Sharon:
In today’s episode we’ll feature Janice other than an expert on women aging in the workplace. We’ll discuss how mature women executives can take charge and prepare for the next chapter of their careers. We’ll also discuss the risks for organizations who don’t have a specific strategy to address their aging workforce, and how multi-generational teams contribute to companies achieving their strategic imperatives. Stay tuned.
Welcome everyone to the Living While Leading podcast. Today I have a very special guest with me and that’s Janice Sutherland. Welcome to the podcast.
Janice:
Thank you, Sharon.
Sharon:
Really great pleasure to have you. I’m just going to read a little bit of your bio. I’m going to read a little bit just so people understand how much of a badass you are. Janice Sutherland is the CEO and founder of This Woman Can an award-winning leadership and prefer a professional development company with a passion for empowering mature professional leaders ensuring their careers align with their personal values and professional priorities.
Janice also collaborates with organizations to unleash the full potential of their maturing workforce with a keen focus on multi-generational leadership. Her career journey has transcended continents, and she’s etched her name in history as the first female CEO in the telecom sector in her ancestral home of Antigua and Barbuda.
She’s triumphed over multiple career transitions herself. Janice understands the challenges women face when pursuing their leadership aspirations, especially the unique struggles of those she aptly described as the triple threat—Black, Female and over 50!
Drawing from her rich personal and professional journey, including her remarkable shift from corporate CEO to leadership expert, she adeptly shares strategies that empower individuals to cultivate the confidence, presence and influence needed to break through leadership barriers and navigate the boardroom with unwavering assurance.
Janice is also the author of the international best seller, This Woman Can the No Bulls..t Guide for Women Who Lead and the host of the This Woman Can podcast. Her podcast inspires mid-career black women to embrace their true selves dream big and achieve their goals and career ambitions.
There’s one line in that bio that really stood out to me. And that is that you have a keen focus on the maturing workforce and multi-generational leadership. So let me just start there if you don’t mind. What sparked this interest in you in those particular areas?
Janice:
I suppose one because I am one. I fall in I fall into the vintage mature workforce. I am a Boomer on the on the cusp of Gen X. In the last year of the boomer generation, it’s no secret if you haven’t been listening to what’s happening globally, that people are living longer, which means, the workforce is aging.
We’re living longer, we want more out of life, so we want to be able to afford that so we’re working longer. I really want to focus on that aspect of the workforce. We have fewer young people coming into the workforce, because of shifting demographics.
As I’ve heard before, people have said if you don’t have an age strategy, you don’t have a growth strategy in your business. I work on two fronts, one with the women who are in leadership, and secondly, organizations who want to maximize that maturing workforce.
Sharon:
I think that’s a really important point. And post pandemic we’ve all read about quiet quitting, and the challenges that organizations have in hiring talent. But where they don’t have a challenge hiring talent is from the vintage workforce, right? Because we are willing and ready to work. We want people to recognize our value.
When we think about women specifically, what are some of the challenges that mature, we like to use the word vintage women experience in the workplace?
Janice:
Definitely age discrimination. If I compare us to men, men are seen when they age as distinguished. Whereas women in the case of women you hear “Oh, look at her. She’s not holding up well”.
One of the things I was discussing last week was from a black woman of color perspective. We often have that heard that adage – black doesn’t crack. We often look younger than our years when there’s an appearance of youth and an expectation that we can do more, but to be honest, we still are facing the rigors of maturity. We may be a little bit slower.
We’ve got the wisdom but sometimes just can’t go with speed or work at the level sometimes productively as we did before.
There’s limited career advancement, because we’re seeing as being too old to advance. People ask “Why do you want a career now? Have you had a career? Shouldn’t you be happy where you are?”
There are technological gaps but I often dispute that because as a generation, we have seen the most technological change ever of any generation. When I think about all the things when I was younger, to where we are now that immense technological changes.
