Trust Dilbert to get this one spot on in 2011.

Does anyone think this is fair?

Compared to the John Lewis Partnership model perhaps?

FOXY Steph

Thanks to the Jaguar Academy of Sport, a female cricketing legend and Academy Member, Isa Guha, was able to share her skills with young cricketers in a special Cricket Masterclass.

Among the youngsters was Jaguar Academy of Sport Rising Star, Raveena Lakhtaria as well as cricketers from the Sporting Equals programme which is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that the Academy works with.

The Masterclass was held at the Hertfordshire Sports Village and allowed the young cricketers to learn from Isa focusing on all the necessary skills to become a great cricketer including bowling, batting and fielding.

Isa (pictured on the left)  is a right arm fast medium bowler and made her Test debut at the age of 17 against India. In 2008, she was ranked the number one bowler in the ICC Women’s One Day International rankings. This kind of success is a great inspiration to the Academy’s Rising Stars and to be able to learn from her through a cricket master class is a great opportunity.

Raveena was thrilled as you might expect and told us ‘This has been a great opportunity to be able to work with one of England’s best female cricketers. I have learnt such a lot and can’t wait to put it to good use. This is just one of a number of opportunities I have had through the Jaguar Academy of Sport’s Mentoring and Education programme, and the information provided by some of the world’s best sportsmen and women is so valuable to me succeeding.’

The Jaguar Academy of Sport aims to recognise, celebrate and inspire the very best of British sporting talent and success. This is fulfilled through a Bursary Fund and a unique Mentoring and Education Programme delivered through a series of workshops and talent days. Mentoring is key to the Academy and provides all the Rising Stars with the non-financial support they need in order to be successful and masterclasses like this one, provide Rising Stars like Raveena with the opportunity to learn from sporting greats who inspire them.

FOXY Steph

Don’t ask me why I read research about gender differences when this usually winds me up afterwards.

Vive la difference is my gender take on life and I have been known to take a particularly dim view when someone suggests girls should be boys and vice versa…

The latest research appeared in Wednesday’s Telegraph from the catchily titled ‘Perspectives on Psychological Science’ journal and  seems to confirm that women COULD be as good as men at car maintenance and DIY if they wanted to be.

This is based on tests the US Army carry out to assess the capability of potential recruits. These suggest that it’s more a case of motivation than genuine gender aptitude. Fortunately the University of Iowa’s Professor Frank Schmidt isn’t suggesting that mechanical talents are compulsory and admits that it’s very hard to change people’s interests which form early in life.

What I’d like to know is why anyone would want to encourage women to be mechanics, or men beauticians for that matter, when it’s obviously a very small number of either that might want to cross the stereotypical divide.

Let’s look at the motor industry for example. Should women be encouraged and trained to be mechanics to then be feted for their engineering or technical triumphs? When men don’t get the same publicity.  Do men who create a new perfume or lipstick get the same encouragement I wonder?

Even if being a mechanic was one of the most exciting careers in the motor industry (which it might be to some), nothing could ever make me want to be one and local car drivers should be eternally grateful to know this!  This is why I have a mechanically-minded husband, breakdown insurance and use a network of female friendly garages to service, maintain and repair my car when need be.

But I have lots of other and more natural skills to contribute and the motor industry should be celebrating and encouraging female employees to add their talents where they are needed most (I’d say that is in the customer service area).

Having said that about me (and on behalf of many foxy lady drivers who probably feel the same way too), nobody could be more supportive of women who have technical and/or engineering leanings and who want to pursue a career on the garage floor or in accident repair paint shops. Go for it girls… I will defend your right to equal opportunities when it comes to your education, career and pay. But it’s still a man’s world of course.

In a nutshell, most women are different from most men (thank goodness) and we don’t want to be treated the same as them – even if it’s under the misguided cover of equality.

And even if women could do maintenance and DIY if we wanted to, I get no more comfort than I assume a blokey man would do if he was told he could do delicate embroidery work and elaborate floral displays if he wanted to.

So let’s have less of this politically correct bananas in future.

FOXY Steph

No excuse for dirty garages really

A recent garage testimonial from a female said ‘it’s a garage, I wouldn’t expect it to be clean’ and marked it high on factors like welcome and value but low on cleanliness.

And I was accused of being fussy recently when I suggested that workshop staff should don clean overalls and/or white T-shirts for a corporate photo shoot – instead of the well worn blackened outfits they looked as if they had been living in for months…

But surely it isn’t necessary to have grubby looking business fascias, staff, reception or washroom areas, simply because you are a garage and working with oil or engines? After all, accident repair centres have to be immaculate come paint shop time so we know it can be done.

