By Irene Velázquez
According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics’ Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, in 2013 the gender pay gap between male and female full-time workers increased to 10 percent from 9.6 percent. It is also being reported that one of the industries where women experience the largest pay gap is financial services.
Clare Flynn Levy, CEO of the financial software firm Essentia Analytics, says men are granted higher salaries simply because they stand up for their rights more than women do.
“Women don’t tend to shout from the rooftops about their achievements and talents the way that men do. They don’t tend to put themselves forward for projects and promotions,” Levy said. The CEO also says that men fight for a bonus they don’t believe they deserved, something most women wouldn’t do.
Levy also cites the financial service industry’s “traditional work environment” as an issue.
“In fund management, there is quite a traditional work environment where you are at your desk early in the morning and you leave relatively late, and it’s quite face-time oriented. There’s an assumption that ‘I have to be at my desk between eight and six every day.’ Once you have kids, maybe that becomes a problem.”
Women essentially have two jobs: their full time, paid work, and their full time domestic duties at home. Given that women often have to work twice as hard to get noticed in the workplace, it’s no wonder the women surveyed in the UK are feeling the overwhelming pressure to perform, which makes the pay gap even more dispiriting. In the funds industry in London, women are experiencing a pay gap of 37 percent, according to the salary data company Emolument.
A Problem for Business
Emolument reports that asset management companies do not pay women fairly. In London, women earn a minimum of £40,000, whereas men earn at least £41,375 at analyst-level, and £34,300 and £34,800 at the entry-level.
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What To Tell Your Little Sister About Her First Internship
Mentors and SponsorsThese days, internships are a rite of passage for students and young professionals. That rite of passage, however, has recently been tested.
According to ProPublica, more than 30 lawsuits have been filed by interns against firms like Sony and Universal. While most complaints have to do with back pay, discrimination and sexual harassment have also been noted.
Consider this: Your little sister is venturing into her first internship. What sorts of things should you tell her? In order to optimize her role to ensure she’s getting the most out of her internship, here are things she needs to know:
Internships Should Be Educational
Contrary to the movies, internships shouldn’t be about grabbing coffee, running errands, or making photocopy after photocopy. They should directly relate to her field of study or boost her career in some way. Recent reports also suggest this is what the majority of interns want, with 30.2 percent reporting they want the chance to do real work and 47.3 percent reporting they are interested in access to executives and mentorship.
Interns Should Be Compensated For Their Work
Here’s the deal: Interns need to be compensated for their work. There’s no way around it. The majority of the 30+ lawsuits mentioned previously have to deal with compensation; the fact that interns were putting in the work, but not getting paid for it. Plus, paid interns are generally happier and more engaged. Being paid can also help the millions of students who have the burden of student loans.
Consider telling your little sister this: Paid internships not only attract the most diverse candidates, these interns also have an increased shot at getting hired.
If your little sister has taken on an unpaid internship, make sure she’s also aware of her rights — and alternatives she can request if pay is not an option: a stipend, skills training, networking opportunities, event attendance, flexibility, or company outings.
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Thought Leader: TJ Huntley, Managing Director, Internal Audit, Citi
Thought LeadersAs the financial services industry has evolved over the years, so has Huntley. Throughout her career, she has always embraced change and new challenges. This, she noted, is a key component of professional growth and development. Huntley advised, “You cannot survive as a leader if you are not equipped to handle changes that may be required in your strategy, vision, or leadership style. Innovation requires change.”
Huntley added, “You have to believe that you can contribute at a fast pace in an environment full of change, like the financial services industry, where so much is happening from a regulatory perspective.”
Navigating the Regulatory Environment of Financial Services
According to Huntley, the challenges presented by regulatory compliance are currently a key focus for senior level executives in financial services. “Right now, various organizations are going through a series of transformations, looking at what they do and figuring out how to do it better. Having a strong and independent internal audit department is important for interpreting, assessing, and identifying the gaps within an organization, and advising the boards on the risks and independent audit assessments associated with different business practices.”
Regulators have what Huntley referred to as heightened expectations for large national banks and federal savings associations to strengthen the minimum expectations and force organizations in the financial services industry to look at their risk management practices, which include assessing the controls to mitigate risk and demonstrating sustainability of those controls. “These expectations are driving the actions of all the critical banks,” said Huntley.
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Voice of Experience: Leslie Hale, CFO, RLJ Lodging Trust
Voices of ExperienceTo Hale, one of the biggest appeals of the industry was that it went well beyond Wall Street, enabling you to apply your skills and learn new ones in areas as varied as real estate and healthcare.
This love of learning about new sectors was fostered at GE, where Hale was rotated to a different area every six-months. Hale has done just about everything the industry has to offer, from working on Wall Street to working in mergers and acquisitions (and everything in between), eventually deciding she liked real estate the best. She would spend five-years in this space before business school.
“The beauty of financial services is that while every industry is different, the actual finance aspect is the same. You can take your skills and apply them anywhere that interests you and you can be successful in that space,” Hale said.