There are not mentoring and sponsorship opportunities because again, because you’ve seemed to be of a certain age, you’re viewed as not needing that support. I talked about generally our health and well-being because it’s, those are realistic things that we can avoid. We may look like Peter Pan or to have sipped from Peter Pan’s cup, but we’re still having to face some natural aging, menopause, all the things that come with it as a woman in the workplace.
Sharon:
I would imagine that there is also an intersection point when it comes to age, and of course, gender and let’s not forget if you want to layer on being a person of color as well.
Janice:
Yes, all those things collide. We find ourselves battling on many fronts.
Sharon:
There’s one other thing that I wanted to mention because you talked about some of the things in terms of slowing down or, the perception that women over a certain age cannot handle the intensity of the work. I think there’s something also worth mentioning is that as women mature, our BS radar is a little bit more heightened. And so, the threshold for dealing with nonsense decreases, which can be very problematic for some organizations.
Janice:
That’s a very well phrased. My filter has been unfiltered! And as you said, if you take in the dynamics of race again, you can be then viewed as the proverbial angry black woman maybe.
Sharon:
I mentioned this not so that it should be viewed through a lens of something being negative. Because what would you get is really the unvarnished truth. What most organizations really appreciate that you have someone with years of experience behind them, who has seen a lot, experienced a lot and is going to raise their hand and say, “Hey, folks, I’m not so sure that that’s a good decision.” As opposed to toeing the line and being silent.
Janice:
Women this age are saying “I’m not buying into that. You know you need to hear this. This is what my experience tells me.”
Sharon:
You know, I’m an executive coach, and focus primarily on working with clients who are very successful women who have made it to the director level or above primarily in information technology, but of course across all sectors.
One of the topics that comes up very often is about reimagining and taking their careers in a different direction. A typical story that I hear is I have been grinding for the last two decades to get to where I am. Naturally they have everything that they need. They have great titles, they have some wealth they have, whatever these possessions are that we all think we need when we make money.
And then what happens is they’re not necessarily certain that they want to continue to be there. This doesn’t happen to a 35-year-old. This is happening to a woman who’s 50 years plus.
What would you say to a woman in that situation who wants to continue to contribute, is still very ambitious, but wants to have a little bit more control over her career so that she can make an impact in the way that she wants to make an impact?
Janice:
That is really where my work takes me. The age of the women I work with is 50 and above and they’re exactly at that point. They’re still very ambitious because that’s that drive that has gotten to where they are today. But they no longer are enamored with the extrinsic rewards of leadership.
I would get them to look intrinsically and ask “How have your values of change? What are you looking for?” The other thing I say is that it’s totally possible to change, because quite often we’ve told ourselves all the reasons why we can’t do it.
We give ourselves all the excuses, but we haven’t looked at what got you to where you are right now. Why not make a plan to get to where you want to be next? It’s the same process. You already have the experience. You already know you already got skills. You’re not the bright eyed, bushy tailed 20 to 30-year-old that was like “Oh, I don’t know what I’m going to be doing.”
You actually have a level of knowledge and experience that you can apply to what you want to do now. And this is why I talk about helping executive women align with their prior personal priorities and values. The values you had in your 30’s and 40’s are quite often is not the same as they are in your 50’s.
The glass ceiling should not be the only thing we focus on. Because when you get there, the question is what’s next. You’ve broken through glass ceiling and how do you enjoy the fruits of that? How do you benefit from what you’ve achieved?
I think we need to start focusing when we get to that age. You don’t have to stop working when you’re 50 on average probably got another 15 to 20 years of work left in you. It should be something you enjoy doing.
When we started our careers as professional women, we’re probably chasing careers that were predefined for us. We may have pursued the things because society said that’s what a successful woman looks like and we ignore the things that actually make us happy.
Sharon:
You know a little bit of my origin story and that I’m one of the first people in my family pursue higher education. When I was making my decision about what I was going to study, not only for my undergraduate but also for when I did my MBA, I still was doing it from a place of what is the right kind of job for me to take where there is going to be longevity where I can work.
