Apples-to-Apples, the Gender Pay Gap Exists

, , ,
money money moneyThis week we hit “Equal Pay Day” on Tuesday, a day which symbolizes the extra days women must work to make the same salary as her male peers did last year.

According to the Demystifying The Gender Pay Gap survey by Glassdoor, the biggest myth about the gender pay gap is that it doesn’t exist at all, as 7 in 10 employees across seven countries assumed men and women received the same pay for the same work. But even when narrowed down to an apples-to-apples comparison within companies, researchers found a significant gender gap exists.

The Apples-to-Oranges Gap

Every time the gender pay gap comes up, it seems we have the apples-to-oranges data and the apples-to-apples data. Apples-to-oranges data compares men’s earnings to women’s earnings without breaking down the factors at play.

The recent Catalyst data summary of Women’s Earnings And Income reports that in the U.S. in 2014, women earned 79% as much as men in annual earnings. Based on Census data of median weekly earnings in 2015, full-time working women earned 81% as much as men, but only 72% as much within full-time management, professional, and related occupations.

Data has shown that female income tends to level off around age 35-40, as gendered workplace penalties reach full swing, while male income doesn’t level until 50-55 years old. The American Association of University Women reports that “women are typically paid about 90 percent of what men are paid until around the age of 35, at which point median earnings for women start to grow much more slowly than median earnings for men. From around age 35 through retirement, women are typically paid 75 to 80 percent of what men are paid.”

This difference has a significant impact on women’s lives, resulting in an average of $10,800 less in annual earnings, or nearly a half million dollars across a career, and a dramatically lower retirement security (44% less median income) for longer-living women, which ultimately spells an economy issue.

The Apples-to-Apples Gap

In their recent survey, Glassdoor created apples-to-apples salary comparisons by factoring in “differences in education, experience, age, location, job title, industry and even company.”

In the U.S, they found an apples-to-oranges 24% pay gap, or that women earned 76% as much as men. When they controlled for age, education, and years of experience, the gap was 19%.

When they looked at the same job title at the same employer at the same location, the highly “adjusted”apples-to-apples gap was still 5.4% – women earned 94.6 cents on the dollar of her male peer sitting next to her.

For a full-time working woman at median earnings, that’s a $2,140 loss per year. But for a woman who earns $100,000 a year, the loss is $5,400 annually.

The “adjusted gap”also increased with age – 6.2% at 35-44 years old, 9.5% at 45-54 years old, and 10.5% at 55-64 years old.

Among industries, the “adjusted”pay gap for insurance was among the biggest at 7.2% and finance was 6.4%. Among occupations, C-Suite professionals had one of the largest gender pay gaps (27.7%).

Apples-to-Oranges Is Still a Gender Bias Issue

Gender bias is still a significant driver of an apples and oranges comparison – it’s a big factor of the context that makes the difference exist at all.

According to Robert Hohman, CEO of Glassdoor, “occupational sorting”explains 54% of the overall “unadjusted”pay gap – the sorting of men and women into different industries and different roles in the economy, through non-subtle and subtle societal influences.

Education and experience were minor factors of explanation (14%). In fact, an April Gender Pay Inequality report from the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee stated, “The typical woman with a graduate degree earns $5,000 less than the typical man with a bachelor’s degree,”and that “women’s median earnings are lower at every level of education.”

Sincerity Is Transparency

The gender pay gap has been stagnant for the last decade 2006 to 2015 (change was 20 times faster in the preceding decade) and is not except to close until 2059.

Recent executive proposals by President Obama to target the gender pay gap by having the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission collect companies salary data has prompted reactions of government overreach, but the overall intention is to get targeted with a persistent problem.

As long as the persistent gender gap belongs to everyone, it belongs to nobody, and that’s why transparency matters. 70% of employees feel salary transparency is good for employee satisfaction and for business.

Certainly, a pointed finger sparks transparency, especially if it’s being pointed publicly or by shareholders, and especially if there’s nothing to hide. With the recent Glassdoor finding that female computer programmers experience one of the highest “adjusted”occupation pay gaps at 28.3%, the big names in Tech have been coming out to champion their equal pay.

On Monday, both Facebook and Microsoft announced publicly that men and women earn equally at their companies. Amazon and Apple have publicly stated similar findings based on employee pay surveys, prompted by shareholder proposals requesting disclosure of pay equity assessments, filed or co-filed by Pax World. Intel also shared their equal pay findings recently.

Now what if companies began to feel the same external pressure to disclose their C-Suite pay findings around that whopping 27.7% discrepancy?

When it comes to the gender pay gap, it seems the only real language of sincerity is indeed transparency, and companies have the chance now to use it.

