The glass ceiling can be a contentious topic. Some people think that it doesn’t really exist, others that the idea no longer has relevance in today’s workplace and there are still people who see it as something of an excuse made by women who haven’t made it as far as they intended.

Fleur Bothwick, the director of diversity and inclusiveness at Ernst & Youngargues that women today are not facing a single glass ceiling that stops them in their tracks just below board level. Instead, she sees women – and indeed some men – finding themselves facing a range of glass obstacles at different stages in their career.

The exact barrier or barriers faced will vary with each individual, but most are closely linked with decisions around family. For example, one woman may feel that she has to step off the senior management track to look after an elderly relative; another may decide that there’s no point attempting to make partner while raising young children.

“Everyone is different,” Bothwick says. “The strains come at different stages in your career... as you go up the ladder that glass ceiling could be anywhere.”

This multiplicity of potential barriers means that there is no single glass ceiling to smash – and therefore no single answer to the problem.

Bothwick recommends a range of flexible working solutions allowing people to work around obstacles rather than focusing on a narrow band of individuals at a particular stage of their development.

Emma Howard, a tax partner at BDO Stoy Hayward, also sees the issue as tied in to decisions about family and “the inevitable problem of biology”. Women who do not want to have children may find the glass ceiling all but nonexistent, she says. “They still have to want [to make it to the top] but they don’t have to do embarrassing things like rush out the door at 5pm to pick up the kids,” she says.

Howard also supports flexible working as a way of making it easier for women and men to combine family and career commitments. Alongside this, her firm runs diversity training for managers to ensure that they understand that failing to support women in their careers means missing out on valuable talent.

The other element, Howard believes, is increasing women’s willingness to promote their own achievements. Betsy Nelson, head of corporate banking for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at JP Morgan, agrees. She says that women need to overcome their hesitancy about publicly taking credit for their work. “It’s time for [senior] women to start taking that risk of being visible. Other women will see it, and that inspires people.”

Robyn Jones, the chief executive of Charlton Houseis one of those women at the top. While she is not convinced that the glass ceiling exists – questioning whether people use the term “because of their own inadequacies” – she has confronted sexism in her career.

When she started Charlton House in 1991, people “could not see a woman as a serious business person”. Even now some of her clients prefer to deal with her male co-director. However, in her company she makes every effort to ensure equal opportunities to allow everyone to get ahead.

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