The notion of doing something because of passion or interest, absolutely did not enter my mind even for a second. I certainly understand when you say that you’ve reached the point and you’ve had a lot of success.
I’m not trying to diminish it and say that it wasn’t enjoyable. But there’s a point where you say well okay, here I am 50 years plus, and I have all of this knowledge and all of these experiences, now how can I apply that to something that I never thought was even possible for me because I was always thinking about getting a monthly paycheck, accumulating wealth or something like that.
Janice:
I think it’s the right time for us. Quite a few of us at this age have already raised our children. We’ve had our families and we’ve had a successful career. Sometimes it’s time to do stuff for you—and that’s not selfish!
Sharon:
Let’s talk about organizations because the fact of the matter is that most of us are not self-employed. Most of our clients work for large enterprises and corporations. What can organizations do in terms of policies or procedures to better support older women who are in their workforce?
Janice:
I do a talk called Grey Matters about maximizing maturing workforce and that really focuses on the some of the things you should be looking at to not just retain, but also support the mature workforce within your organization.
Some of us might be the sandwich generation. I certainly had aging parents. There was trying to have that flexibility to both support and have a career. Having a flexible work arrangement can sometimes help. I know there’s a backlash about people returning to the office, but actually I found myself far more productive, working from home than I ever did in an office.
It’s looking at policies that enable to help women accommodate the various responsibilities they have. Because like it or not, there may be two in a relationship but the responsibility falls on women. We can argue about this until the cows come home, but that’s the reality for most. So how about flexible work arrangements?
You can also look at age inclusive recruitment and promotion policies. Avoid using ageist language in job descriptions and make sure there’s no age bias in what you’re doing.
Health and wellness support is another area. We just have World Menopause Day and it’s really great to see that conversation being brought to the forefront. People just got over menstruation. They accept pregnancy, menopause is the next thing. Post menopause symptoms lasts much longer. So, what are your health and wellness policies, looking like in your organization?
Even things like ergonomic chairs, seating, screens, all those things, training and development opportunities. Don’t just single out the bright young employees. Then there’s retirement planning. I’m not just talking about financial retirement planning.
Most organizations have people working there for years quite often they have no idea what to do next after retirement. So how can you help them transition? How are you going to help retain that knowledge they have in your organization?
How are you handling financial rewards and recognition for people of that demographic? I always tell people, just because I’m a certain age doesn’t mean that I’m not motivated by reward and recognition. Include mature employees in those processes.
Sharon:
The first thing that came to mind when you were talking Janice was intersection points. One should not assume that when a woman is 50 years plus that she’s living in the lap of luxury. Women have the possibility to have children later in life. You could very well have a 50 plus year old with children who are in elementary school, as well as children who are in university.
Let us not forget, even those kids are over 18 years old, still need the support of their parents—just because they’re over 18 doesn’t mean that the work is done.
Having elderly parents that need care and supervision and can be really intense depending on the situation. If you’re lucky your parents stay fit and able to manage their lives on their own until the very end.
But on the other side of that, there could be an extraordinary amount of effort needed to manage even the most minute aspects of their life, not to mention doing that in parallel to working.
The other thing that you talked about Janice, which I think is important is about reimagining what work looks like in terms of the physical presence of people in the office. I never thought of until you just mentioned it was this whole transition period, and how that can be so valuable for an organization when they have people of a certain age who are off ramping, but still have so much value to an organization as opposed to shaking your hand and say thank you very much and slamming the door behind you.
Janice:
When I mentioned mentoring before, you can have mentoring both ways, not just the mature helping the younger generation, but vice versa. So, we help retain that knowledge in the organization. We have to think differently about recruitment and not be lazy about it, and go for the shiny young things because they’re the easiest to recruit. Mature hires have opinions and experiences that are invaluable to organizations worldwide.
Sharon :
When you think about this, Janice, it’s probably one of the first times in history where you have so many generations working together. You have Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, you have Gen Z working together. If you bring this brainpower together, this could be extremely extraordinary in terms of the kinds of solutions the teams are able to drive.
