Women in Financial Services
What value do Female consultants bring to Financial Markets?
Tina.Freed / 16 Nov 2015
What’s the difference between Male & Female consultants?
It’s an all too troubling reality, despite the amazing strides forward much created as a result of Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) led programmes that women are still lagging behind men when it comes to contracting and consultancy in the financial industry. The typical consultancy firm still has a gender ratio of 80% men and 20% women.
Most leading Financial Institutions recognise that a diverse and inclusive workplace is an important element to success and have invested heavily in attracting, promoting and retaining women. Ensuring gender diversity of temporary (contract and consultancy) resource is just as important. Particularly given the importance of the work that this, often significant resource pool, undertakes in implementing change within the Bank. However, the consulting and contracting market is still a male dominated sector in the financial services. So what is the difference between male and female contractors/consultants?
A female contractor attends to the client relationship through listening and showing empathy and notices when something is not resonating with a client. Through working with our talented pool of female contractors we have established specific characteristics that they bring to their financial clients.
- Trust – An important element in any client relationship, clients want consultants who are not only technically skilled but exhibit an emotional side as well. Understanding this goes a long way to achieving the desired outcomes.
- Empathy – Women consultants tend to demonstrate empathy and are able to discuss the emotional aspects of the project. Every client requires a certain amount of emotional intelligence.
- Transparency – This trait involves being honest and open about the technical and non-technical aspects of the project. Ensuring that the client is fully aware of progress against plan, challenges and opportunities comes by being transparent.
- Reliability – Clients often complain that consultants say they are going to do or check on something, and then fail to follow up and let them know the outcome. Doing what you promise is key to project success.
- Understandability – When advising clients, expertise matters, however, what clients really want is for someone who not only understands but who can communicate and educate given the unique set of challenges faced by the client.
- Patience – Women are patient and have the power to handle any adverse situation logically and efficiently. From listening to the problems of clients to tackling a rough situation with ease, women manage to maintain patience.
- Sensitivity – Like it or not, running projects is an emotional business, and clients want advisors who will talk about the human side of the challenge.
Women are known for valuing relationships with others, and when this trait is brought into the workplace it can result in team building that contributes towards getting the job done.
If you are interested in joining our talented team at E2W or would like to keep in touch with our community to understand how other like-minded women have actively got involved – Click Here http://www.e2w.co/flexible-agile-working/ or call +44 (0)1732 897708.
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