Gifted discrimination in the workplace.

How are gifted people treated in the workplace? In particular, how are former child prodigies welcomed, or not?

Recently, I heard of an interesting experience of a former child prodigy, in the corporate work place. He had attended a world famous University at 13 and graduated in Physics at 16. All his life he had excelled in all things academic. He had started work in the corporate world at 16. I was struck though, by how he was treated. Do you think he was welcomed or appreciated by his corporate bosses? Did they value him?

Well, to my eyes, they discriminated against him in a very odd way. Knowing of his intellectual brilliance, he had been specifically told that he would NEVER get promoted, unless he received an A grade evaluation in all areas, in his work performance. He was rather puzzled by this, you see, because he knew of others, whose evaluations were two levels below his, who were getting promoted. These were "ordinary" people, who had not been child prodigies, or gifted in any way. They received promotion on reaching a much lower standard than he did.

Understandably, this former child prodigy was unhappy at being held to a different standard than everyone else in the workplace...so he duly left his job. He felt that it was wrong that they should treat him differently, in this negative way, because of his academic history. The imposition of a higher standard, for him and him alone, meant that he could not enjoy the job. He was always under pressure to do better, be the best. It meant that he could never relax in the job, never give up pushing himself. It made the job, in short, hellish to be in. He had to leave.

I am curious. Do you, my reader, know of any other cases of gifted discrimination? Are they similar to this one, with gifted people being held to higher standards, before they can be promoted? Or are they experiencing other forms of discrimination? Please let me know in the comments below.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

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On Maternity and Paternity Leave.

Singapore's leaders are waking up to the fact that soon they will have no-one left to lead. By this, I mean that Singaporeans simply aren't having enough children: they virtually halve at every generation - and, as any schoolboy mathematician will tell you, it doesn't take an awful lot of generations, at that rate of decline, for there soon to be no Singaporeans left at all. Something has to be done.

So, the government has proposed a number of initiatives to improve the situation. I shall focus on the implications of one of them, in this post. The government has extended the statutory period of maternity leave from 12 weeks to 16 weeks. This is great for mothers who wish to, and need to, spend more time with their newborns. It is great for the babies, too. It is not so great, however, for employers - particularly smaller employers - for they have to arrange cover, by generally less well-informed and competent staff, while their new mother is away from work. This can be expensive, is inconvenient and may affect the business. Thus, employers won't like this change very much.

Then, again, even 16 weeks is too short, really. What is needed is a much longer period of maternity leave (as in many European countries), but this would only heighten the problems for Singaporean companies which, traditionally, don't really care very much about the well-being of their staff.

This creates a big problem for women throughout Singapore. Employers may come to look on a female employee as a nightmare waiting to happen. They may see a female name and drop the CV in the bin. Why? Because down the line, all they can see is the incurred expense and inconvenience of maternity leave. Employers who think like this will tend to avoid employing young women and will only open the doors to post-menopausal women. It may create a strange kind of ageism in which OLDER women are preferred to younger ones. It would be a curious reversal of present trends.

While the government is intent on improving the situation for mothers, it seems to have forgotten fathers. Dads now have earnt the right to a week off work, sometime, during the year, to help care for their child. A week is a bit pathetic, really. What is needed is for men to have paternity leave. This would give new dads the chance to get to know their children - and their children to get to know their dads.

Paternity leave serves two purposes: it allows dads to be dads - and it ensures that mums will have jobs. You see, if dads get 16 weeks paternity leave, too, then there will be NO difference to employing men or women in the workplace. Employers would have no reason to discriminate between men and women: for both would come with the same potential cost. Indeed, equal maternity and paternity leave for men and women is the ONLY way that a sex divide in employment prospects will not develop in the Singaporean job market.

This, of course, gives rise to a general principle which should apply in all matters relating to employment: whatever breaks or allowances that women get, men should get, too, so that there is no reason to discriminate between men and women in the workplace. It seems the eminently intelligent thing to do and resolves many problems, at once. However, somehow, I don't think it will be implemented. Other considerations will probably still take precedence over the resolution of the population issue - and so the population of actual Singaporeans will continue to decline.

We shall see what is done.

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