According to a report published by the Personal Finance Society (PFS) last week (April 12) which collated experiences from 15 women in the financial planning industry across the UK, the advice industry is still promoting sexist stereotypes and barriers to female career progression.
One woman, a 52-year-old with two children - one of which has Downs Syndrome - said her current firm had experienced a spate of younger women leaving the business.
As a result, her employer adopted a new hiring policy in order to, in her words, “mitigate future similar disruption within the administration team”.
Nobody will say it, but we all think it.Report participant“Both the administrators are in their 50s, you know, the children days are all gone,” she said. Such stereotyping, she and other women in the report, said had a negative influence on women’s career progression, investment in their development and remuneration in the financial advice industry.
“Incidents were identified, some personal and some witnessed, where these women believed promotional assessments and hiring decisions included consideration of a women’s biological capacity to have children,” the PFS said in the report.
Another 37-year-old woman, now divorced and who decided against having children at the age of 25, said she has felt discriminated against simply because it was expected for her to have children.
“I basically feel that because I was married, and I was of childbearing age, I think that held me back quite a bit from promotion and stuff like that, and nobody will say it, but we all think it,” she explained.
“We don’t want to take on somebody who’s going to go on maternity. Because what do we do? As I said, I think that’s always in the back of your mind when you hire a woman.”
The data, which was collated from women employed by firms with less than five all the way up to more than 100 employees, covered nine independent firms and six restricted firms.
Some advisers said they were disappointed the research did not include more female voices, saying the small sample barely scratches the surface of female financial planners in the UK.
Bev Stoves, a director and financial planner at Investment Sense, told FTAdviser she “switched off” once she saw the sample was interviewing “just” 15 women, adding that there is an entire community of female planners where many more would have been willing to contribute.
She pointed to Empowered, a Facebook group set up by Charlotte Wood - a director at Rosewood Financial Planning - for women in financial advice.
The group currently has 938 members. Stoves said this community could have supplied the PFS report with lots more material.
Paraplanner role ‘has given women halfway house’
As well as highlighting an ageist approach to hiring women, the report also drew attention to how some women feel they do not generally fit the prevailing mould for a financial planner.
A 38-year-old woman with two children said in the report: "Every male candidate was told that he could become an adviser. But women were constantly being told that the best they could do is probably to be a paraplanner if they try hard. And that happened all the time. And it was so, so wrong.
"I think we probably were all conditioned somewhere there in the background, without even realising that, you know, the furthest we can go is to be a paraplanner. If we’re lucky.”
Another report participant, a 44-year-old paraplanner who has relinquished a financial planner role because she did not enjoy the pressure of sales targets, said: "The emergence of the paraplanner role has given women a bit of a halfway house, you know, it’s given them a comfort zone kind of thing.”
Similarly, a 34-year-old paraplanner who elected to work in financial services said she finds some aspects of the financial planning role off-putting. “That’s the thing that’s always put me off actually being an adviser…I’ve never wanted the pressure of actually having a be salesperson trying to hunt down new business," she said.
Some women reported being judged as less committed to a career than a man would be and less likely to be considered appropriate for senior roles, such as a financial planner, because it is perceived to be masculine.
One chartered financial planner said in the report: “I think both of them [men and women] are capable of doing the same quality work in all areas, but they are perceived differently. I think that the problem is because if a woman comes and says something in a really stern voice, for instance, reaction is completely different to when a man does it.
"And, I think it’s how other people perceive it. But I think that it’s the perception rather than the actual natural ability that people have.”
Platform businesses 'setting example'
Samantha Secomb, conductor of the report and director of Women's Wealth, suggested only 16 per cent of the financial advisers in the UK are women.
She suggested her findings indicate women "are resistant" to assimilate into male-dominated organisations which favour masculine characteristics over feminine. In response, she said there is evidence that modern organisations are being born and taking advantage of the commercial need to accommodate women in the financial advice sector.
"Platform businesses that provide paraplanning and technical services to advisers, by appealing to and harnessing the underappreciated talent of women, are growing in number," she said.
"They offer more flexible work arrangements, transparent pay and career opportunities, flatter organisational structures with supportive and communal environments that do not relegate flexible workers and part-timers to a second-class status.
"These new style firms are setting an example to traditional gendered organisations that can expect to find it increasingly difficult to compete for technical talent."
Diversity Awards
Now in their fourth year, the FTAdviser Diversity In Finance Awards have been designed to celebrate individuals in financial services and UK financial services companies who have taken active steps towards a more inclusive, diverse and fair industry that works better for all stakeholders: colleagues, customers and the community.
Awards will be given to those individuals who have demonstrated their support for minority groups and their tireless efforts to promote and inspire those who are otherwise under-represented, as well as recognising companies whose policies, schemes or initiatives encourage and enable diversity in the workplace. This is an opportunity for FCA-regulated, UK-based companies, large and small, to show how they are getting it right, and for employees to gain the recognition they deserve.
For more information, click here.
