Women are still doing it tough in financial services. I attended two seminars this week focusing on managing women’s careers and the messages remained very similar.
Things haven’t changed since the 1960s. The Sex Discrimination Act might have been enacted in 1984 but not a great deal had changed since then.
And smart, savvy women wanted to know how they could encourage change in their own businesses. On Wednesday FINSIA held a managing your career session for women in business and on Friday Sphinxx held its fourth Ascend day also focused on promoting women in business.
Why is it so difficult? Because men and women speak different languages in the workplace.
Financial services is dominated by men, and as a result, the business culture has adopted the male forms of communication. Women need to translate their communication to one that is easily understood by the male mind.
While it was agreed there was no need to emulate men – and discard their femininity there was a message that men do business in their way and women do it theirs but when most of the decision makers in management remain in male hands then women need to be aware of “playing the game” in the same way.
Top tips
- Be visible. Too often, women remain invisible in the organisation. Many focus on their work and getting the job done to the exclusion of promoting themselves and the contribution they are making to a business. This can easily be rectified by working a little less and promoting a little more. It’s the way men have been doing business for some time.
- Take risks. They were afraid of taking risks. Whether this was to do a new job in which there were aspects they had not taken before, or leaving a company when they were not receiving the promotions they believed they deserved. According to Sphinxx Ascend guest speaker and managing director of Cameron Ralph Lynn Ralph, we shouldn’t worry so much about what could go wrong because, chances are, they won’t.
- Ask for what you want. Women are largely not demanding pay rises and promotions the way their male counterparts are. Sphinxx principal Jen Dalitz said, we should approach what we want like children focused on the Christmas presents that they want. Be tenacious. Don’t stop asking.
- Focus on return on effort. Women do not pay enough attention to the ROE (return on effort) when they strive for perfection in their work. Is the extra 20 per cent worthwhile when 80 per cent was already working to achieve your work needs so you could spend the additional 20 per cent focused on other business goals – like having yourself move up the corporate ladder.
Australian business seen as macho
According to business coach and researcher Dr Margaret Byrne, anthropologists around the world are agreed that Australia is between 10-12 of the countries rated the most masculine in the world. Japan ranks top of the lists.
We can see this translated into business by the use of language that is used. It is often based on sporting analogies, such as “track record”, “runs on the board”, “let that one go through to the keeper” and many more. As women we do not make a contribution that other people listen to? How impactful are you in a meeting setting?
“You are judged more and more in that than other parts of the job where you work alone.”
“As women, we are not yet at the starting line. It’s not Denmark or Norway,” Byrne said.
“If you can’t deal with meetings in Australian workplace culture you will never make it past the top of the middle,” Byrne said.