Speaking at the Sydney AFA Inspire Roadshow, held yesterday, director at non-aligned advice firm Multiforte Financial Services and former winner of the AFA Female Excellence in Advice Award Kate McCallum said there should be no debate about the implementation of gender quotas for firms in the advice sector.
“Gender quotas are essential – there shouldn’t be any conversations happening that are just weighing up whether or not firms should be implementing gender quotas – they are essential,” Ms McCallum said.
“We’re dealing with a fundamental structure that has a history of being masculine – we’re not going to change it incrementally if we do not make dramatic decisions and we need to have different criteria to enable women to step up.”
Discussing the issue of female representation on boards in particular, former AFA president Deborah Kent said, “having about three women on a board changes the conversation and is a really good strategic move for any business.”
Caboodle Financial Services managing director Peita Diamantidis added that gender quotas are a crucial step to achieving diversity in advice.
“You shouldn’t have to be the loudest voice in the room in order to be heard and you shouldn’t have to be the freak that loves getting up on the stage to get noticed,” Ms Diamantidis said.
“We need quotas so that women can actually get on the list – so that they actually get considered. Their name gets on the list and they get the opportunity – and that opens up the journey to diversity.”
Treasurer of the management committee at the Economic Security for Women group Judith van Unen said there is a major disconnect between what is happening in the workforce now and the actual need for gender equality.
“At the rate we’re moving with gender equality it’s going to be 118 years before we actually achieve the gender equality we’re always talking about today – that’s the year 2135,” she said.
“It’s so important that the advice sector is looking at how many women are coming into the sector – as advisers, as clients, and that the push for gender equality runs from the top to the bottom of organisations right across the sector.”
Clarification: This article originally appeared under the headline “Advice firms must have gender quotas: AFA Inspire” but has been amended to reflect that the statement is not an official position of the AFA or the Inspire initiative.
Multiforte Financial Services have twice as many females as males, as Directors or employees.
I assume this is a very clear representation of their business’ philosophy regarding gender quotas, diversity and gender equality?
Hypocritical?…..oh yes.
From the article, ‘…Female Excellence in Advice Award Kate McCallum said there should be no debate about the implementation of gender quotas for firms in the advice sector’. That’s her attitude, no debate.
As a millennial female financial planning student, this whole debate is lame. Both women and men can give great advice surely. Quotas are silly, as are the sexist dinosaurs in the industry too. Lets just focus on getting good quality people into financial planning and not what is between their legs.
Thank you!
Quotas never work (South Africa can confirm this). If I’m employing someone, I choosing them based on attitude, ability and the right fit for the role, not gender
Whenever there is an article about the gender gap in pay, workforce, management, or anything else, the same crusty old dinosaurs show up to tell us that there is nothing to see here. They tell us that quotas are unnecessary at best and Orwellian social engineering at worst. Well, wherever you go there you are, and this article is no exception. And equally reliably, the evidence of these dinosaurs passing are the same fossilised arguments dragged out from the Cretaceous to the present day.
All of these fossilised arguments are identical in substance and fragility – they reduce to ‘merit’. The argument goes that quotas are unnecessary because the best hire will always be the most meritorious. These arguments assume a world where merit is objective and objectively knowable, that it can be communicated perfectly, that hiring managers are the perfect arbiters of merit, and that discrimination is something that only bad people do and is only done intentionally. I definitely don’t live in that world; maybe it’s something like A Land Before Time – or more likely Jurassic Park.
But even if I did live in a world like that, I still wouldn’t be convinced that merit is a valid argument. After all, if everyone’s making hiring decisions based on merit and there is still a gender gap in pay, workforce participation, management, and the Board, are we saying that the system is functioning correctly and women are to blame? If they were better workers then maybe there wouldn’t be a gap? An invidious position. Or maybe it’s a world where dinosaurs are making excuses for themselves in a last-ditch attempt to avoid extinction – ‘surely there are men who don’t take women seriously, but I have always hired on merit!’
If that’s the case, then keep in mind that no dinosaurs survived – no matter how well-intentioned. The survivors evolved because they were best suited to the environment, and there’s a lesson in that.
Your view that there is a real gender pay gap is wrong. Relying on data that does not adjust for part time work and actual the role itself is ignorant. A false flag that 3rd wave feminists are increasingly pulled up on.Objective studies have shown that like-for-like hours and like-for-like roles, women are now paid slightly more than men. Addtionally your nasty view that the concern about reverse discrimination is just coming from older men is also, just as wrong and ignorant.
In your attempt to repetitively inject as many emotion laden words like “fossil” and “dinosaur” into your rant, you seemed to have lost touch with facts and reason. The numerical imbalances that exist today are due to the discrimination of the past. But that discrimination has been steadily reducing over time, as have the numerical imbalances. Not too long from now those numerical imbalances will disappear. If you try to undo history overnight by discriminating against the (male) youth of today it may make you feel better, but it is just repeating the “dinosaur” behaviour of the past. What do you really want? Equality or revenge?