By Aimee Hansen

/by

Mover and Shaker: Christine Molloy, Manager, Accenture Consulting

Christine MolloyMolloy began her career with Accenture in 2009 as a summer intern, and joined Accenture full-time in 2010 after graduating from Southern Methodist University with a Masters degree in Information Engineering. Since joining, she has worked with several large utility companies to help them implement complex systems and specializes in customer care solutions for energy providers nationwide.

Molloy understands what it takes to continue to raise through the ranks in her career as she comments,

“Many of my assumptions entering the corporate world were around work-life balance. In the beginning of my career, I believed the more I worked, the faster I would stand out and get ahead. I quickly realized this was old thinking – working smart and taking time to focus on your own well-being are extremely important to creating a successful career path.”

When asked about professional achievements so far, she replied,

“I am proud of several professional achievements I have had throughout my career. The ones that stand out most are when I have brought teams together to deliver great outcomes and, subsequently, when clients have been the most satisfied. I think it is about adding value.”

She goes on to give an example of having been a member of a team across geographies that was working across multiple US states, as well as Canada and India. The team had been working to solve a complex problem for a client and the team was struggling to integrate together around the task. Molloy comments,

“I guided the group to come together as a team, realize common ground and deliver a solution that was agreeable to all and beneficial to the client – and that felt like I added a lot of value.”

She also talks about a recent project that she has just completed, which consisted of a SAP Customer Information System and business intelligence implementation project for a large utility project. She states,

“This was such an exciting project because I got to work on it from the early stages through to a successful go-live. I was responsible for consolidating two systems into a single solution to improve operational efficiency and enhance customer experience. The nature of the work was complex and rewarding since my client was an early adopter of the technology.”

Molloy repeatedly cites her strong team and a good company as a key element in her success and also mentions sponsorship as playing a significant role in her career. She states,

“I would not be where I am today if it was not for the mentors and sponsors who have helped guide me. Everyone needs a strong team of support but, in many cases, you will have to seek out and identify mentors and sponsors that will be there for you along the way. “

Equally she recognized that it is important to take the time to support and mentor others,

“My father, now retired, taught me what it means to be a leader, to work hard and also to put family first. I owe my leadership skills to him and I know that as I continue to learn, build my network and give back to those around me, I too will be successful.”

Molloy states that she has learned the most from working with a diverse array of people, on her own teams at Accenture, with clients and with other people she interacts with daily. She enjoys working with people who have different ways of working, who expect the highest performance and people in different geographies with cultural nuances. She states,

“Working alongside people with a variety of differences can be difficult but, ultimately, it improved my listening skills, increased my flexibility and taught me how to better apply my own social style.”

Accenture has numerous programs and initiatives across the company to support women in succeeding and advancing and personally Molloy is involved with the Miami Women’s Enterprise Resource Group. She comments,

“We have a strong network of women within the company and in our local community. As a part of this, I lead several local women’s groups at different client sites to encourage our women to collaborate and learn from one another in the communities that we work in while traveling.”

Molloy is also the corporate citizenship lead for Accenture’s Miami office and is currently working with a nonprofit partner called Covenant House Florida on several exciting initiatives. Covenant House is a homeless shelter for youth that served more than 51,000 youth last year across 6 countries and 21 cities in North America, providing nearly 700,000 nights of shelter.

She excitedly shared that in a few months, Accenture volunteers will be helping them roll out a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) awareness program. “I currently lead a mock interview initiative where we bring Accenture volunteers to the nonprofit to work one-on-one with disadvantaged youth to prepare them for job interviews and the working world.”

She lives in Fort Lauderdale, FL with her husband and enjoys paddle boarding, traveling and spending time at the beach.

/by

Are Investors the key to increasing the number of women leaders?

, ,

Elegant leaderThere are many ways to create change and arguably one of the most effective ways to get people on board with any concept, including gender equality, is to show them that doing the right thing can also be the most profitable path also.

For nine years theglasshammer has reported on the stagnant numbers of women on boards and in senior management. Yet there is an ever growing body of research the latest of which comes from McKinsey in January 2015 that shows that companies which commit to diverse leadership are more likely to have financial returns as much as 35 percent above their national industry median.

So, why is there still a disconnect? What can give companies the carrot or the stick that they need to do better beyond fluffy aspirational goals and lip service when it comes to promoting women?

One group that can help create change are investors. State Street’s newly launched ETF index fund – the SSGA SPDR SHE Gender Diversity ETF as well as the Sallie Krawcheck endorsed fund – the PAX Ellevate Fund allows for options when as an investor you want to see companies hire and promote women into senior leadership.

So what has changed?

