What does this Site Offer?
Professionelle.co.nz is an online community that is all about making it work for professional working women’. We launched this website in March 2007. Here, you can find and share practical advice and support on the real issues you face at all stages of your careers and lives. Being online, our support network is always available.
All the advice and articles on the site are free. By registering for free you'll also be able to participate actively in our community, which includes opportunities to attend unique offline events.
We’re based in New Zealand, but we welcome users from anywhere. Though we look at things through women’s eyes, we hope men will feel c
omfortable dropping in, too.
Professionelle in the media
Sarah's experiences as the main breadwinner in her family were captured in a feature article by Gill South in the May 2009 issue of Next magazine.
Galia's thoughts on the many benefits of networking were captured in Val Leveson's article "Networks Open up a World of Opportunities" which appeared in the Herald Jobs pages on April 22 2009.
Following our talk at the EEO's Diversity in Action workshops, Val Leveson interviewed us for the front page of the Weekend Herald's Jobs section. Her very positive article on Professionelle's history, insights and plans appeared on November 22nd 2008.
Sarah's interview with Estelle Logan, now the Chair of the New Zealand Franchise Association, was reprinted in NZ Franchise magazine in September 2008
Sarah was interviewed for a NZ Management Magazine piece by freelancer Helen Tatham on the subject of effective networking ( published 1 July 2008).
Galia appeared in a TV One Special Report on professional women and workplace flexibility on April 24th 2008. Hannah Ockelford, one of our members, interviewed Galia and also two guests at our 1st birthday party. Click the box below to view it.
In response to the gloomy findings of the 2008 Census of NZ’s Women’s Participation, Sarah wrote an article on the business case for having more women at the top. It was published in the NZ Herald’s The Business on April 4th 2008.
NZ Lawyer magazine contributor, Amy Mansfield, quoted Galia in her piece "Mum’s the word" that appeared in March 2008 and explored the issue of flexibility for working mothers in the legal profession.
During the January break we had two pieces published in the NZ Herald's Career '08 Portfolio. One was on The Impostor Syndrome, or feeling like a fraud on promotion. The other was on Building A Personal Brand. Both of these articles built on existing Professionelle pieces by weaving in interviews with senior recrutiment professionals.
Sarah's letter to the Business Editor of the Sunday Star Times, in reply to a piece on the number of women in boardrooms either side of the Tasman, was published on 11 November 2007.
Galia was quoted in Gill South's 2nd November 2007 article in The NZ Herald's The Business called "Women Who Don't Want to Run with the Wolves". In it, Gill investigated the reasons for women opting out of traditional forms of employment.
Galia's piece "On Networking and Diversity", inspired by our day at the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust's Diversity Symposium, appeared in the September 28th 2007 edition of the NZ Herald's The Business.
NZ Lawyer magazine ran our piece "The Trouble With Bosses" in their July 20th 2007 issue. On August 3rd, our advice to new law graduates on "Choosing the Right Career Path" was published too.
"Pay Gap For NZ's Professional Women Worsening" - our analysis of recent Income Survey data was published in the NZ Herald's The Business on July 20th 2007.
What to Do with Baby? - the front page of the NZ Herald's Career section (July 4th 2007) carried Donna McIntyre's article quoting our views on choosing childcare.
We had excellent coverage in The NZ Herald's The Business pullout on Monday 25th June 2007. This issue featured Theresa's Gattung's exit interview. Our analysis of the stagnation of women at the top over the last decade appeared, as did our views of the barriers to women advancing and remaining in full time work.
A June 17th 2007 Herald on Sunday article spoke to Galia about families' influence on children's career choices. Galia's father, once the Deputy Treasurer of Israel, wanted her to become a lawyer. He's now writing novels and we all know what Galia's up to!
Online Community for Women at Work - the National Business Review's People in Business Section on June 15th 2007 profiled our site and our aspirations.
Becoming a Supermum - we were quoted on the front page of the NZ Herald's Career section on June 13th 2007 in an article by Donna McIntyre. Donna's piece provided advice for professional mothers returning to work after a child.
Our letter to the Editor of North & South magazine was published in their June issue. We commented at length on their March lead story on the Power of Women over 40.
Women's Web Support - an article and accompanying photo introduced Professionelle and the two of us to the readers of The Aucklander on May 30th 2007. In the same issue, Sarah Lochead-MacMillan, a Professionelle member, commented on our site and gave her views on the realities of a professional working woman's life in Choose Wisely and Get Good Advice.
Be Honest, Not Overly Modest, When Calculating Worth At Work - on April 15 2007, Galia contributed to a Herald on Sunday article about pay rise tips for women.
"Age-Old Question: When to Have Kids" - in early March 2007, Galia was quoted in the Sunday Magazine on this topic. The article is only available on Stuff.co.nz in cached form, but you can find Galia’s views on The Right Age to Have a Baby on this site.
Who Are We?
Galia BarHava-Monteith came to New Zealand from Israel in 1993 following her compulsory military service. 13 years on, she has notched up a Masters in Developmental Psychology from Auckland University and a local work history spanning both corporate and professional service sectors. Her last corporate role was as Ethics Manager for Fonterra.
Galia is currently an Honorary Research Fellow of Management and International Business in the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Auckland.
Perhaps her psychology training is the reason so many women have sought her out over the years to discuss the ethical, emotional and intellectual challenges of their working lives. The accumulation of this experience made Galia see how lonely professional working life was for many women. Learning how things “really work” in organisations from a female perspective, she realised, could be nigh on impossible. It was a small jump to conceiving Professionelle and inviting Sarah to join the venture.
Galia has a keen interest in governance. She undertakes independent consulting assignments in governance and in ethics, and is a Governor at her children’s primary school.