Especially when a dirty work surface (confirmed by the 2 second finger test; can’t just be me that does this), staff in grimy overalls and worst of all an evidently neglected washroom are the sort of memories that linger long in most female minds. Longer than a good car repair job we take for granted I’d suggest.

In my local garage visits I instantly think of a FOXY Choice subscriber in Horsham with a spotless washroom versus another in West Sussex that claims to match their workmanship standards but whose customer facilities definitely aren’t up to our standards.

No garage can afford to neglect cleanliness if they want a female friendly bill of health in my opinion. Not with independents and franchise dealers competing for our purse. And it’s so easy to put right when you set your mind to it.

FOXY Steph

Tell us about your recent garage experience at FOXY Choice and we’ll thank you with a free subscription to FOXY Lady Drivers Club worth £23. And we’ll share your garage feedback online with other ladies.

Thanks to Jaguar, Britain’s golden girl of athletics, Jessica Ennis, is helping rising sports stars to benefit from her advice and experience in her capacity as Jaguar’s Academy of Sport Ambassador.

This role involved Jessica in being a key mentor at a recent workshop for the Academy’s Rising Stars held in Leeds.

Among those benefitting from Jessica’s guidance was Emelia Gorecka, a 17 year-old distance runner from Surrey. Emelia is the current 3,000m Commonwealth Youth Games Champion and is on course to become an elite athlete.

Lucky Emelia explained: ‘It’s been really inspiring, I’ve enjoyed working with Jessica and I’ve picked up some great tips that I’m looking forward to putting into action. To be able to chat to and learn from one of my heroes is amazing. I just hope one day I can be as successful as her.’

Needless to say Jessica wishes schemes like this had been available for her in her early days. Her own career journey started at an athletics camp where former heptathlete, Nicola Minichiello, spotted her talent but she did not have access to programmes like the Jaguar Academy of Sport which would have helped her further.

The Jaguar Academy of Sport sets out to recognise, celebrate and inspire the very best of British sporting talent; funding a bursary, mentoring scheme and education programme including workshops and talent days.

Mentoring is a key activity because it offers Rising Stars the sort of valuable non-financial advice and support they can only get from someone who has been there before them, achieved what they are aspiring to achieve and who is therefore their ultimate sporting hero. And Jessica Ennis is surely THE perfect female role model in this instance, with so many successes to date and the 2012 London Olympics on the horizon.

FOXY Steph

FOXY Lady blog’s Guest Editor is Ian Williams of Jericho Consulting

Ian Williams was part of the University of Hull’s MBA class of 1999 – I met him at the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s HQ in Cookham for many a weekend’s study programme between 1996 and 1999.  This topic matters to women because considerably more of us (than men) are at Facebook. But will we stay there,  jump ship or have the time to learn and maintain both presences, simply because Google+ is the new kid on the block. One thing is for certain, Google+ will want to be seen as a more female friendly experience than Facebook.

Read what Ian has to say about Google+…

OK – so Google+ is now out of beta testing and is available to everyone. For anyone not in the know; it’s a bit like a cross between Facebook and Twitter. And Facebook are worried, hence the new redesign that everyone hates. Should they be? Hmmm….

Well, I think Google have messed it up…again. Despite them having some great innovations, in the past few years, they have had some major league screw-ups too, especially in the social media field, including Orkut, Buzz & Wave. I fear that G+ will fair no better.

Is G+ superior to FB? Well yes…and no! From a technological design perspective it is better. Once it gets people on there, it allows them to do things that neither Twitter or Facebook can do. “Hang-outs” and “Circles” are a case in point. So that means that they will steal lots of market share from Facebook, right? Sure, they’ll steal some, but I’m not sure how much. Of course, geeks, techies and innovators (Diffusion of Innovation model) will open an account, but will they and others migrate? Here’s why I think not:
…
Firstly, stop with the soft launches Google!
Beta testing is all well and good – it worked for gMail – but we can see what happened with Wave. A brilliant piece of technology that nobody used. Why? It was a functionally brilliant piece of social media software…but it was anti-social. Once you got on, there, it was impossible to find anyone else. I remember going onto Facebook to ask people who was on Wave!! Once I found someone who was, we decided to stay on Facebook to chat anyway! Crazy.