Simply put, there are three things that are changing the game:

Firstly, data for who is on boards and in senior management team has only been relatively newly available. BoardEX and MSCI have dedicated teams to produce independent data on the gender breakdown of large companies’ executive teams.

Secondly, the continued bifurcation of the market is providing more choice for investors. ETFs and other passively managed and more commoditized products are in direct conjunction with more actively managed fund approaches and is certainly driving down costs and increasing transparency.

Thirdly, investors want to live their values and are more aware of what their values are

We aren’t just talking about a handful of aware women putting a few dollars into their pension plan. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) announced its initial investment of $250 million in the SSGA Gender Diversity Index, a large- cap U.S. stock index primarily tilted toward companies with a greater than usual number of women in senior leadership positions.

CalSTRS Chief Investment Officer Christopher J. Ailman. “We are entering a new era of impact investing — one based on looking for values or purpose that generate investment returns based on diversity of thoughts and perspectives, while also creating change with our capital. I believe it’s time to change the face of Wall Street and corporate America.”

What is the SHE index?

The SHE index itself is an index which is based on a methodology involving measuring the number of women at senior management levels in the largest firms.
The resulting product is an ETF that tracks a newly created, proprietary gender diversity index comprised of the largest companies in the US with senior women leaders relative to other firms within their sector. Rather than wait for companies to take action themselves or rely on legislation to be enacted, SHE provides a way for people to fight the gender gap directly by investing in companies that put a premium on women in leadership positions.

Jennifer Bender, Managing Director and creator of the SHE index explained to theglasshammer.com that prior to launching this ETF product, Statestreet has been working with rule based large data sets on the institutional side of the business. She comments that it seemed like a natural transition to provide retail investors with the same ability. She comments,

“If investors want to vote with their feet plus get the long term equity return they are looking for then this product allows them to do this.”

When asked about how the companies are picked for the index, Jenn Bender explains that top firms are picked to meet specific criteria using independent research. She explains,

“We want the index to be sector constrained so that we have similar sector weights as the US large cap universe which ensures we have a diverse group of industries represented. The companies in our index have the highest ratios of female senior managers in their sector. “

Walking the talk

Allison Quirk, executive vice president and chief human resources and citizenship officerat State Street believes that it is another way to tackle gender equality work.

When asked about the new SHE index, she sees the importance of reflecting the work State Street continues to do the inside to create that pipeline of female leaders with an external commercial product that aligns with the State Street culture. She comments,

“It is good for business to ensure women have what they need to navigate – it is our responsibility to engage the entire talent pool to ensure a sustainable pipeline of female leaders. We have eighteen female EVPs now who each sponsor other women just below them, this effort along with our male colleagues taking the lead also on mentoring and sponsoring women, means that we really believe we will see the rewards of paying it forward. “

With 27% of their SVP’s and 23% of their EVP’s being women, it seems that this firm is taking gender parity seriously.

State Street’s SHE fund also has an innovative charitable component to it that focuses on the next generation of women leaders. The company will take a portion of revenues and direct them to the newly created Donor Advised Fund, which will in turn support organizations that inspire and equip girls to be future business leaders – particularly in industries where women have low representation today, such as STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).

Pipeline at all levels is what more firms need to think about.

/by

Power – How Do You Feel About This Word?

,

POWER featuredI often run psychometric tests on my coaching clients to find out with some hard data how they are motivated and driven at work. More often than not, my clients come back with varying levels of ambition and varying levels of the need for power.

Power is sometimes seen as a dirty word for women and many will tell you that they do not want it (even if their data says otherwise), yet power is really just another word for authority and control over what you are responsible for delivering. You should want some power, as otherwise you might find you lack the resources to follow through on your remit.

Own your personal power as you see fit, but at work it is equally important to ensure your authority to execute on a task is aligned with the level of responsibility you have to see it all get done!

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work

/by

Voice of Experience: Wendy Mahmouzian, America’s Head of Corporate Services and Real Estate and Global Head of Hospitality, Goldman Sachs

Wendy MahmouzianThe ability to recognize and support talent and lead diverse teams in a high-performance environment, along with a keen appreciation for people’s individual balance between work and personal lives, have significantly contributed to Wendy Mahmouzian’s career. She has not only found the right work/life balance for herself, but supports this pursuit among the teams she leads.

“You have to understand that we’re all somewhere different on the work/life spectrum, and there’s no one answer to the question on how to achieve balance. It’s up to you to determine what it takes to make you feel comfortable and allow you to bring your best self to work,” she says. “It might be your family, sports, culture or education that allows you to achieve that balance, enabling you to bring 100 percent of yourself to work and perform at your best.”

