Helping women prosper in the financial services industry is “not a zero sum game” and does not mean that some in the workforce have to miss out, according to Legal & General managing director of distribution, Ali Crossley.
Speaking at the Women in Protection 2024 conference, she explained: “Helping women doesn’t just mean that things only get better for women or that men have to lose out in some way, it just doesn’t work like that.
“Helping half of our workforce achieve their full potential is good for us all.”
She said helping women reach their potential would make businesses 25 per cent more likely to earn over average profits and add 14mn working days a year to the UK economy.
However, these benefits can only be achieved by lifting three particular barriers to women in the workplace, the authority gap, the achievement penalty, and the menopause scrapheap.
Barriers
Explaining the authority gap, Crossley said: “In our culture, as in so many, men just have built in authority and women simply don’t.
“Our culture sees authority as a fundamentally male quality and this a problem for women, making it much harder for them to reach the top.”
However, Crossley additionally warned that it’s not just tougher for high achieving women to reach the top, it’s tougher for them when they get there too.
“The achievement penalty is something that only female high achievers face,” she explained.
“For women, success means a higher likelihood of relationship issues. Male stress levels rise if female partners earn more than 40 per cent of the total household income.”
Lastly, Crossley discussed the menopause scrapheap, stating that “the menopause can hit women very hard”.
“In 2017, just under half of menopausal women said that they were having problems with lower productivity, reduced job satisfaction and time management problems,” she explained.
Benefits
Explaining how addressing this could benefit the industry, Crossley pointed out that, currently, the menopause costs the UK economy 14mn working days every year.
“Greater menopause sensitivity can help reverse that,” she said.
Additionally, Crossley said bridging the authority gap can boost profits as gender diverse companies are 25 per cent more likely to achieve higher profits.
“Also, the more women there are in a business, the more likely it is to outperform its peers and its competitors financially,” she added.
“Supporting senior women can make a particularly big difference as those businesses in which women make up more than a third of the most senior jobs have a net profit margin over 10 times greater than those with no senior women at that level.”
tom.dunstan@ft.com
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