You have people coming from a different reference point with different lived experiences. I would never want to minimize the experience of a 22-year-old because they see life through a different lens. They have their whole lives ahead of them and that’s an important part of the conversation.
But that’s just as important as somebody who’s between 35 and 55 years old, or someone even older than that. It never really occurred to me how an organization could really benefit from being thoughtful and intentional about designing inter-generational teams to solve problems and get things done.
Well, you talked about getting to the end where people have to retire and maybe there’s a way that we can reimagine what that might look like what roles do benefits and pension schemes play in retaining mature women in the workforce.
Janice:
Try as we might, we cannot avoid the ravages of aging. Having health screenings and educating everyone. Not just educating women on menopause, but men are 50% of the workforce, and are probably working next to a woman who’s going through the process. They need to have an understanding.
There’s stress management, there’s physical programs, mental health support, nutritional guidance, all those things can help. I’m not a pension expert, but I’d like to know that I have enough to live comfortably when I retire.
No one wants to work 24/7 but having the possibility to work less hours could be attractive and still provide an opportunity for the younger generation to come through. Many mature workers still want to work and be connected and have still have lots to offer.
Which means that organizations can look differently at how they structure their retirement planning. It doesn’t have to be once you reach this age that you are out the door. It could be gradual, less hours, it could be flexible working or even could be consulting. They could mentor people. There’s so many different ways to reimagine this phase.
Sharon:
I wanted to return to the M word, menopause. My sense is that people still recoil when this word is mentioned. It’s really tough. And I can tell you that a friend of mine who works for a fortune 50 company was asked, as the only woman in her business unit to educate the others is on World Menopause Day. As you could imagine, she respectfully declined.
Do you have some words for organizations who decide that they want to take that sort of approach to getting woke about menopause and educating people?
Janice:
Well first of all, one woman’s experience is not the experience of all. There are over 80 different symptoms of menopause. Some of us only get one or two if we’re lucky. Some of us can have maybe a good 50% of them. So, our experience is not reflective of every woman.
What I would say to them is if you’re really serious about this, and you should be, is to get people in who are experts. But if you have more than one woman in your workforce, ask them what the challenges are they face as they’re going through menopause. Be open about the conversation.
There are so there was a shocking statistic that stated the sheer number of women who left their roles because of menopause. They couldn’t cope at work with their menopause symptoms. And these women are often at the peak of their careers.
So, how’s that for a double whammy? You fought all this time, slings and arrows to get to where you are. And then when you get there, you go through menopause and you can’t function. You feel too embarrassed and leave. Organizations should be serious about this, especially if they want to retain that sector of their workforce because they’re invaluable.
Sharon:
Your entire practice is focused on women in the age group of 40 and above and they have already moved into the dimension where they’re not considered the youngest one in the office anymore.
What kinds of things can women do to more prepare themselves for the future of their careers and particularly as everything is evolving? You see, things are changing at breakneck speed. Just with the announcement last year, about platforms like ChatGPT and Bing, and how that’s changing the conversation that we’re having about all types of work.
What advice do you give to women who are maturing to sort of stay ahead of the curve?
Janice:
The first thing I would say is that you’re responsible for your personal development, not your organization, not anybody else you and I certainly for one wouldn’t want someone dictating my development.
If there’s something you want to do, you should take control of that. There’s always continuous learning. Make sure you’re re-skilling and upskilling especially. Especially if you’re in an industry like IT where you have to keep up to date with tech.
You have to know, what’s moving, what’s shaking and be networking and mentoring. Get out there, join groups and meet people. If you don’t want to get out there, connect with people on LinkedIn. Ask questions, listen to podcasts, get the advice wherever you can be adaptable and flexible.
You cannot expect with the world changing as quickly as it is that the same way you’ve always done things is going to be right for the where we’re going through the next stage. So, you need to accept that you need to be adaptable. You need to be flexible. You need to have that mindset that allows you to embrace change, and be open to it. It’s definitely an opportunity.