For Mahmouzian, performing at her best has meant constantly learning new skills and being willing to take on new challenges, all while continuously looking for ways to solve problems and create new opportunities for clients. During her 20-year career at Goldman Sachs, she has spent the latter half with the Corporate Services and Real Estate (CSRE) team, first as global chief of staff and now as head of the team for the Americas and global head of hospitality. She joined the firm in the Global Investment Research division and subsequently co-managed the Securities e-Commerce group. Common themes in all of her positions have been contributing to transformative change and enhancing engagement with clients.

A Diverse Set of Priorities That Range From Crisis Response to Sustainability

One of Mahmouzian’s most significant undertakings was leading the team in 2009 that opened the firm’s world headquarters at 200 West Street, overseeing the startup of operations and multi-month migration of employees to the new building. Ensuring that everyone in the new headquarters could be productive on day one was a significant undertaking.

She remains focused on improving the firm’s workplace strategy to respond to business needs and creating a high-performance environment that enables the flow of business, promotes client engagement, maximizes productivity and reflects the firm’s commitment to sustainability and inclusion. She is currently involved in a number of projects, including refurbishing existing buildings, developing new campuses and ensuring that the firm’s spaces meet the needs of employees, clients and guests.

Reviewing past milestones, Mahmouzian notes the vital role her team plays in supporting the firm during key events, including Superstorm Sandy. During the 2012 storm, she organized the team that managed the firm’s response. “We focused on protecting the firm’s assets, particularly its people, and making sure that the business remained up and running throughout the storm and its aftermath,” says Mahmouzian. “The intersection of planning, communication, managing risk and being nimble enabled the team to ensure the firm’s business continuity and was a hallmark of our response.”

Mahmouzian also helps manage the firm’s environmental and operational impacts through innovative strategies in energy efficiency, investments in green building and initiatives to ensure a sustainable and inclusive supply chain.

Advice Along the Career Ladder

For Mahmouzian, patience and listening were skills she developed over time, but she also notes the importance of individuals’ establishing their own voice and speaking up. “You have to learn how to balance soliciting the opinions of team members with articulating your own view as well,” she says.

She also advises women, especially those early in their careers, not to be deterred by a historically male-dominated field like real estate, but to seek as role models more experienced women who have succeeded professionally in the space. “Your capabilities will make you successful, so don’t be intimidated by a room full of people that look different from you.”

While Mahmouzian also supports hospitality, a typically female-dominated field, she says it’s important for both hospitality and real estate to cast a wide net and seek diverse talent that is accretive to the team and delivers for clients.

“Embrace the strengths of those around you and use them to your advantage – engage, encourage and enable,” she says, adding that as she has become more senior, a big part of her job is supporting high-potential talent and creating a platform for their success.

Helping Evolve Women’s Initiatives

One of the projects that Mahmouzian undertook in the CSRE division was to help formalize the division’s women’s network. A cornerstone of this effort was establishing a signature women’s conference that features speakers and a wide range of professional development initiatives to enhance participants’ skills. Over the years this conference has evolved into a global event via video conferencing. She is also proud that many male colleagues have increased their attendance and advocacy. “It’s gratifying that they are eager to support and sustain broader efforts to advance women in the firm,” she noted.

Work/Family Balance Comes From Being Present in the Moment

For Mahmouzian, balance depends on being present in the moment. “With today’s technology, demands are coming from all different angles, and we need to remember that five minutes of focused attention on a challenge or in a discussion will yield a better outcome than an hour of distracted work. Take the time to listen, interpret and have a clear mind,” she says.

She brings that ethic home to her husband and two daughters, whom she calls her “support network.” Being present in the moment is the best way to ensure we have quality time, she says, adding that they love to ski and value the time they spend together as a family.

Superstorm Sandy offered a situation that allowed her to test the merits of this approach. Her family understood that she needed to continue working throughout the weekend in response to the storm: “They knew that in this crisis, my focus was to protect the firm and our people, and they gave me the freedom to do what I needed to do.” As the crisis subsided, her work team returned the favor, ensuring she could hand over the reins to be with her family. “Being present is the cornerstone of success, whether it’s work or family.”

/by

Intrepid Woman: Linda Davies, Banker to Bestselling Author

Linda DavisNew York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author Linda Davies wrote this guest article for theglasshammer.com about how she succeeded as an investment banker and then made the leap from corporate life into full-time self employment as a novelist. This is surely a dream that many people share, but is it really that easy?

The GH: Linda, tell us about your career in finance in the city of London?

Linda: When I first stepped into the hallowed streets of the City of London as a callow twenty one year old graduate fresh out of Oxford, I only ever intended to stay for a few years.From when I was a little girl, I had always wanted to be a writer.Corporate life was a means to that end.

In the City, I had two objectives: one was to make as much money as I could legally in as short space of time as possible, and the second was to prove a point to myself and whoever I fancied might be watching.