So then, in a blind panic – Google had invested millions of dollars into Wave – they then decided to launch Buzz to everyone with a Google account (probably to gain some leverage for Wave) and ended up breaking every single data privacy law in the book. Using people’s data to give them something they have not asked for – even for free – is a big no-no! So, back to the drawing board…and along came G+…

Secondly, whereas Google seem to understand technology brilliantly, they don’t seem to understand people. From the design of G+, you can see that they simply expected people to “jump” straight off Twitter and Facebook onto G+ overnight. Nuh hu! Ain’t gonna happen. Why? Social media is all about connectivity. On Facebook, I’m connected. Google+ would allow me to do more cool things with my “friends” than Facebook would, but nobody is on there! I sent out loads of invites to connect on G+ and very few of my contacts took it up. And those who did opened an account, used it for a few days, and then finding that none of their friends were on there went back to Facebook.

Let me explain a little more what I mean about connectivity. Google+ allows people to post updates on Google+ that will appear in Twitter and on Facebook. Great! However, it currently doesn’t allow Twitter and Facebook posts to appear automatically on G+. Boooo! People are not going to automatically switch their allegiances overnight and start posting on G+ because their friends are not on there. The people at Twitter and Facebook understood this, which is why they allowed full two-way integration between their two platforms. But at the moment, whereas G+ are quite happy to open this up one-way (utilising Twitter and Facebook’s open APIs), they are not (currently) opening up the other way.

Social Media – rather like successful communication – is all about openness. If G+ were completely open, then people who are fans of Facebook and Twitter would fully integrate their platforms with G+ and, over time – when they slowly work out that G+ is superior – would migrate their time onto G+.

People are creatures of habit, hence all of the uproar about the new Facebook design. You are not going to get them to switch their behaviour onto a new platform overnight, especially if their friends are elsewhere. You are going to have to slowly coax and encourage them. Full integration is, in my opinion, the only way that is going to happen.

Will G+ work? Well, it may do, but I think the good people at Google are going to have to work this one out first. Slowly, slowly, catchy Monkey…

Thank you for this Ian and please keep us posted in future, especially when it’s for or to do with marketing to women.

FOXY Steph

Alison Jones is now responsible for Audi’s new and used car sales, agreeing production volumes as well as network and franchise responsibilities for the UK.

This demanding job is titled Head of Operations and was previously held by a female, Julie Evetts.

Alison first started working for the Volkswagen Group in 1988, leaving to work for a Fleet Management and then an Audio Visual business. She returned to the Volkswagen fold in 1998 and has since taken on roles involving Operations, Finance, Aftersales and Customer Service.

Most recently she was Head of Aftersales and Customer Service where she masterminded an overhaul of the Volkswagen Group Customer Service Centre as Head of Contact Strategy for Audi, Volkswagen, Commercial Vehicles, Skoda and SEAT.

Robin Woolcock, Volkswagen Group’s Managing Director said “Alison‘s breadth of knowledge across all areas of the business, particularly her impressive record in customer sevices, combined with her commercial, leadership and change management skills stands her in good stead for her latest role as Head of Operations for Audi UK. ”

It certainly does Alison and is a sign of a business rewarding all the hard work you have put into your career so far. Clearly a well deserved move up the ladder and a role model for others looking to see how high women can get in the motor industry.

FOXY Steph

FOXY Choice identifies aftersales businesses that employ females in customer facing roles  because women tend to trust women in such a male dominated industry. You can read about other women working in the motor industry in our new Women and Work section and find out about exciting career opportunities in the motor industry at the AUTOcity website.

A recent survey suggested that University students rarely considered the motor industry for their future career. Which I was disappointed to read, knowing how much this industry needs to recruit the top talent for its future. And to see that it is failing to appeal to women in the more traditional work areas not just manufacturing, design and motorsports.

And as one of the IMI’s network of Automotive Careers Champions I’m happy to do my bit to spread the word about an exciting job opportunity here, in the hope that more UK students will look more favourably on this industry than they might have done otherwise. And who can afford to ignore remarkable job offers like this one in today’s economic situation.

Which is why I’d like to encourage as many University students to enter a high profile industry competition to ‘win’ 5 months challenging work experience in the automotive industry plus £7500 in prize money. I’m talking about the 2011 Autocar-Courland Next Generation Award  which includes the chance to work for McLaren, Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot, Toyota and Skoda as well as a £7500 cash prize.

How impressive that will look on any CV – and the opportunity to be considered for a full time graduate appointment at the end of this period we’d hope.