Stay informed and proactive. Be resilient and persistent. If they’re still closing the door, keep on knocking. That’s where you got to where you are. And definitely develop your soft skills. We’d probably need different skills we get as we mature. Soft skills are needed for the multigenerational leadership. They way how we like to be managed isn’t the way that another generation likes to be manage.
Be aware of what how you need to communicate differently to different generations. And as I said, career planning for future. I always want these women to think if they didn’t have this career, what else would they be doing. I personally think we have been sometimes been sold a thing where we’ve been told that breaking through the glass ceiling is the be all and end all, but it’s not. We need to be able to enjoy what happens after that glass ceiling breaks. I said before, what do we do next?
Sharon:
I think it’s such an important exercise to take an inventory of all of your skills. I think we forget how much we really know and how much we’ve done and how much we bring to the table. Without having an inventory of where you are, it’s hard for you to reimagine where you could possibly go with it.
It’s a tough exercise to do. The first thing that a client says to me is “where do I start?” Going back to the question that you asked earlier my response usually is “Where do you see yourself ? or Where would you like to be?”
It’s easy enough now with platforms like LinkedIn to pull up job descriptions to see what are they looking for. And you know what, you probably fulfill more than half of it which means that that’s a job that you’re actually qualified for, because I think we all understand we as women we always want to fulfill 100% of the criteria
Janice:
That’s why I said at the top of this podcast, what I talk about always starts from experience. The key thing to remember is there may be a couple of gaps you may want to fill in. But it’s not the point where you need to go get another MBA. Where’s your transferable skills? What have you learned and you’ve been using them without realizing they’ve become second nature to you because you’re so adept at using them.
Sharon:
The other thing that I wanted to touch on that you mentioned was investment in yourself as continuing to learn. One thing that folks should not underestimate is that when you work for a lot of organizations, there is a budget for you to be trained or to attend some sort of education.
Not all of the expense has to come out of your pocket. You have to be curious enough to understand how to get these things paid for. There are plenty of courses that don’t require any investment. I’ve been using YouTube as like my second MBA to learn how to do so many things as it relates to technology that doesn’t come second nature to me.
I wasn’t raised with a Game Boy in my hand like my child was and there are certain things where I have to be really intentional about how to use them and how to get the knowledge and to use them. I find platforms like YouTube to provide more value than I could get probably by enrolling in some programs.
But the idea that we have to continue to invest in ourselves and not when we’re at the crossroads where we feel like oh my God, my life is changing, now I have to start taking courses. This should be something that is part of your gift to yourself every year that you learn something new. And not all of it has to relate to your career. You could just be doing things and learning things for the sake of learning them because you never know when they might come in handy.
Janice:
When we talked about what next after leadership, you could actually be doing this learning in parallel with your career planning for the next stage. So, you’re not in the situation on what do I do next and you’ve actually made that plan to focus and where do you go next.
Sharon:
Well, Janice, I’m not going to keep you too long because I know that you have a very full roster of clients who are waiting for you what I liked for you to tell us is what’s next for you.
Janice:
I am going to dig in deeper. I’m going into working with women over 50. As a leader, there are additional skill sets you need to be a successful maturing leader, still working with organizations looking at how they maximize that maturing workforce. But as I said my specialty will be the maturing leader keep on excelling on what you’re doing.
Sharon:
And how can people find you?
Janice
They can find me by this my website or my happy place is LinkedIn so you can connect me there. I am Janice Sutherland or Instagram with the same name. And my podcast This Woman Can.
Sharon:
I will put all of your coordinates in the show notes so that people can find you. Janice has been a real pleasure. I certainly appreciate your insight and your expertise. I follow you on LinkedIn and I look forward to continuing to follow you and see how this new area have your expertise develops and can add value to all women, but particularly women over 50 and women of color because I think that we need attention and we need people to show us some love as well.
I’m really be happy that you’re out there and that you’re doing it. I look forward to seeing you online. Thank you so much.
Janice:
Thank you, Sharon.
