Raising the ceiling

While there are currently more women than men in financial services, it’s still a dim picture when it comes to gender diversity at the top. Kate Cowling investigates the implicit reasons why women may still lag men in the progression stakes. 

There’s still a defiant silence around certain gender issues facing the financial services industry. 

Despite the leaps and bounds of women’s organisations promoting diversity on boards and across the wider industry, there’s an unnerving sense that something is missing.  

It’s the proverbial elephant in the room and unfortunately, it’s something that cannot be dealt with by quotas or targets or change benchmarks. 

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The reality is that women are not making it through the ranks in financial services because of cultural issues, according to Women in Banking and Finance CEO Amanda Dobbie. 

And there’s no simple fix. 

“Behaviour is set by cultural views and that’s a very hard thing to reverse,” she said. 

While the Big Four banks and companies like AMP have taken laudable steps towards gender diversity, by way of mentoring programs and inclusion targets, it is widely acknowledged that broader cultural change is harder control and takes longer to implement.

AMP Capital’s Adam Tindall, chair of the AMP Capital Diversity Working Group, said “unconscious bias” is a major barrier for women’s progression in the corporate world. 

“People may have good intentions, but they’re not always aware of what their biases are because of their upbringing or their past experiences,” he said.

At a recent Financial Executive Women leadership conference, Metlife’s head of distribution, Michael Goodall, echoed these sentiments. 

“Part of the problem is here, if you, as the woman in that organisation, are not getting that recognition, maybe there’s something wrong with the culture of that organisation,” he said.  

What this suggests is that the recipe for equal representation requires a fundamental reboot of ideals and processes deeply-embedded in our psychology – something that will probably take years to achieve. 

In the interim, the industry is working towards awareness of these issues, largely with the development of gender diversity groups.

Long way to the top

According to a report compiled by the Financial Services Institute of Australiasia (FINISIA) last year, women make up 55.8 per cent of the financial services workforce – a relatively high percentage compared to other professional industries.

But when it comes to senior roles and board roles, the picture is vastly different. Just over a third of women are in managerial roles (33.6 per cent) and less than one in 10 (7.5 per cent) occupy CEO roles. 

“There’s no way of sugar coating it, the numbers are terrible,” Women in Banking and Finance’s Dobbie said. 

Accompanying the diversity report, FINSIA released a set of guidelines stressing that gender equity in senior roles would not improve without “measurable objectives” and reports to shareholders on progress. 

However, the issue of quotas has proved quite contentious. 

JBS Financial Strategists’ director, Jenny Brown believes career advancement should be based on merit and not propped up by artificial means. 

“However I do understand that women in general often don’t put themselves up for a role unless they are pushed,” she said. 

Financial planner and Chair of AFA Inspire, Deborah Kent agrees, but said the idea of a benchmark is not totally beyond the realm of reason. 

“I don’t know that quotas are great long term, but I think at least it gives some sort of floor,” she said. 

“They are there for a reason to at least engage the idea of getting more women involved. 

“At the end of the day, it has to be the best person for the role and I would hate to think that quotas have an impact on someone missing out on a role.”

AMP Capital’s Tindall agreed with the “right person for the job” mentality and said if diversity targets are in place, they needed to go further than gender alone. 

“You also need to consider who is the right person for the team. The best teams are diverse teams and so you need to think about the mix of the team when making an appointment,” he said. 

Dobbie said quotas are certainly not ideal. 

“It goes to the outcome, without changing the culture,” she said. “I think it’s better to put programs in place to try and instigate change.”

Culture shock

For JBS Financial Strategists’ Brown, ‘old-school thinking’ has been to blame for the glass ceiling effect. 

She said the industry must encourage women to apply for senior roles, promotions and to reenter the workforce after child birth, and this means instituting flexible work arrangements. 

Dobbie said while flexible work options widely exist, it’s almost taboo in some circles to take advantage of them, with fears it will have catastrophic impacts on one’s perception within the workplace. 