The City lured you in with the promise of money but it had another USP that appealed to my young and foolish ego: it prided itself on its hair-cloth-shirt toughness, insinuating that you had to be something of a superhero to survive let alone thrive.

There weren’t any super heroines back then in the American investment bank I went to work for.I was the first woman they employed in European corporate finance.Back then, the glass ceiling was at entry-level and I was thrilled to have smashed it.
The work was an intellectual challenge, but the environment was not a fit for me..

Dealing in astronomical sums of money and being lavishly rewarded can be very corrupting, can lead you to think that you deserve the money, that you are entitled to the money, and that you need that amount of money to live a satisfactory life.

I had a plan and I stuck to it. I deviated occasionally and allowed myself indulgences, but the greatest indulgence of all is time and money buys time in my opinion. After seven years as a leveraged buyout and high-risk specialist, it was time to leave.

I had for several years been searching for a plot, and then, one day, I was sitting at my desk, feeling particularly annoyed with my boss, and wondering idly how much trouble I could cause financially, when the bare bones of a story leapt into my head.

It was a totally illegal plan, it would have made a lot of money, but I like to sleep easy at night, and so instead of doing it, I wrote about it. After six months, I knew that this plot could turn into a book.

I was young, free, and single. After seven years I had saved up enough money. It was time to take a risk, to turn my back on my large six-figure salary and bonus, and the status and security that went with it.
I remember the day I handed in my notice. I felt as if I had jumped out of an airplane without a parachute. It seemed like I was in freefall for weeks afterwards. It was a gloriously heady feeling.

The GH: Ok, so that is definitely a moment that some people would consider scary, possibly even risky! How did you go from quitting your day job to realizing your dream?

I wrote for 18 months, refining the plot until it was time to test the reality of my dream. Through a friend of a friend I was introduced to a literary agent. I went to see him, handed over my manuscript. It was a Thursday.

Then in some strange feat of serendipity, a kind of fortune favors the brave moment, a bizarre thing happened over the weekend.

About four months earlier, I had written a speculative letter to the Sunday Times, where I suggested writing an article about my experiences in the City. I was contacted a few weeks later by the editor of the Sunday Times Magazine who said absolutely, yes please, do write an article for us about what it is like to be a woman in that extremely testosterone-fuelled environment.

I had no idea when the article would appear, but, as luck would have it, it came out, covering six pages, on the Sunday immediately following my Thursday meeting with the literary agent.

This produced two rather wonderful and wholly anticipated results: one, an auction ensued amongst a number of publishing houses to buy my novel and two, I was contacted by about six different highly prestigious and successful financial boutiques and offered jobs (I have to say at this point, nothing in my article suggested that I wished to return to finance.)

This was 20 years ago.The book was Nest of Vipers – an adrenaline fuelled insight into the life of an investment banker, Sarah Jensen, who was recruited by the Governor of the Bank of England to go undercover in her investment bank to investigate an insider-trading ring that stretched from a central bank to the Mafia. Unbeknownst to her, she was also working for MI6.The novel went on to be published in over thirty territories and to be optioned three times for movies.

I am now on book number 13. Jumping out of my investment banking career had been a risk worth taking on every level.

The GH: What advice would you give our readers today?

I suspect that a number of you reading this are contemplating or have contemplated leaving the corporate system and so my advice to you would go along the following lines:

* While you are inside the system, be wary of buying into it and into the lifestyle to match it if you are intending to leave it, particularly in highly paid professions such as investment banking. Investment banking is a great way to amass money, but only if you do not spend like an investment banker.

* Many women in corporate life can still in some ways feel like outsiders. As the first woman employed by Bankers Trust’s European corporate finance department, I was patently and obviously an outsider and always felt like one. That was a real advantage. Relish and use that feeling. It gives you perspective, the ability to stand aside and look at your position and your broader options in the outside world and gives you greater flexibility in terms of the choices you might go on to make. There is no wonderfully set career path stretching out ahead of you. You have far greater freedom to make it up as you go along.

It’s been shown in personality tests/behavioral profiles that entrepreneurs are overwhelmingly outsiders. Being too wedded to corporate life can blunt your desire and ability to take risks with your career. Being an able quantifier of risk for your organization often does not extend to being able to quantify risk as regards your own life.

I’m a contrarian by nature and it’s led to some odd but potentially beneficial opportunities: the first was my Sunday Times article which I had thought was a very public exercise in boat-burning, in deliberately removing any fallback position, any hint of a Plan B should Plan A fail.I believed that the very absence of a Plan B would make me work harder to ensure Plan A worked!

How contrary was it then that my article and my attitude produced all these offers. I’m sure had I gone knocking on their doors the week before those same doors would have remained closed to me.

