Where Have All the Women Gone?

Where Have All the Women Gone?

The drain of talent, both male but especially female, is one of the most dangerous signs of weakness for Big Three automakers and top suppliers, says a former Ford executive and television broadcaster turned industry consultant.

Anne Doyle, president of Anne Doyle Strategies, is a leadership and communications coach appearing on the television program, AutoLine Detroit, which began airing Sunday. Hosted by John McElroy, the show’s segment features Sarah Webster of the Detroit Free Press and me as guest panelists to discuss the massive departure of women from the top ranks of the auto industry.

For few decades, women executives were on the rise. The 1990s, says Doyle, a pioneer in sports broadcasting in Detroit before she went to Ford, were the golden years for women in the auto industry. But in the last few years, an alarming number of top-level female auto executives have left the industry. Scan the list of Automotive News top 100 women in the U.S. industry, published in 2005. A number of the women have left the auto industry for extremely significant jobs in other businesses.

One of the highest profile women to leave the industry of late was Anne Stevens, one of the industry's highest ranking women. She had been Ford executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Americas, working with Ford President of the Americas Mark Fields, heading the automaker's turnaround plan. She left Ford to take a top job with Carpenter Technology Corp. in Pennsylvania late last year. And just this yesterday, Ford announced its treasurer, Ann Marie Petach, was leaving to take a newly created position with BlackRock Inc. as managing director and head of business finance.

Downsizing isn’t the only reason, says Doyle. Many women are abandoning the auto industry for a better life, both professional and personal.

Leaving for Greener Pastures

Doyle, who has interviewed dozens of these women who have left the auto industry for other businesses, sees three primary reasons for the mass exodus of women, as well as men, from the auto industry to greener pastures:

· The money. “The auto industry isn’t financially competitive any more,” Doyle says. “The bonuses are gone, benefits are cut, and more money can be made elsewhere.”

· The work environment. “The automotive industry is a grueling work environment,” Doyle says. “It’s not an interesting, challenging, creative or expanding place to work. Rather, it’s a grueling, combative, authoritative and bullying environment. If it’s not fun, not interesting and you can make more money elsewhere, why not?”

· Life outside of work. “There’s no life outside of work in the auto industry any more,” says Doyle. “If you’re at a manager or director level and above, having a challenging career and a great life is an oxymoron.” Saturdays are mandatory, and hours can be from 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Doyle notes that the 1950s and 1960s model of the man working and the woman doing the wifely duties of running the home remains the model today for “90%” of the mostly male director level and above execs at auto companies. “The model doesn’t work for women. They are feeling the pain, and they are the ones that are going to have to change it.”

So what’s the solution?

Doyle suggests auto companies and their suppliers look to companies featured on Fortune magazine’s "best places to work" list, which has no automaker in the top 100. “There are cutting edge things going on in other industries,” she says. “Other companies are conscious that they cannot afford to lose this huge talent pool of women who are highly educated, highly experienced and have demonstrated they are interested and can do the job. Other companies are seeing they risk losing women in big numbers so they are starting to come up with creative solutions to keep them. The auto industry needs to bring this new perspective to the game.”

Indeed, the adage in the auto retailing industry is that retaining a loyal customer is significantly cheaper than finding new ones. Dallas super dealer Carl Sewell, who wrote the best-seller Customers for Life, estimates it costs seven times more to gain a new customer than to keep an existing one. “The analogy should apply to employees as well,” says Doyle.

Doyle further recommends auto companies provide some flexibility to executives in terms of where and when they do the work. “The auto industry needs not require so much face time as part of its culture. Instead, companies need to tap into technology.”

In addition, companies need to offer some flexibility in work hours during the intense child-bearing and early childhood years but still allow women to come back into the hunt for top-level jobs, she says. Employees should have the ability to power up, power down and then power up a career, like a thermostat.

Companies need to offer family-friendly services, such as longer maternity leaves and on-site day care facilities. Ironically, in its last round of cost-cutting, Ford shut down its day care operations, a major step backward.

No outrage, little discussion

What’s shocking to Doyle is that, while women complain behind the scenes or simply leave the auto industry, there’s no outrage. And yet, Doyle sees this drain of female talent -- and lack of a pipeline of upcoming women executives -- as a dangerous sign of weakness for Big Three automakers and top suppliers. It's particularly dangerous for an industry that sells half of its products to women and about 80 percent of those products purchased are influenced by women. Yet, their perspective in developing and marketing the product is largely absent.

“Nobody is doing anything about it or even discussing it,” says Doyle.

So let the discussion begin by tuning into AutoLine Detroit. The show aired on Detroit Public Television on Sunday at 10:30 a.m. It also aired on the Speed Channel on Sunday at 7 a.m. It will be repeated on the Speed Channel at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday. The show –- and a continuation of our discussion –- can be accessed on the AutoLine Detroit’s Web site.

Michelle Krebs:  is Editor-in-Chief of AutoObserver.com. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.