“We are encouraging all students to look to the automotive world for their first step into the world of employment. The industry offers numerous and wide ranging opportunities for enthusiastic graduates – it’s innovative, inspiring and challenging. The industry is most definitely not just for the petrol head” explained Martin Bohling of Courland Automotive Practice.

UK University students are invited to respond to the following brief:

“Using your area of expertise, write a 500-word proposal suggesting some improvement (be it an invention, a legislative change, a change to corporate policy or the adoption of a new convention) which you believe would be a worthwhile benefit to the automotive business, on a small or large scale.”

Brief entries must be in by 28 August and are expected to be innovative, incisive and well communicated using diagrams and images to aid clarity. Twelve students will then be invited to an assessment day before the shortlist is produced. This stage allows each candidate to present their ideas to a panel of judges giving them added interview experience and feedback. The winner will be announced in November.

This is the third year of these Awards and it would be good to see a female winner for the first time. I can’t see why not, providing enough female students have heard of this Award in enough time to whet their appetite.

To find out about exciting career opportunities in the motor industry, please visit the Autocity website for background information

This is such a great opportunity for high flying students to make a real difference to our industry’s future, working alongside some of the leading players here.

FOXY Steph

Is August too early for a New Year resolution to make 2012 a FEMALE FRIENDLY year in the UK motor industry?

I look at lots of motor industry websites, read lots of marketing blurb, see lots of job ads and industry news but it is still VERY rare to find a female focus despite the importance of the increasingly independent female pound.

So I’d like to suggest that the UK motor industry makes a start to a more female friendly agenda by making 2012 a FEMALE FRIENDLY year in the motor industry. There’s just about enough time to plan a campaign, given the willingness and a resource to do the job.

We all know the motor industry should be a more female friendly one already and there is a compelling business case to make it so; to boost sales by marketing to women-as-women (not men) intended to increase their loyalty and referrals through female-oriented communications and independent information about their best choices…

To do this would require an industry commitment from all key players to the following tactical activities and more…

• To iron out the 80:20 male:female workforce imbalance by recruiting more female staff, starting at the top of organisations
• To provide female friendly workplaces for women employees
• To market cars more creatively to women, using segmented female feedback as a tool
• To market independent advice (and why total independence matters to do with quality…) about garage standards to women
• To train male employees about the importance of the female purse and how they can gain her trust and business when it comes to shopping for new cars, garage services, motor insurance and car finance
• To understand what busy women look for when shopping online
• To remember that women are different when it comes to customer service levels and amenities.

Question   Isn’t this what the motor industry should be doing in any case? So why isn’t it?

Answer 1    Because some businesses think equality means providing women with services and standards designed by men for men.

Answer 2    Possibly because many men like the industry as it is.

Answer 3    Because many men at the top of organisations can’t see how to recruit women without  falling foul of equality legislation… coupled with the fact that new female recruits are less likely to have the motor industry experience that men do (thus perpetuating the imbalance of course…)

Answer 4     Or they haven’t spotted that female staff don’t fancy a job in what they perceive to be a male dominated motor industry… coupled with the fact they need to advertise outside the industry to reach women of course

Answer 5    Or that the few female stalwarts who have made it to the top of organisations have got there by thinking more ‘male’ than ‘female’ en route which other women may be less willing to, given more female friendly industry choices

Come on RMI, SMMT, SMTA and IMI. The business case for being FEMALE FRIENDLY in the UK motor industry is clear and whilst nothing short of a total cultural makeover is needed to do the job properly this has to start from somewhere and should surely start sooner rather than later…

And given a resource FOXY will happily play a key part in any FEMALE FRIENDLY business agenda in 2012.

What about a coordinated approach guys to all round mutual gain?

FOXY Steph

I am sad and still in shock.

After walking in to the office today after a business trip the first call I took was to say that our wonderful telesales business partner, June Evans of sales consultancy Just Ask!, died in hospital last night.

June was in her early 50s, a consummate sales professional and all round lovely person with a sunny personality, a love of the telephone, of people and dogs.

She had gone into hospital just over two weeks ago. I had assumed it was for a routine and probably female operation but I now realise it was cancer and too advanced for them to save her life. What a great loss and shock.

Rest in peace June, you will be sorely missed and forever remembered as an Honorary FOXY Lady par excellence.

Our sincere condolences go to June’s much loved husband Brian.

Other than that, on this sad occasion, words totally fail me.

FOXY Steph