By Phryne Williams

Everybody wants it. But it’s hard to find, and even harder to keep. While female representation has improved generally across the Financial Services sector, most board, CEO and C-suite roles remain male-dominated. Whether it is to achieve black economic empowerment targets, driven by a moral imperative or rooted in the fact that diversity is good for business performance, the doors to the industry are certainly open to women. So, why is it so hard to get women into leadership positions?

The answer to this vexing question lies in the convergence of various factors. Those Financial Services companies trying hard to attract, develop, and retain female talent must synthesise a sustained, multi-faceted approach, which is not simple or easy.

Even before entry-level, there don’t seem to be sufficient South African females making educational choices that would qualify them to take up careers in finance. Additionally, for those making their way into the mid-to-top management-levels, there’s a greater rate of attrition of female versus male talent.

Efforts to achieve gender parity must begin outside the organisation by inspiring more young girls at school and university-levels to consider careers in Financial Services. These efforts should then extend from entry-level positions through the entire leadership pipeline, ensuring that women leaders within the organisation remain engaged for the long term. Thus, the approach to improving gender parity must be both systemic and individualised.

Busting the myth about women’s work ambitions

Pervasive gender stereotyping still often attributes the lack of women in leadership in Financial Services to the lack of ambition in comparison to men. It’s a myth that has been debunked by researchers for quite some time but must be repeated because it still comes up.

According to McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2023 report, 79% of entry-level women and 83% of middle-management women want to move to the next level at work. About 75% of women aspire to reach top management roles, including C-suite. These are numbers that put women’s work ambitions on par with their male counterparts.

It is data that challenges Financial Services companies which are losing female employees on their way up to the top to think more and differently about why they are struggling to retain female talent. What are the real considerations and circumstances that may cause female talent to give up on a promising career path or a coveted role in a successful company?

Placing gender equity at the centre of the Employee Value Proposition (EVP)

Currently, Financial Services companies are competing fiercely for a small pool of qualified female talent, especially black female talent. They aim to present a compelling EVP that will be a differentiator in the market.

We see our top female candidates carefully evaluating their choices. We know they want to see women in leadership in the organisation, including on their interviewing panels. They want to know if the company has female role models for them, and they hope to find mentors who are like them. Several companies, especially the big corporates like banks and insurers have developed substantial platforms and forums for women in their workforce to address these concerns and add robustness to their EVPs. Female candidates also want to know whether there’s a workplace culture conducive to them advancing in the organisation.

While it might be rare to come across overt gender bias in today’s Financial Services workplaces, second-generation gender bias is still at play. This may range from micro-aggressions to comments or actions revealing unconscious bias that goes unchallenged in the workplace culture.

For black female talent, this may mean experiencing both second-generation gender and racial biases.

Because these are seemingly minor or vague infractions, managers and team leaders may overlook them, believing that addressing them would appear to be making mountains out of molehills. However, research shows that micro-aggressions, which are one of the common manifestations of these biases have a significant impact on women.

They heighten workplace stress, affecting well-being and performance, and create barriers to a female employee feeling like she belongs, potentially even affecting perceptions of personal safety. Repeated micro-aggressions often lead to disengagement and disillusionment, making individuals more likely to consider other job offers or career changes. Leaders need to be champions of gender equity. Employees need to be educated about second-generation bias, and companies need to make a commitment to zero-tolerance as part of their EVPs.

Personalised approaches to retention

Attracting top female talent is only half the battle won for South Africa’s Financial Services organisations.

Engagement and retention are where a company’s strategy needs to become personalised. It’s important to understand the whole person, her aspirations and motivators, and priorities in life over time. Mentors, sponsors and meaningful interactions with leaders may be enough to engage a particular employee, while another prioritises greater workplace flexibility and a different person is motivated to stay by long-term financial incentives or equity participation.

As organisations focus on retention strategies for rare talent, we are starting to see more openness and more innovations. There’s far greater awareness that you can’t simply put a next-generation woman leader in the pipeline and hope she stays there. As she develops and evolves in the organisation over time, it is likely the needle will fluctuate, either moving away from the target or towards it. It’s obviously far better not to leave the outcome to chance but to make a sustained, intentional effort to support her in achieving her career goals while taking her life goals into proper consideration.

Phryne Williams is the founder of Capital Assignments, an executive search firm that focuses exclusively on the Financial Services industry.

BUSINESS REPORT