A Career to Be Proud Of
There are very few women CFOs and even fewer African American women CFOs and as an African American woman serving as CFO of a publicly traded company, Hale is one of just a handful in the entire United States. Clearly, this is one of her proudest achievements.
“I’m fortunate to work for a great company with a visionary CEO who was willing to take a chance on me,” Hale said. “Success, as we know, is about being prepared, but it’s also about opportunity. When you’re prepared and an opportunity arises, it can be career changing.”
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Professional Women in the UK Face a Large Pay Gap and Struggle to Juggle it All
Managing ChangeAccording to the UK’s Office for National Statistics’ Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, in 2013 the gender pay gap between male and female full-time workers increased to 10 percent from 9.6 percent. It is also being reported that one of the industries where women experience the largest pay gap is financial services.
Clare Flynn Levy, CEO of the financial software firm Essentia Analytics, says men are granted higher salaries simply because they stand up for their rights more than women do.
“Women don’t tend to shout from the rooftops about their achievements and talents the way that men do. They don’t tend to put themselves forward for projects and promotions,” Levy said. The CEO also says that men fight for a bonus they don’t believe they deserved, something most women wouldn’t do.
Levy also cites the financial service industry’s “traditional work environment” as an issue.
“In fund management, there is quite a traditional work environment where you are at your desk early in the morning and you leave relatively late, and it’s quite face-time oriented. There’s an assumption that ‘I have to be at my desk between eight and six every day.’ Once you have kids, maybe that becomes a problem.”
Women essentially have two jobs: their full time, paid work, and their full time domestic duties at home. Given that women often have to work twice as hard to get noticed in the workplace, it’s no wonder the women surveyed in the UK are feeling the overwhelming pressure to perform, which makes the pay gap even more dispiriting. In the funds industry in London, women are experiencing a pay gap of 37 percent, according to the salary data company Emolument.
A Problem for Business
Emolument reports that asset management companies do not pay women fairly. In London, women earn a minimum of £40,000, whereas men earn at least £41,375 at analyst-level, and £34,300 and £34,800 at the entry-level.
Read more
Being the ‘Other’: How Othering Holds Women of Color Back
Office PoliticsContrary to commonly held stereotypes, women who feel racially/ethnically different are not less qualified to lead. According to Catalyst’s latest report, Feeling Different: Being the “Other” in US Workplaces, which is based on data from high-potential women and men who have MBA degrees, differences in experience, such as the time since they received their degrees, do not explain the gaps in rank that exist between women who feel racially/ethnically different and those who did not or between these women and men who felt different. It appears as if a great source of these gaps is something called “otherness.”
Feeling Different & Being Excluded
As defined by Catalyst, otherness is about being different or having characteristics that set you apart from the dominant group or groups in a given context. Those who feel like an “other” not only feel different, but also feel separated from the essential aspects of a group. The issue is that when women of color, or anyone who feels in the minority in the workplace, do not experience belonging in a group, they may consequently be excluded.
Don’t be mistaken: This isn’t just about “feelings” or being excluded from after-work drinks – though exclusion from informal networks can be a concern. Othering translates into a serious problem for women of color wanting to get ahead and for companies who need diversity to compete on the global stage. The report states:
According to Catalyst’s report, women who felt racially/ethnically different were the least likely to be at the senior executive/CEO level (10 percent) compared to men who felt different (19 percent) and those who did not feel different (16 percent women; 25 percent men). Of women who felt racially/ethnically different, 48.2 percent had received two or more promotions. In contrast, 51.4 percent of men who felt racially/ethnically different had received two or more promotions as had 55.6 percent of women and 58.4 percent of men who did not feel racially/ethnically different.
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Voice of Experience: Lisa Opoku, Chief Operating Officer for the Securities Division in Asia Pacific, Goldman Sachs
Voices of Experience“When I started my career I was all about hard work. My parents are from Ghana and I have inherited an immigrant’s work ethic. My parents taught me that if I put my head down and work hard, the rewards will come,” Opoku said. “The corporate world is much more complex than that. You can do an excellent job and it can sometimes be invisible if you are not careful. You have to be vocal about what you contribute, network with your colleagues and clients, and make sure that you are an advocate for your career.”
Team Work
Currently, Opoku’s favorite project is the team she is building in Bangalore, focused on system enhancements and improvements to global processes.
“I am most proud of the team that I have developed in Asia Pacific; you are only as good as your team. I trust my team with many difficult strategic projects and they always deliver the highest quality product,” the COO said. “It is not easy to learn to delegate when we are all ‘Type –A’ people but, it is the only way to truly gain leverage and be more strategic about your work. Every day we can see the impact. The talent in Bangalore is so impressive and the team there is adding a ton of value to our Global Management and Strategy priorities.”
Right now, Opoku is very focused on changes in technology, with Goldman’s trading desks partnering with its technology professionals to enhance performance and efficiency.