Being an author these days really means that you are an entrepreneur so a lot of my experiences and the lessons I have drawn from them can be applied across the spectrum to different areas of entrepreneurship besides writing.I hope some of these above might be of help.For those of you who are budding writers here are a few tips that have helped me.

* Write a whole draft before you begin editing.Writing and editing at the same time is a dispiriting and inhibiting process.Just get the first draft down and then you can play around with it.

* Make use of the most current technology to help you.I don’t type really well or very quickly but I have always typed out my novels on my desktop computer.However, just over a year ago, an old friend of mine who is an investigative journalist told me I was mad not to write about the story of my kidnap and detention in Iran.I started to think about it, suggested it to my agent who leapt at the idea.He said, look if you can write it in the next two months, we can publish it at the same time as your latest thriller, Ark Storm, which was due to be published nine months later.

Two months is a tight deadline, especially for someone who cannot type very well.So I did something I had been contemplating for a while.I installed Dragon Dictate voice recognition software on my computer.And I dictated the book, the memoir, which would go on to be called Hostage, Kidnapped on high seas, the true story my captivity in Iran.And I discovered a very welcome side benefit.I had wanted this memoir to sound much more intimate than my novels. I wanted it to read as if it were a tale being told at a dinner party perhaps to someone I had just met, one of those rare and special human beings who manage to elicit the most candid of confessionals.

And it worked. The act of dictating bypassed the overthinking intellectual part of my brain and turned out to be some of the best writing I have ever done. Instead of having to do my customary ten drafts I did only three.

If you are writing Instead of dictating, still read your work aloud. You will pick up many infelicities and awkwardnesses in the writing that silent reading and editing just will not detect.

We all know the maxim, write what you know, but also research and use what you know. Dictate great snatches of fabulous dialogue that you have heard in the workplace into your phone and then email them to yourself to save them and use them.This hones your ear for dialogue and also keeps fresh the characterizing lexicon of whatever workplace you happen to be in and will render your book much more immediate and real to readers.

Remember, everything is material. As I found during my seven years in the City, there’s always a silver lining.

Linda Davies’ latest book, Longbowgirl, a novel for children and Young Adults, is published on September 3rd by Chicken House Books.

To find out more about Linda and her novels and her memoir, Hostage, please see: www.lindadavies.com
www.longbowgirl.com

You can also find her on Twitter @LindaDaviesAuth

/by

Mover and Shaker: Mary-Kate Ryan, Manager, Advisory Consulting, PwC Ireland

Mary-Kate Ryan, Pwc“People are like tea bags. You don’t know how strong they are until you put them in hot water.”

This advice from one of her role models, Eleanor Roosevelt, has always resonated with Mary-Kate Ryan.

“This wisdom is still up-to-date as a great analogy of how women must challenge ourselves in the workplace. Men are more apt to claim they are the right person for any given task, while women often feel ‘imposter syndrome,’ where they’re not sure they have the capability they need. But we all know that if you put tea in cold water it’s not very good, but put it in the thick of things, in the ‘hot water,’ and you see how well it works.”

Ryan’s career has been a series of hot water scenarios that she has willingly put herself in and come out stronger. After studying economics and finance in university, she and two of her sisters opened a successful fashion boutique in Dublin which she managed for eight years, attracting a devoted clientele – think Beyoncé caliber!

She says that looking after the business and seeing the fruits of her labor in a niche market was a wonderful training ground throughout her 20s where she had to learn to be adaptable and willing to take on any role; then as she built a team, acquire a comfort level to let go and allow the team to develop as well.

After a brief stint in another business with one sister, she noticed a curiosity about the corporate sector, specifically management consulting, as she approached her 30s. Deciding to act on that gut instinct, she took a career break to go back to university and earn a master’s degree in Management Consultancy at UCD Smurfit in Dublin, something she said feels even more important at that point in your life, because you are more committed and yet able to fully appreciate the freedom of being a full-time student. She made the most of her time there, building up her network and even playing on a touch rugby team that went to the MBA Rugby World Cup in North Carolina.

Learning the Ropes in a Corporate Environment

Earning top honors in her class, Ryan felt confident that she could parlay that success into the skills needed for management consulting and joined PwC Ireland. Some people were confused by her move, expressing that she had been living the dream with her own company, but she enjoyed the leap to the corporate environment. “One of my key skills is my adaptability. I am good at jumping into new situations so I put my head down and figured out the culture.”

Since then she has enjoyed her work on long-term projects in complex environments, overcoming challenges and working with high-performing teams.

She credits her robust support network with helping her along the way. “Sometimes you just need a few conversations that remind you how capable you are and that it’s fine to not know everything because you will learn what you need to,” she says.

