There are four aspects to keep in mind:

• Work with men where they are;
• Strive to understand what the current issues are for men in the workplace.;
• Understand men’s knowledge and attitudes towards the experiences of women in the workplace; and
• Incorporate men’s issues into your gender equity and diversity agenda. Particular energy can be generated by focussing on men’s health and well-being and work/life balance.

Recognise that there will be considerable diversity in the dialogue with men that will include:

• Disinterest, do not consider the issues relevant to them;
• In principle support, but no real engagement in the issues. These men will accept gender equity as a fact of life, but they consider that there is no real need to place much emphasis on this issue in the workplace (eg. the women who want to get on will, it is a more general social issue);
• A belief that gender equity is relevant to men, primarily because the focus represents a threat to their position in the workplace. Often it is based on the belief that there is now reverse discrimination and that women are being given an unfair advantage. These feelings can lead to backlash and resistance to engaging in workplace changes. Underlying this though is a lack of understanding of the workplace experiences of women;
• Engagement and support, often motivated by salient personal experiences, eg. work/life balance, experience with high performing women, experiences of their partner or their daughter; and
• Passionate about gender equity issues (because they fully understand the issues of both women and men in the workplace) with a commitment to make a difference. Men in this category will also be prepared to confront other men about their attitudes and behaviour (note: willingness to confront other men is a key indicator of this level of commitment).

A person who commits against her/his will is of her/his opinion still!

A strategy often adopted is to stereotype men as the problem and then attempt to change men’s behaviour or achieve their commitment by a compliance driven or “big stick” approach. This approach is common in the area of discrimination and harassment. Again, the focus needs to be on understanding where men are on these issues and examining the costs and benefits of changing their behaviour. More emphasis needs to be given to the potential benefits.

It is easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting. Experiences in working with men show that an activity-based approach will result in more effective outcomes than approaches that address the cognitive, rational aspect.

Understand the process of behaviour change and the techniques that are most effective to initiate and sustain behaviour change.

Creative enablers for consideration

• Conduct focus groups with women and men separately and combined to understand better what the gender issues are in your organisation. Part of this process needs to involve men and women identifying what they believe to be the key issues for each other, to promote taking the perspective of others. The framework needs to be couched in terms of understanding, in promoting a dialogue and working in partnership to improve workplace outcomes. It could also be incorporated into a process associated with developing emotional intelligence in your organisation.

Prior to the focus groups, it is a good idea to have each person to use the Gender Interview process to interview two women and men from different areas of the organisation to help them identify what the issues are.

• Introduce a range of activities into regular training programs, team or departmental meetings (eg. the analysis of relevant case studies).
• Look for opportunities to establish creative partnerships between individual women and men. This could be achieved by:
  • Attending relevant conferences or workshops together (eg. Women in Management Conference) and presenting a joint report back to the organisation.
  • Conducting regular training sessions as female/male partners, eg. anti-harassment training. The majority of this training is delivered by women, helping to maintain the image of this as being about women and women’s issues.
• Look for opportunities to engage men differently in harassment and discrimination issues. Techniques that you might consider include:
  • Beginning the process with a focus on respect and use bullying as an example of inappropriate behaviour. Most men can relate to bullying behaviour and the link between bullying and sex-based harassment and discrimination is easily made.
  • Use customer behaviour (harassment, bullying etc) as a key link when you are in a customer service environment.
  • Begin the process by identifying:
    • who gets on?
    • what skills are valued in this organisation?
    • what are the assumed career pathways?.

    This analysis will lead to identifying a range of barriers to ensuring that the best people are given opportunities in your organisation. The link with workplace issues for women is then more easily established. This provides an excellent basis for a dialogue and for the inclusion of men in providing energy for changing work practices and expectations.
     

• Actively engage a diversity of men in problem solving and in developing organisational initiatives to address gender issues (eg. to analyse the need for paid parental leave).
• Enable men to demonstrate their commitment and passion by being involved in a high energy workplace event on gender equity.
• Develop skills to enable men to confront inappropriate gender behaviour displayed by other men.
• Establish effective working relationships between women and men on relevant committees or councils (eg. setting up effective communication systems, acknowledging relevant contributions).
• Develop skills for men to mentor other men on gender issues.
• Look for opportunities for men to lead a workgroup in a change process associated with gender equity.
• Develop mixed gender networks (eg. being conscious to include women in informal network activities, organising social events those both men and women can participate in comfortably).
• Ensure recruitment and promotion/developmental systems are effective and sensitive to gender issues. Use the Gender Selection process to facilitate this.
• Conduct a Men at Work program.
  This program has been successfully implemented in a range of leading organisations. Evaluation of this program reveals that many men are already warmed up to:
  1. evaluate their lives and to change;
  2. achieving a more satisfying work/life balance;
  3. critically evaluating their ideas about success;
  4. establishing more effective partnerships with women and;
  5. looking for more creative ways to design how, when and where they work.