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Turn Your Mentors into Sponsors
Expert AnswersSylvia Hewlett’s pioneering research has shown the importance of sponsorship for women who want to get ahead in their careers. Though the title of her new book is “(Forget a Mentor) Find a Sponsor”, I believe both sponsorship and mentoring are crucial. Mentors serve important career functions and many mentors evolve into sponsors. The key is to be shrewd about finding mentors who can best move your career in the right direction and then get them to champion your success.
While there are important distinctions between mentors and sponsors, both concentrate on helping you achieve career success. Today, mentors are seen primarily as advisors and counselors who foster your learning and professional development, but do not necessarily go out of their way to advocate for you or push for your promotion. In contrast, sponsorship is predicated on power and focuses on career advancement. A sponsor treats you as a protégée, actively grooms you for promotions and leadership roles, and has the power and influence to make their advocacy produce positive career results for you.
Sponsors become more important as your career progresses, especially as you move closer to the top where the competition for partnership, leadership, and resources is greater and the stakes become higher. That’s when you need someone to speak up for you and persuade decision-makers that you deserve a promotion to partner, a higher bonus, or a seat on the executive committee. For someone to do this, however, they must believe that you are worth the risk they are taking in standing up for you. They must know you well enough to trust that you will live up to your promise and their expectations.
This level of knowledge, confidence, and trust takes time to grow. When you already have a mentoring relationship with someone, the foundation for sponsorship is present. But you need to carefully identify the mentors who could become sponsors and then move the relationship in that direction.
When assessing a mentor’s potential to become a sponsor, look beyond the good advice, emotional support, and feeling of comfort they offer you. Many women gravitate to mentors, frequently other women, whom they see as understanding and supportive. But sponsorship is about the power to help you move up, not about friendship or role models. In most organizations and professional firms, the vast majority of power brokers are men. If these men are able and willing to help you achieve your career goals, they may be your best sponsors even if their personalities and lifestyles do not appeal to you.
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Presidents’ Day Publishing Break
NewsDear Readers,
We want to wish you a Happy Presidents’ Day and let you know we are taking a publishing break for the day.
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Or perhaps you missed these great articles and now is the time to catch up:
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The Glass Hammer Team
Tackling Pregnancy Discrimination is Good for the Bottom Line
Work-LifeIn November 2013, the Equality and Human Rights Commission in the U.K. launched a major investigation into the discrimination faced by pregnant women in the workplace. According to a press release, the new project intends to investigate workplace practices and explore the causes and effects of pregnancy and maternity discrimination.
Equality and Human Rights Commission Chief Executive Mark Hammond said in the release, “It is very concerning that in 2013 a number of women are still being disadvantaged in the workplace just because they are pregnant. That would be unlawful discrimination and needs to be tackled.”
Discrimination at Senior Executive Levels
How does pregnancy discrimination apply to women working at senior executive levels, or for Fortune 500 companies? Clearly, women can face discrimination in office settings and it often takes shape in the form of a lack of pay raises, promotions, and recruitment.
Stephanie Mizzell Gossman works for Georgia Power under the Fortune 500 company Southern Company and she says she’s witnessed men in the workplace working hard to understand what a pregnant employee needs, though it’s her belief that a study would be needed to better understand the reason for pregnancy discrimination.
“I do think a study in the U.S. would be beneficial,” she said. “My opinion based on my experiences is that any discrimination against pregnant working women probably stems from a level of awkwardness, since most men feel awkward even when their wives or partners are pregnant, let alone a coworker.”
Susie Sheehey, who previously worked for Fortune 500 company Owens & Minor, says she experienced discrimination from clients, but was treated fairly and generously by her employer.
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Boards Pay Less for Other Companies when Members are Female
FeaturedDo more women in top management mean better financial performance? The body of research on this subject is filled with compelling data, though some of it is conflicting. The 2011 Catalyst “Bottom Line” report revealed that Fortune 500 companies in the top quartile for female representation on boards had a 16 percent higher return on sales than companies with no women on boards. On the other side of the debate is the 2011 University of Michigan Ross School of Business study revealing that the stock price of Norway’s publicly-traded companies actually dropped when they began adding women for their boards to comply with the nation’s mandate that boards comprise 40 percent women.
The latest research, conducted by the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, suggests that women may have an advantage in one major area of corporate business strategy: mergers and acquisitions. The Sauder study, featured in the Journal of Corporate Finance last November, revealed that the more women a company has on its board, the less it pays for acquisitions.
The survey data shows how the cost of each successful acquisition was reduced by 15.4 percent with each woman added to a board. It also reveals that with each additional female, the number of attempted takeover bids falls by 7.6 percent. These results suggest that women are less inclined than men to make risky transactions, and more prone to emphasize return on investment. The study’s authors believe that this caution exercised by female board members has a positive effect on maintaining shareholder value.
“Female board members play a significant role in mitigating the empire-building tendency of CEOs through the acquisition of other companies,” noted Sauder finance professor Kai Li, one of the study co-authors. “On average, merger and acquisition transactions don’t create shareholder value, so women are having a real impact in protecting shareholder investment and overall firm performance.”
Pros & Cons
Li says their findings add to the debate on the pros and cons of diversity in corporate leadership.
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