Women in Financial Services
Can we make diversity a priority over all other recruitment strategies and policies?
Mark.Freed / 22 Oct 2019
I attended an event this morning alongside HR and recruitment professionals from major investment managers. The discussion was focussed on exploring how to attract, recruit and retain more members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Not surprisingly, the challenges faced by the community are similar to those faced by women in the industry - it’s about being able to bring yourself to work. The challenges for recruiters were about how to identify candidates.
It left me with an idea…
Should I build a capability that would consistently provide these firms with three high quality candidates from the LGBTQ+ community, for most of their middle to senior management roles? Candidates of such a high calibre that hiring mangers want to interview at least 80% of them. Candidates that 30% of the time turn out to be the best person for the job, team, and firm.
If I could do that, would the firms in the room be able to engage me when the role is approved? Would they partner with me to help them meet your D&I objectives?
I have invested in and built a capability to do just that for gender diversity. One of our clients has increased the proportion of female hires in an important area of their business from 20% to 60%.
All of the firms in the room are struggling according to their gender pay gap reports to close their gender gaps, they all have a lack of women in middle and senior management. They are under a microscope, regulatory & governmental pressure. Their management have made public commitments to improve these gender figures.
Only one of the firms in the room have shown any interest in or are able to embrace recruitment firms who specialise in providing a solution.
Can we stop the talk and start using and benefiting from the solutions that already exist? Can we make diversity a priority over all other recruitment strategies and policies?
E2W
E2W has links to over 10,000 women working in mid and senior positions in London. We provide support to members of our community through our membership, offering coaching and career advice – aiming to help women achieve their career aspirations, whatever they may be. We hold business focused events designed to help members collaborate and network. Many of our members have benefited from priority access to career opportunities.
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