“This is something that starts at the top too, we need to start seeing male CEOs and the like taking advantage of these initiatives before we can see change at the lower levels,” she said. 

Kent said poor flexibility does not only inhibit progression, but participation as well. 

“I’ve known a number of good women who have gone through to advisory roles and found the commitments of work and family were too much, so they either went into a part-time role or wound it up altogether,” she said. 

And though it’s almost politically incorrect to mention, some advisers say the old notion of the “boys club”, where insular networks advance some – usually men – to the detriment of others, still exists. 

“I think they definitely exist, but women need to create their own networks to compete on that level,” she said. 

Brown had similar thoughts on the networking front, and said often due to family and time pressures, women are not networking as actively as their male counterparts. 

“As a female adviser, I’ve often been in the minority at events,” she said, again citing mindset as a barrier. 

But Evalseco Financial Services’ Julie-Anne Knox said this is starting to change. 

“I have definitely noticed a shift towards a greater representation of women in the financial advice industry… I notice more women advisers attending and being awarded at our annual conference each year, as well as professional development days,” she said. 

For Kent, the term ‘boys club’ was never appropriate nor applicable to the financial services space. 

“The old boys’ club thing is overused and we don’t have to use it anymore,” she said. 

“It really only exists in your own mind. It’s more about we are the same, we all do the same thing, it’s just that there are not as many women around,” she added. 

Shining a light on gender gaps

Worried about low representation from women in senior roles, the financial services industry has responded with a series of initiatives to lift diversity rates - some of which are gaining significant traction. 

Groups like the Association of Financial Advisers’ (AFA’s) Inspire, the Stellar Network, Business Chicks and Women in Banking and Finance. 

The aim is to lift the lid on the real barriers to elevation and participation, often only anecdotally shared in trusted circles, Kent said. 

One of those barriers is a lack of confidence and poor support networks, which according to Kent, is a frequent contributor to women leaving planning roles. 

“I’ve always believed that we need to encourage more women in adviser roles and given that I have a career of 26 years, I’ve seen a lot of women come into the industry, get themselves to the level of adviser and find it’s too hard and without necessarily the right support mechanisms in place and then end up leaving the industry,” she said. 

On the elevation front, Kent said she’s known of several women in paraplanner or administrative roles who have wanted career advancement, but been offered no pathways.

“I think the industry does need to do more to encourage women to step up to adviser roles and that means making it easier, more flexible, and certainly encouraging women that they can make great financial advisers.”

Dobbie agreed. 

“These are issues that have been discussed for years, but still haven’t been solved. It’s really got to be led from the top,” she said. 

But she said the proliferation of support groups is evidence of a mindset shift towards female inclusion.  

“In 2000, there were virtually no mentoring groups around, now they are everywhere and I think that’s a sign of the effort the industry’s making,” she said. 

Barriers to elevation

The perception that women undersell themselves, while men oversell themselves has been cited as a key contributor to the gender gap, particularly in financial services where endorsement is often critical to success. 

“There is a generalisation that men tend to overstate their capacity to take the next step up while women will understate that capacity,” AMP’s Tindall said. “The answer is helping people take greater control of their careers.”

Brown said her experience has shown women will often only step up to a role if they are overqualified. 

“It is said that women need to tick eight or nine out of 10 points on a list to put their hand up, whereas men believe they can do a job ticking a lot less boxes,” Brown said. 

The industry is not totally to blame for lower-than-expected female advancement, Kent added, with internal issues, like confidence, often responsible for holding women back. 

“I believe confidence is a big thing. Doubts over whether they can do 100 per cent of the role and if they have doubts, statistics show they won’t go for the role,” she said. 

But Evalseco Financial Services’ Knox, said these perceived barriers, such as underselling, need to be reframed as advantages. 

“Women have different skills they can bring to the financial services industry that can often give them a competitive advantage over their male counterparts, such as empathy and their ability to get to a deeper understanding of clients’ emotional needs as well as their financial goals,” she said.