Diversity in finance: How to attract, support, and enable women to succeed

Diversity and inclusion are topics that are regularly discussed by senior leaders. However, action is the most important step when it comes to building and sustaining a truly diverse and inclusive organisation. This is particularly true in the current climate, where leaders are contemplating how to shape their strategies to a changing workplace, with a high degree of remote working.

Companies that not only discuss the topic but ask questions to determine how to make it a great place for everyone and how to enable everyone to be themselves at work, are the most successful in attracting and retaining top diverse talent.

On the topic of diversity in finance, Nina Buttle, Business Director at Page Executive – Banking and Financial Services, spoke to senior women in finance operating at a managing director level for multinational investment banks and financial services companies. The discussions explored how they assess a company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, and how they drive inclusion as a leader in finance.

What attracts diverse talent to an organisation?

When assessing an opportunity, it is becoming much more important to candidates that their values align with that of the of organisation they are in conversation with. In traditionally male-dominated sectors, such as finance, actively showcasing diversity and highlighting opportunities to female candidates is so crucial.

On reflection of their approach to assessing new opportunities, women highlighted that they were very thorough when asking questions about a company’s diversity and inclusion commitment, and always approached interviews with a healthy level of scepticism.

When discussing what stood out as a positive sign of a diverse and inclusive organisation, an emphasis on both content and culture during discussions was highlighted as key. This is demonstrated when conversations touch on as much about career history and experience as they did on: ‘would this be the right cultural fit?’

If the balance is equal, it becomes apparent that an organisation is very conscious of the culture it has, and the culture it wants to have.

In addition to this, when hiring for diversity, it is important that those conducting the interview are representative of diverse groups. When looking to hire, everyone we spoke to emphasised that it is important to ensure they have a balanced candidate list, highlighting that if you do not have women on the list, you will not hire a woman.

Supporting women into senior finance roles

On the topic of getting more women into finance, conversations with some women highlighted that the mindset of many female professionals is: “I would never want to be interviewed for a job just because I'm a woman.”

However, some senior contacts in the industry have very different advice, stating that: “If you ever get the chance to go to an interview, you should take the chance - once you're in, you can prove yourself.”

One contact in finance stated: “Women face many disadvantages in life, so you should take any opportunity you can, because everyone else will. Some people are given an opportunity because they have wealthy parents, others would have an opportunity because they went to a certain school, and some may have an opportunity because they happen to have a connection to someone who works somewhere. In life, take it, wherever you can get it.”

As a director, it becomes a core part of the role to ensure that diversity is supported by an inclusive culture. Hiring a diverse team is one thing, but enabling them to succeed is key.

In a senior role within finance, role modelling is crucial, and this means setting your own boundaries between work and your personal life to encourage others to find their own balance.

One of the senior women interviewed said that setting boundaries is crucial to this. As a standard, she does not work on weekends. Apart from checking emails with half a glance sporadically, her SIM card is changed so that she cannot be contacted on the weekends.

Emphasising the importance of role modelling the message that finding your balance does not stop you from building a career.

How to create an inclusive environment in finance

Setting boundaries

Setting boundaries helps support professionals in better managing their work-life balance, but it also makes it easier for managers to accommodate for their team. This will mean different things for different people:

It could be ‘I want to go to yoga on these days a week’, or, ‘I am not a morning person, so please don't book anything before nine in the morning’.

By being very open about it, you start to understand other people's boundaries and by sharing them with others, it is much easier to stick to them.

Performance boards

In addition to ensuring everyone is empowered to set their boundaries for work, a ‘performance board’ was introduced by some senior leaders to better support individuals in managing work-life balance and stress.

Each week, every person logs a score on Excel for the following questions:

How happy do we feel?
How challenged do we feel?
How supported do we feel?

By assessing personal scores from a scale of one to 10, conversations about what things are getting in the way, or where help might be needed, naturally follow. Access to these insights enables management to identify which teams are overstretched and which teams might need more of a challenge, as well as assess the following:

How could we manage these?
How can we help?
How can we remove these blockers?

Tracking success through a D&I lens: Happy, motivated employees

Motivation is key to the performance of an individual and the success of every team. Asking your people, ‘what drives your motivation’, is so important in making the environment more enjoyable.

From conversations with their team, one leader was able to clearly identify what they were motivated by and explained that most people were motivated by working with colleagues, with the business, and they get a lot of energy out of those interactions. A lot of people highlighted that there is an intellectual challenge in what they do, and that they enjoyed learning about new things.

So, for this leader, making that easier and more enjoyable was really the key to getting better performance from her team.

As in any finance team, it is important to track performance from the view of: are we achieving our targets? But what some have found to be more effective to focus on is: do we have a happy team that is not falling over because we load too much work on them? And, do they know how to ask for help?

While this doesn't have to be tangible learns, tracking whether there has been more or less stress leave, whether people are taking their holidays, or if people leave on time and don't log on at the weekend anymore, highlights how effectively they manage to do their work during the week.