Her projects helping organizations integrate after a merger can be quite intense. “The change management and personnel aspect is very interesting, as each situation entails complexity and ambiguity,” she says. “There’s no magic formula and that’s what keeps it exciting.”

When she first started at PwC, she assumed it was going to be a dog-eat-dog environment but was pleasantly surprised at her experience. “Business is always going to be competitive, but I soon learned that high-performing people are also very nice and accessible.” She found that building relationships with clients worked in the same way. “As I got to know them, I found that they were more supportive than you would imagine. We all are just trying to do the job well.” And she adds, PwC offers a diversity of backgrounds that allows its employees to nourish all the aspects that make each person individual.

Along the way, she was able to acquire mentors and sponsors, which she says came about naturally because she showed she was interested, curious and enthusiastic. “Bringing those aspects to the table didn’t have immediate rewards but they put me on people’s radar. A year or so later, someone would think of me and present me with an amazing opportunity,” she says.

For example, even while working offsite, she kept in touch and because of her initiative was offered a project in Dubai with a client with whom she really wanted to work. “It came about because I maintained a network and let people know what I was interested in. If you share the views of what you want to do and have the right conversations, it will naturally happen.”

Multicultural Assignments Feed Her Work/Life Balance

In addition to her work in Dubai, she has enjoyed other international assignments because of what she’s learned about global and multicultural issues. “When I was working in Ireland, there were mostly similarities in terms of approaches, but the international assignments have shown me I can build a team of people with different backgrounds and still be able to see the commonalities,” she says. “You learn not to make assumptions, but instead to really listen and understand people’s motives and objectives.” For example, if someone is being resistant in a meeting, it could be because they don’t agree, but it also could be because they don’t understand and you have to draw them out.

She says that has made her more open-minded and perform better in cross-functional teams, as well as making her gravitate toward more global assignments with an eye to what else she can learn.
Her love of travel extends to her personal life, where she spends as much time as she can trekking and traveling, exploring her interest in different languages, cuisine and cultures.

“As Eleanor Roosevelt said, ‘Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.’ I believe that approaching life with a curious mind keeps you invigorated and allows me to bring that level of enthusiasm to my work.”

/by

4 Tips to Calm Yourself and Your Stressed Team

,

women stressedFemale professionals in the financial services industry are no strangers to stress. Whether the pressure stems from a full plate of distractions, such as those introduced by an unsteady economy, or from a steady flow of work-oriented communications, there is a constant balancing act to find a suitable strategy for getting the job done. How can you stay focused? How can you help your team successfully accomplish a challenging objective without becoming overwhelmed?

Tip 1: Stop Multitasking

Women in financial services are resolute multi-taskers with a high probability for getting stressed out to the max. A Stanford study revealed the cognitive dangers to media multitasking. Scientists have theorized that humans simply cannot adequately process a conglomeration of various free flowing information at one time. However, that fact has not stopped female professionals from trying. Without a doubt, individuals who have mastered multi-tasking positions have acquired an invaluable skill. This, however, is a double-edged sword. Their perceived gift is stress-inducing, which means it comes with a high price. Multiple tests showed that heavy multitaskers not only consistently underperformed light multitaskers, but the flood of tasks was actually detrimental to their cognitive control. On the other hand, workers who prioritize and give individual projects full attention are actually more productive.

Tip 2: Understand the macro-environment

Financial services is a particularly stressful industry because of widespread restructuring, increased competition, and globalization. Immense changes in the economy have had a significant impact on professionals in the industry. The stress resulting from work-related irascibilities in the financial industry should not be ignored or minimized. Massive acquisitions and mergers have made headlines for years.

Women in financial services are resolute multi-taskers with a high probability for getting stressed out to the max.

New developments in technology require finance professionals to acquire and utilize more technical expertise, and to perform increasingly difficult tasks with a broader skill set. Additionally, domestic and international competition has raised the bar as to what is expected of financial services. Toss in a lack of meaningful communication and a loss of teamfocus, and you have the recipe for exacerbated tension and frustration in the workplace.

What starts out as irritation from miscommunication or fatigue from a heavy workload, often leads to more serious difficulties such as burn out, anger eruptions, physical illness, loss of self-confidence, workplace violence, and insufficient staffing. Understand the reason is sometimes bigger than you and that there are certain factors in the macro-environment that cannot be overlooked.

Tip 3: Identify the source of the stress

It is unreasonable to think that one can revolutionize the entire financial services industry and make the workplace stress free. However, with expert advice, you can change the environment of your own workplace in order to reduce your stress level and the stress level of your teammates. How do you bring about a more positive atmosphere? It’s crucial to first identify the source of the stress. Is a particular project weighing everyone down? Has there been a lot of overtime? Is new technology causing stress in the office? Once you identify the stress, then you can begin the process of alleviating it.

