English Unlimited HTL 4/5, Schulbuch mit Audio-CD und CD-ROM

196 activities Unit 5, exercise 30b Unit 3, exercise 23 Student B You work for an environmental organisation. You think developments to food production have mainly had a negative effect on the environment and on people’s diet. Prepare some ideas to support your point of view. Think about: the transport of food  pesticides and artificial fertilisers  hygiene multinationals  intensive farming  processed and packaged food GM foods  developing new crops and types of food Talk about your ideas with Student A. or even ten years ago, but by now substantial numbers of women have arrived in middle management and even in the ‘ marzipan layer ’ (just below the icing) from which future top executives are recruited. Why do so few get any further?  One reason is that female managers tend to work in so-called ‘functional specialities’ (such as HR ) rather than in areas that are the main hunting ground for the very top but often involve extensive travel and unsocial hours .  More importantly, boards have traditionally been made up of white middle-aged males of similar back- grounds who are comfortable with each other and recruit new colleagues in their own image. Women, even if they can be found, have a different style and are more visible, so if something goes wrong, everyone notices.  Besides, women themselves are often reluctant to put themselves forward for promotion. They have few female role models to look up to. Men also benefit from informal networks that often involve socialising after hours and talking about sport. Women may not want to join these, or may find themselves excluded or disagree with the work environment which is often male dominated and working against women.  Big companies like Deloitte, which lost too many valuable female employees, have changed their working practices and are now among the most considerate employers of women. Among other things, this usually involves offering a flexible work environment, with the emphasis on getting the job done rather than being present.  Different companies are adopting different strategies. Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, announced in September that it will double the money it spends with women-owned businesses, train women around the world and push suppliers to use more women. Shell is running a global career-development programme for talented women within the organisation and has set itself a long-term target of 20% for women in the company’s senior executive ranks.  The companies that are taking action are hardly doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. The main argument now being put forward is that there is a business case for having more women in senior positions. At its most basic, this says that since women make up 50% of the population and hence 50% of the talent, it would be absurdly wasteful to ignore them when so many businesses struggle to fill high-powered jobs – all the more so as women are now generally better educated than men. * Fortune 500: an annual list of the 500 largest companies in the United States, published by Fortune magazine alphabet – Greek boss – Dutch cotton – Arabic hamburger – German ketchup – Cantonese marriage – French opera – Italian plaza – Spanish robot – Czech sauna – Finnish ski – Norwegian shampoo – Hindi tsunami – Japanese yoghurt – Turkish Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv