New Year, New Work Outlook?

If you’re looking to add onto your list of New Year’s resolutions, you may want to add “Change Work Outlook.”

ELLE magazine and the Center for American Progress conducted a survey of 1,200 randomly selected working people between the ages of 25 and 54 – half male, half female, on their thoughts about anything and everything about the workplace.

Here are the surprising results:

• 53% of women have never asked for a raise while 40% of men have never asked for a raise.
• The good news is that 89% of men and women who tried to negotiate a higher salary when starting a new job were successful.
• 86% opted for flex time (e.g. non-traditional  hours, telecommuting, working at home one day a week, etc.), when given the chance.
• Only 7% of women copped to turning down a new assignment or promotion because they didn’t think they could handle it once they became mothers.
• Men are more likely to put work before family as seen in the following results: 67% of men said they came home late from work knowing it impacted their personal or family obligations, 57% admitted their job made it harder to do things with their family, and 56% confessed that in order to get ahead at work, they have to focus less attention on their family.
• However, 63% of fathers feel guilty about not spending time with their families.
• 50% of dads said they sometimes leave work incomplete to deal with personal or family obligations, while only 34% of moms did.
• 2 out of 3 women think professional women are scrutinized more harshly than men, while 1 out of 2 men agree.

Here’s what really shocked us…both male AND female leaders think women aren’t tough enough to lead:

• 34% of women said they’re not tough enough.
• 51% of women said that family takes too much of their time.
• 55% of women said they’re discriminated against.

Isn’t it interesting what the survey respondents admitted to?