Employee experience The will to leave
How to explain the female exodus from City institutions? The reality is that women are leaving the finance sector for a number of reasons. That ranges from the gender pay gap and inflexible work culture to poor maternity leave and the lack of progress potential – with some problems clearly harder to fix than others.
Female redundancies reached 178,000 between September and November 2020, 76% higher than the peak reached during the financial crisis. And while women are clearly facing the brunt of company-wide cuts, many are also choosing to leave the workplace voluntarily. As of the end of 2021, more than 4.5 million people were said to have quit their jobs, contributing to what is now known as The Great Resignation – a phenomenon doubtless spurred on by the pandemic.
As a senior woman in the sector herself, Jayne- Anne Gadhia, founder and chair of fintech company Snoop and former CEO at Virgin Money, is well positioned to reflect on what is needed. She admits, at any rate, that the monumental impact of the pandemic on working life has been both a blessing and a curse for women. The exodus of women from banking may be to do with the “burden of extra duties” that fall disproportionately on women. At the same time, Gadhia wonders whether unequal parenting responsibilities forces women to step back from the demanding nature of many top jobs in finance. Even so, Gadhia does see a silver lining: the shift to online and app-based banking has accelerated the digitalisation of the economy and flexible working practices, which should work in women’s favour. For that to happen, of course, women will need to take “determined leadership” to make a difference. And in a landscape where 82% of women said their lives had been negatively disrupted by the pandemic, and where 70% are concerned their career growth may be limited as a result, it is clearly an uphill struggle. That is especially true when you reflect on the tough situations many women have faced in finance. In September 2021, for instance, a judge ruled that a senior Barclays employee calling women “birds” was “plainly sexist” after a junior colleague took him to court. The sexist language used by James Kinghorn came to light after Anna Anca Lacatus repeatedly asked him to stop. To Kinghorn, the language was “ironic” and even humorous. But to his female staff, it clearly proved undermining and derogatory, creating an environment that made Lacatus feel both unwelcome and uncomfortable. These and similar tales do not exactly align with ambitions to create a respectful and inclusive working environment.
For Kathy Powers-Moore, diversity and inclusion manager at Rabobank, these kinds of incidents can moreover feel like “death by a thousand cuts”. As
Future Banking /
www.nsbanking.com
Powers-Moore describes it, women are often made to feel ‘difficult’, even as their male counterparts are seen to be offering constructive criticism. Where, then, to begin fighting back? The conduct of senior staff seems as good a place as any. “We need to make sure that everyone is open to challenge [these microaggressions] and that it is given and received in a positive spirit,” Gadhia says.
Challenge the status quo To be fair, women will not need to enter the fray alone. The hunger for change, after all, is far from exclusive to women. A study by Deloitte revealed that 41% of new dads between the age of 24 and 29 have changed jobs, or actively looked for a new one, because they want a better work/life balance. Times are changing, and big banks need to take notice. Goldman Sachs, for one, recently announced that men and women will both be offered 20 weeks of fully paid leave once their child is born. Powers-Moore admits that Rabobank, which offers the statutory two weeks of paternity leave, is not there yet. But her team is taking notes.
Having established that change needs to happen both on an individual level as well as through business- wide policies, it is easier to understand why progress is slow – and not just in the UK. In Germany, for instance, women account for just 34.8% of leadership positions in the banking sector. Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank claim to be striving for 35%, but as Nicole Voigt, managing director of Boston Consulting pointedly rebuffed, “we are half the population, why not equality rather than just 35%?”
As the battle over paternity leave implies, at any rate, improving the work-life balance is a vital step here. As Powers-Moore puts it: “It’s important to have a good work culture to encourage employees to stay. To do that, companies need to demonstrate that in more than just words and pledges online.” In Powers- Moore’s eyes, this starts with leadership from the top and includes changes to the recruitment process, as well as gathering reliable and comprehensive data on Rabobank employees – where the female workforce currently stands at just 31%. This is important so that companies know “where to put our resources and how to measure what we’re doing”. That is doubly true in finance, where the tendency to hire, promote and befriend ‘PLMs’ – ‘people like me’ – is rife. According to one 2019 study, a staggering 41% of people working in financial services have parents in the same field. Clearly, it is easier to hire someone who you know or who went to your university than it is to set up a contextual interview with someone less qualified or from a disadvantaged background. Powers-Moore hopes to address existing bias in recruitment during her tenure, believing that “it’s easier to take the bias out of a process than it is out of a person”.
35 70%
Women who think disruptions caused by the pandemic will negatively impact their career growth Deloitte
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