Leaders don’t wait for staff to come up with something to make the workplace healthier. Take the initiative by providing team support and by giving each worker clear training and goals. Instead of having the type of staff meeting that allows for endless rambling, set a clear agenda that conveys a constructive tone, one that prevents individuals from monopolizing valuable time. Meetings that are productive and focused create a true haven for support rather than add to the team’s boatload of stress.

Tip 4: Think ahead

A proactive leader thinks ahead. Don’t wait until everyone is at the breaking point before you decide to act. When your team is assigned a project, use insight to determine what the team needs to deal with the challenges associated with the project. If certain tasks, changes, or clients are likely to impose extra stress on your team, then have a clear stress management plan ready. Keep the lines of communication open, and encourage feedback and team engagement. Obviously, you are not going to eliminate or even reduce to an innocuous level every source of stress in the financial services industry. However, it is both insightful and pragmatic to take advantage of every available resource and opportunity to minimize personal stress and the stress of your team. To start with there are always some simple, practical, common-sense things a good leader can do to stay on top of or avert a potential problem: When conflicts arise, settle them quickly; give the needed attention to individuals on your team; listen actively to them when they make suggestions or face difficulties; institute a strategy that will make it easy for them to transition from one project to the next; give them constant feedback and make them feel respected and valued.

Even though female professionals face highly stressful circumstances in the financial services industry, they can manage pressure by keeping the workplace positive. Multi-tasking and aimless staff meetings are not the solution, but part of the problem. Workers need to know that they are valued as team players, and they need to have clear goals on which to focus, and toward which to work. By honing their exceptional communication skills, women leaders avail themselves of yet another useful skill in managing stress.

By Kathleen Delaney

/by

Always Number Two At Work? How To Be The Boss

,

Smartly dressed yyoung women shaking hands in a business meeting at office deskMany women tell me that they are always number two to a male CEO and yet basically do more than their fair share of work and do much of his too. Does this sound familiar? You are not on your own but the good news is that you can do something about it. It is your choice to stand in the shadows for the next 3 projects or to assert your confidence in showing people your capabilities. Apply for the project lead role- what is stopping you?

Reflect upon gender roles- maybe you were told to be a “nice girl” when you were little, while your brother was told to “go get ‘em tiger”.

Recommended reading “Nice girls dont get the corner office”.

If you can do it, why aren’t you doing it?

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@theglasshammer.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work

/by

Voice of Experience: Denise Landman, CEO, Victoria’s Secret Pink

,

Denise LandmanDenise Landman is CEO of Victoria’s Secret Pink, a $2 billion specialty retail brand marketed to college girls. She is carefully crafting a culture of integrity and trust at her organization while finding innovative ways to engage with her target customers.

True North

“I personally have a fiduciary responsibility to create value for my organization and a secure future for my business leaders,” said Landman. “Leadership is a conscious effort. It is a muscle to develop and build, and requires deep introspection. People become leaders when they decide for themselves what and who they will be.”

“For me,” continued Landman, “the best leaders have emerged as being very authentic. Authentic leaders are guided by an inner compass, or true north. Your integrity is what creates a sense of community in the organization that ultimately translates to performance.”

“Building a culture of honesty can only create positive outcomes,” said Landman. “I make mistakes as well. None of us are mistake-proof. It is often that you learn the most through your mistakes. I embrace those mistakes when they occur in my organization.”

How to Market to College Girls

Many people involved in branding want to go straight to product development.

Landman, on the other hand, needed to spend more time thinking about the characteristics of the college girl. “I needed to define her for myself. I would not allow designers to design anything until we had a clear sense of what this eighteen year old girl wants,” said Landman. “Eighteen year old girls are still young and naive, and, in other respects, preparing to be the women they will be in the future. It is a fragile age. I have to go back to what it means to be an eighteen year old, and how to translate this understanding into a product.”

Learning Your Craft

Landman spent the early days of her career perfecting the fundamentals. “It was only when I knew I could be effective with my career choice that I strive for higher levels of responsibility,” said Landman. “I couldn’t have put myself out there if I didn’t have the right stuff. I am a big proponent of honing your craft and knowing what you are talking about.”

Work-Life Integration

Landman adopted two sons (one from Russia and one from Ohio) when she was 50. When asked about work-life integration, Landman said that she and her husband made the decision that he would stay at home and she would continue with her career. “It is such a personal journey, and there is no one blueprint or roadmap to follow,” stressed Landman.“I am learning a lot about how to be the best mom while also being whole and effective in my professional life.It is hard.”

By Hua Wang

/by