By Emily Woolard, Strategy & Marketing Manager
Fix one issue and you might improve
the situation for some people. Live and breathe workplace flexibility, on the
other hand, and you could be well on the way to fixing it for everyone.
As PWC’s most recent Women
in Work index shows, some progress has been made across OECD countries with
respect to equality and diversity in the workplace. Financial services is
stubbornly trailing behind the pack, however, and still
has the largest pay gap in the UK.
It’s been demonstrated
conclusively time and again that diversity, particularly in senior
positions, has a significantly positive effect on the financial performance of
a company. So why hasn’t more happened to move the needle?
In
financial services in particular, women tend to be proportionately represented
in entry-level and junior positions but drop off dramatically at the more
senior levels of an organisation. Understanding why this happens is regarded as
the key to solving the problem – simply find out the reason why women are
leaving and address it. Easy!
I vividly recall taking part in a workshop discussing disappointing
employee opinion survey results at a leading financial services firm. The ratio
in the room was about 75/25 male to female, and it was pointed out that women’s
scores were – in the firm as a whole – considerably worse than men’s. “You’re
women,” boomed my observant colleague, “Tell us what’s up with all of you!”
Part of the problem with the search for a single solution is that women
– unsurprisingly – are all different. As unique individuals, we vary in our
motivations, lifestyles, priorities and career goals. Fix one issue and you might
improve the situation for some people. Live and breathe workplace flexibility, on
the other hand, and you could be well on the way to fixing it for everyone.
What do I mean by flexibility? It’s a set of job design tools, yes – options
for different working patterns, hours, locations etc – but it’s also an
attitude of acknowledging and celebrating differences. If a person’s working
life does not fit in with the goals and values most important to them, their
motivation will suffer and sooner or later they will leave in pursuit of
something that does.
For organisations, the challenge and opportunity is to be adaptable
enough to provide that alignment. Sadly for the firm, it’s not enough to pay
lip service to flexibility. It’s not even enough to offer it in spades without significant
cultural change to go with it.
A high-performing bank colleague of mine used to work offset hours so
she could collect her young children from school in the afternoons. Despite
being aware of her hours, people would repeatedly schedule meetings during
school pick-up, which she would apologetically decline and they would go ahead
without her. She was the only person on our floor following this working
pattern so she felt had to work twice as hard to prove herself. She was viewed by
the ‘9-5 brigade’ as someone who wasn’t worth investing in as she had other commitments.
Unsurprisingly, she left and set up on her own.
Many firms have a deeply ingrained culture which says that those who
have priorities outside the organization are somehow less worthy of status
within it. This has to be dealt with or they will always feel like second-class
citizens. And eventually they will leave – I’ve watched it happen. Flexibility
only works if it’s normal. If flexible workers stick out like a sore thumb,
they will never feel truly on a par with everyone else.
It’s two-way street, of course. I’m not suggesting that employers should
give everyone a completely free rein and expect nothing in return. As I write,
I can almost feel the rage at ‘another one of those demanding Millennials’
trying to make the world fit around her!
Good employees do adapt – they give up a significant portion of their
life to the pursuit of someone else’s objectives and they go above and beyond
the letter of their contract to get the job done. I don’t feel it’s an enormous
ask for a firm to build in enough flexibility that employees can better achieve
their personal goals as well.
I count myself very lucky. Thanks to a great deal of mutual trust and
understanding between my employer and I, I spend around half of my time working
remotely. It’s what kept me in the firm when a significant life event would
have otherwise caused me to leave my role. It’s made me harder-working and more
loyal than I would ever have been to any other firm under any other circumstances.
It might be naïve of me to call it a ‘win-win’ situation, but I’m struggling to
identify the loser.
Technology means that for so many roles it’s possible to do everything
required to meet and exceed objectives from anywhere with a phone and a reliable
internet connection. On occasions when a face to face meeting is required, those
afforded the flexibility of remote working will most likely be more than
willing to put in the leg-work and travel.
Re-thinking success
Women
were not allowed to work in banks until the end of the 19th century,
and for a considerable time after that, the roles they could take were
restricted. In a financial services industry designed around men, it’s unsurprising
that the established working patterns and prescribed path to success may not
suit women particularly well. But, quite
frankly, over 100 years later not enough has happened yet to change that. Women
have instead been expected to adapt their goals, their lives and their attitudes
to fit into a system that wasn’t built for them.
I’m of the view that it’s not that women don’t succeed in financial
services, it’s that the narrowly-defined criteria set by the firm for promotion
to the highest levels of management do not align with their much broader ideas
of what it actually means to be successful.
One of the most successful women I know hasn’t finished climbing up the
ranks within her organization. What she is doing is far more impressive. She is
transforming the way people think and guiding them to create change. She’s using
her skills in the non-profit sector for the good of countless beneficiaries. In
terms of changing the world, she’s already further on the way than most of us will
ever be. But in her firm, that’s not the yardstick used to determine whether or
not someone is successful – it’s more about the number of people reporting to
you, the length of your service or, sadly, even the amount of time you are ‘visible’
at your desk.
If we want a more diverse workforce to exist, and if we want it to pervade
at all levels of seniority, we must champion diverse working practices and broaden
our thinking on what it means to be successful. “One size fits all” does not
work.
At the core of a true flexible working culture is the desire and
willingness to treat employees – men or women – like the unique individuals
they are, to understand their priorities and find a way for them to achieve the
things that are important to them. Firms that manage this will reap the
benefits that a more satisfied, motivated, productive and diverse workforce can
bring.
The introduction of centralised exchanges (such as Liv-ex in 2000) and the use of technology has markedly improved market liquidity and transparency. This has created a sophisticated space for fine wine as an alternative investable asset. Enhanced price discovery and security has allowed the market to develop an infrastructure similar to that of mainstream investment markets such as equities, with a success not yet seen in other collectibles such as art, cars and jewellrey. This has led to dramatic improvements in liquidity (the average market spread of the Liv-ex 50 index – Bordeaux First Growths – is approximately 3.5%) and a stable market environment.
Given the low volatility, the low correlation, the high liquidity and the high returns, all on a relative basis compared to other asset classes, an investment in wine becomes a must have for investors looking to establish or to maintain a well-balanced investment portfolio.
