Celebrating this year’s International Women’s Day and it’s theme of #embraceequity, The Sustainability Group’s Alex Smith has been telling us about her business and why, as a start-up founder, she believes that building the right culture really matters.
In my experience, there are many incredibly smart women working across the financial services sector. But, unfortunately, having been in many homogenous meetings and conferences over the years myself, my experience with financial services has been not too dissimilar from other sectors, where ingrained biases and misogynistic views can be littered without thought. I believe my co-founder, Mike Penrose, may have put it best with a post about unconscious bias which he wrote a little over a year ago. I’ve included it here as I think it resonates today on International Women’s Day.
Of course, there have been endless studies and evidence that a more diverse team, both top-level diversity and deeper-level diversity traits, leads to better decision-making and more resilient companies. In October last year, Forbes published research that showed decisions made and executed by diverse teams delivered 60% better results. It also found that organisations are 33% more likely to experience industry-leading profitability if their executive teams represent more cultural and ethnic minorities. That being said, it can also be more difficult to work in and manage more diverse teams because, as humans, we dislike the conflict that alternative points of view can often bring in a group setting.
However, I’d argue that it is key to put in place the right culture which positively challenges the status quo and leads to increased participation and commitment to the goals of the team. Doing this often leads to a reassessment of an individual’s biases and helps to build cohesiveness and trust within the group. This, in turn, helps retain those talented team members and helps demonstrate a much more welcoming environment to join. All in all it’s business which benefits as well as the individual members of the team too.
Freedom with flexibility
To my way of thinking, flexible working shouldn’t just be about the needs of women or even parents, it’s about people. Most of us have needs that don’t fit into a
traditional 9-5 construct, whether they be caring responsibilities, mental health and wellbeing needs or neurodiversity requirements. However, by all moving toward a more flexible working environment, it will absolutely support gender diversity within financial services.
Who’d have thought it?
The recent 4-day workweek trial in the UK has helped answer a lot of these questions, with companies across the UK of varying sizes and sectors taking part and now rolling out these policies given that productivity actually increased, as did wellbeing. It has shown that in a post-Covid world, a more flexible working experience is more beneficial to all parties. Using time more efficiently is key to supporting a balance for most employees. 60% of participants in the trial reported that they were better able to manage their caring responsibilities, whilst participating businesses’ revenues increased over the period, interestingly, resignations and sick days were also significantly reduced.
With the rising cost of living also affecting childcare costs, support for employees around maternity, paternity, and adoption is hugely important. Employers should recognise and adapt policies and procedures to meet both business and employee needs, which can help primarily keep women in the workforce.
There is also a growing and positive trend towards extending support to women and parents through policies for fertility treatment, pregnancy loss and menopause, as demonstrated by Monzo and others. Supporting employees through these life-changing moments is both the right thing to do and also good for business, encouraging employee loyalty.
A step ahead
As a start-up, we have ensured that all of our policies are a step ahead of the legal requirement and have made a commitment to review them regularly as we grow to make sure that we are able to offer a workplace that we would want to work for.
Here at The Sustainability Group, I’m proud to say that our team is 86% female – quite an achievement for any finance and technology company when you consider Deloitte’s global tech benchmark of 33%. We have also been keen to ensure that we have diverse thinking in our team and have recruited a group from different backgrounds, cultures and experiences. Again, this is something that we will continue to place ever greater importance on as we grow to ensure that we have diverse and gender-balanced teams.
As part of FuturePlus, our sustainability management and ESG Reporting platform, we advise our clients on D&I issues and also include it as one of the five themes we measure.
D&I extends to supply chain too
We measure diversity and inclusion by looking at if and how you consider and promote diversity and inclusion when selecting and building relationships both within and outside your business, from suppliers and employees to board members. Our belief is that a truly diverse and inclusive organisation is one in which the needs, perspectives and potential of all employees are valued equitably and where social responsibility is embedded into your organisation by building a diverse, and socially and economically inclusive supply chain.
Looking forwards, I’m optimistic that the pay and gender gap will continue to reduce in the years to come, but it is unlikely that it will close. Progress is happening, but there are still systemic issues that need to be resolved. All of us have (women included) conscious and unconscious biases that play out every day in the workplace and board rooms. I would highly recommend reading a book called the Authority Gap by Mary Ann Sieghart and asking yourself if you play a part in it all; it certainly made me question some of my beliefs!
According to Deloitte, globally, within financial services institutions, women held 21% of board seats, 19% of C-suite roles, and 5% of CEO positions in 2021. To fix this and bring more parity to the workplace, businesses should prioritise gender-balanced leadership – and I would encourage them to do so, especially in those areas that are stubbornly slow to change.
We have also seen some high-profile female leaders recently leave roles across government and commercial, with many stating work pressure and a wish for a more balanced life. I do wonder if the true cost of the Covid crisis on women, particularly, has yet to show itself and whether this has the potential to push back some of the progress in the last few years? Only time will tell.
About Alex Smith
Alex is co-founder and partner of The Sustainability Group and leads business development and operations. She is a seasoned business development and operations professional, with a background in developing high impact partnerships in commercial sport, particularly in the sailing and hospitality industries. Alex creates and develops relationships across business and brands to create collaborative, strategic and commercially successful partnerships. With a significant focus on connecting values and purpose, she has led and managed sustainability and social impact projects with sporting brands and commercial organisations that achieve both commercial and environmental outcomes.