Like most working mothers, Galia has developed formidable skills in multi-tasking and compromising. She refers to Professionelle as her third baby and is almost as passionate about it and its potential to make a difference as she is about Tal and Ella, now aged 7 and 5.
Sarah Wilshaw-Sparkes worked as a strategic business consultant with The Boston Consulting Group for a number of years after arriving here from England in 1989. Consulting, both as employee and contractor, has taken her from corporate boardrooms to government offices to factory floors - and most places in between. It also included a stint sharing an office with Galia, who was then in her first working role.
In the last ten years, Sarah has learned first hand about juggling intense project–based work with the needs of two children. She’s fascinated by how other women make this supreme challenge work and loves talking to them about it. Being - ahem - a little older than Galia, Sarah is also keen to explore the issues around the later stages of women’s careers.
With an MBA from London and a background in European marketing with Unilever, Sarah is excited by the prospect that the ideas and insights from this site will benefit corporate and professional women as well as their current employers.
Sarah has experience on not for profit boards, particularly in education. She also writes romantic fiction and has had several short stories published. As for full length fiction - well, time will tell!
Useful Links
International websites
Key Publications
- Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women (March '05)
- Connecting Corporate Performance and Gender Diversity (2004)
- Britain's Hidden Brain Drain (September '05)
Local websites
Members' Recommendations
The Onbalance Blog
Though now closed off, this Washington Post blog used to pop up regularly when we were researching answers for Ask-The-Expert. “Onbalance” explores issues in juggling work, family and community from both a female and male perspective. It was presented by Leslie Morgan Steiner and her prolific guest blogger, “Rebeldad” Brian Reid.
There are several sub-topics, ranging from ‘tips’ to ‘flexibility’ to ‘childcare’ and ‘research’ and beyond. The blog’s main territory was issues arising in the lives of parents with children under about ten. However, the guest blogs every Tuesday tended to offer a broader view, emcompassing older children, older parents and retirement.
Catalyst
Based in North America, Catalyst describes itself as “the leading research and advisory organization working with businesses and the professions to build inclusive environments and expand opportunities for women at work”.
The key word is research. While some reports must be purchased (~US$40), a number can be downloaded free. Free titles include:
- Building the business case for flexibility (based on Canadian law firms)
- Creating Successful Mentoring Programs
- Women Take Care, Men Take Charge: Stereotyping of U.S. Business Leaders Exposed
You can sign up for Catalyst’s newsletter to keep up with its events and releases.
The Center for Positive Organisational Scholarship
Galia came across the Positive Organisational Scholarship (POS) field when she was researching her next career move. POS studies the impressive bottom line results observed in companies which focus on positive attributes such as resilience and trust.
The Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship is committed to advancing research in this emerging field. It also has in it detailed instructions to the Reflected Best Self exercise, a wonderful tool which helps you discover your strengths in very clear detail. When used correctly the reflected Best Self Exercise can help you tap into your unrecognised and unexplored areas of potential.
The idea for Professionelle came about as a direct result of undertaking the Reflected Best Self Exercise. Anyone can do it, and we believe it has the potential to significantly help you to better understand yourself, improve your leadership skills, and even help you change your career path!
Positive Psychology
Hand in hand with Positive Organisational Scholarship is Positive Psychology;
Positive Psychology is the scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive. This field is founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play.
Some of the goals of Positive Psychology are to build a science that supports:
- Families and schools that allow children to flourish
- Workplaces that foster satisfaction and high productivity
- Communities that encourage civic engagement
- Therapists who identify and nurture their patients' strengths
- The teaching of Positive Psychology
- Dissemination of Positive Psychology interventions in organizations & communities
This site provides a great overview of this field if you’re interested to learn more about this emerging field of psychological study. The center also provides free questionnaires that you can complete online and receive detailed feedback almost immediately. There are seventeen questionnaires available on the site. They measure things like your strengths, enduring happiness, work life satisfaction, meaningfulness, forgiveness, optimism about the future and much more.
It is an excellent, scientific resource which is available free of charge.
Key Publications
Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women (March '05)
An excerpt of This Harvard Business Review article describes both the off-ramps that suck talented women out of businesses as well as the value and mechanisms for providing on-ramps for them to rejoin. For the full article, you'll have to find a copy of the March 2005 magazine itself, or buy it off the HBR website for $US6.
Connecting Corporate Performance and Gender Diversity (2004)
Catalyst undertook a study into whether more senior women translated into improved financial results. This work built on the interest from Ray Adler's 2001 findings (and others' like the AMA) that the relationship was positive. Catalyst's findings concurred.
Britain's Hidden Brain Drain (September '05)
Britain's Equal Opportunties Commission study into part-time and flexible work highlights the damage caused by old-fashioned attitudes to work. Men are having to work longer hours in full time jobs, while many women are caught in part time jobs with low or no prospects, earning 40% lower hourly pay. That's the same pay gap as thirty years ago! The Brain Drain report is available in full and addresses the major barriers to more flexibility.
Local Sites
Everyday Feminism
The women at the Faculty of Arts in Auckland University have developed a great interactive site called everydayfeminism. It has interesting, regularly updated articles and notifications of events.
Franchise New Zealand
Franchise New Zealand has been this country's premier source of franchising information since 1992. It offers articles containing vital advice about buying a franchise, franchising your own business and much more.
Team Factors
Team Factors focuses on improving connections between professional services firms and their client organisations.
Women in Technology - WiT
WiT empowers people in business and technology to achieve unimagined possibilities. WiT has a network of smart women and men and a global market reach.
Cordbank
Cordbank is New Zealand's first dedicated and licensed cord blood collection, processing and storage facility.
Members' Recommendations
Your On Ramp
Youronramp is a US site. It describes itself as a community of professional women who balance their work and life with flexibility and creativity.
