working women with dreams of making it big in the corporate world yet frustrated to hear that women account for only 16% of directorship in the fortune 500 companies. There are many reasons cited for this. One of them as stated by WSJ in their Dec 2011 blog was that ‘’Guys Don’t Want to Give Up Their Board Seats’ .

How about stress? As you grow in your career does your stress level also grow and is this a major hurdle in your pursuit to be in highest position?  Our research findings revealed that women in executive positions report higher stress than their men counterparts.

The study revealed that when compared to men in executive positions, women in executive position are

1)     10% more likely to experience stress balancing work and home

2)     45%more likely to experience stress keeping up with house work

3)     55% more likely to experience stress running necessary errands

Now, when compared to women NOT in the executive position, women in executive position are

1)     26% more likely to experience stress balancing work and home

2)     21%more likely to experience stress keeping up with house work

3)     39% more likely to experience stress running necessary errands

So for all the women aspiring to be in the executive boardroom, prepare to embrace stress – not just at work but also at home.

Our research also uncovered many other reasons contributing towards women’s slow career growth. For example women are more likely to experience home life spill into their work life. During a typical workday, working women are 6% more likely than men to run errands, 9% more likely to go for grocery shopping, 15% more likely to shop for clothes (for the entire family of course) and accessories and 12% more likely to go for a doctor’s appointment. And it is no surprise that women are more than twice likely than men to keep up with various activities at home including keeping up with kid’s homework, laundry, cooking, cleaning etc. The only celebratory data was that when it comes to dropping and picking up their kids, men are likely to share this task.

With such high levels of stress and more tasks than the letters in the word ‘multitasking’ it is no wonder that there is a low presence of women in executive board and also maybe the reason why ‘guys don’t want to give up their seats’ or as I like to put it ‘why guys don’t want to take women’s seat’.

Click here for the full report.

 

 

  

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Office Pulse by Captivate offers marketers timely analysis and insights from a proprietary panel of upscale professionals in the top markets. The Office Pulse panel of more than 8,000 influential consumers and business decision makers includes C-level executives, Millennials, middle management, small business owners, working women and working moms.

About Captivate

Known for its vast network of nearly 12,000 elevator displays located in 1,600 premier office buildings across North America, Captivate connects advertisers with 13 million unique monthly viewers through creative, research-driven and Nielsen-measured advertising and marketing programs. By engaging its viewers with timely news and actionable information that helps balance the personal and professional demands of the workday, Captivate provides advertisers with a highly desirable and difficult-to-reach audience of affluent and influential business professionals. Founded in 1997, Captivate is owned by Generation Partners. For more information, please visit www.captivate.com.