I am not sure if the debate is about salaried planners or those on pure incentives, but I have never noticed a male recruitment preference for commissioned risk writers. Back in the dreadful 80’s, most tied offices had around 30-40% of female writers at times, and by and large they stuck, at what was a hard career, longer than males of the same age. Some are still in business, and many were eminently successful, and my recollection is MLC had more than their fare share of prominent female advisers. Some sales managers actually had a preference to recruiting female advisers, with not a quota in sight.
The problems with imposed quotas is that they are divisive on many levels, and attract all the wrong reactions , from people of both sexes. Just ask our political parties ! Both are still grappling with the issue.
I would suggest the bigger issue is imbalance, if not over balance, by those who demand quotas in what should be ( and will be ) an evolutionary not revolutionary process. You cant just abandon the quota when equality is reached: the government primary school teaching profession has less than 20% male teachers, and that cannot be healthy for my grandchildren, and its largely the result of unofficial quotas introduced 25-30 years ago
I am not sure where Ms McCallum and Kent got their figures, I have noticed a considerable increase in the number of younger female risk writers at the insurer briefings I attend. But I cant speak for female executives, other than 2 recent appointments to Comminsure.
And now, having put that view out there, I will, as they said in the “Goon Show “, “standby to repel boarders ”
When did the ABC take over the AFA? All this gender quota squawking is just trendy at the moment and we just have too endure it. Of the many many professional practices I’ve worked with (almost all have female advisers, paraplanners as well as female practice managers ) gender is the last determinant. There are so many more crucial attributes like technical knowledge, personal skill and attributes, long-term goals, desire to take equity immediately or in the future, EQ testing. Gender quotas will not assist increasing the number of female advisers and in fact is most likely to be retrograde.
Let me give you a run down of my experience on my career journey and you tell me of those of you with such disdain for the article have experienced anything similar…..
In my first gig as a financial adviser (early 20’s)I was told later by one of the partners they had actively avoided hiring females as they couldn’t be relied upon to not pop out a kid. However they had experienced poor outcomes from recent hires so decided to give me a go. In short they had not hired the best person for the job, because it was better to hire a male who was less qualified, as the risk of changes to work hours was less of a hassle for the business…..
A few years later.. Gave the news to the same employer that I was having my first child. Didn’t go down well despite only taking 12 weeks off work. 12 weeks! Was told that because i planned to come back part time i would need to take a pay cut as I would be “distracted” and “less reliable” this is beyond the pro-rata of pay to part time work and was to a base salary. The words illegal and discriminatory were raised and the relationship soured.
Again… Different employer and 2 kids in tow. Was told that it is impossible to work as a FP on a part time basis and no other consideration would be made. A few weeks later, they chased me as once again, they hired me as they had no other “viable” option after searching for more than 12 months for someone “suitable”. Further on, baby no#3 and was told that they weren’t holding their breath for me to return to the role as how were they to know I would return from a 4 month mat leave break as they only had my word to go on despite by past instances of always returning. As a result despite contract stating performance targets were pro-rata’d each year that this should not take effect in the case of mat leave.
I have also seen men ridiculed for taking time off on parental leave. However, most of this time off is taken by women so the attitudes mostly fall on them. These examples are only a sample….
In short, a constant need to prove oneself, take pay cuts, and feel like the last option, simply because I was female and had “women’s work” as a distraction which in short felt both disrespectful to myself and my husband who is a dedicated father. The end result, I got jack of working under such attitudes and started my own business so I could work the way I valued. My experiences, I doubt are unique. Just because you haven’t seen it or experienced it yourself, does not mean you should pretend it doesn’t exist. I’m no woman on a war path, but attitudes to what the modern financial planner looks like needs to change and I believe our community is already demanding that by removing those roadblocks and having healthy conversations and respectful attitudes.
Thanks for sharing your experience – what vile treatment you got from those dinosaurs!
Whilst your experience sounds awful and possibly illegal, it is still no excuse for policy that is reverse dsicrimination. Two wrongs do not make a right.
I don’t think anyone these days would disagree with you that discrimination was rampant in the past, and that any discrimination that still exists today should be removed. However “gender quotas” don’t remove discrimination. They do the exact opposite. They impose active discrimination against young well qualified male candidates, simply because they are the same gender as those older males who discriminated against people like you in the past. “Gender quotas” is just revenge against innocent victims.
Yes, my experiences were unfortunate, but I am still young and we are talking less than 10 years ago through to only a few years ago so it’s hardly distant past.
I never said I supported gender quotas in the work place, I actually enjoy working in a male dominated industry from the perspective that I feel it helps me stand out for that factor alone. What I do believe is changing attitudes and removing barriers and working with the challenges most women face and finding solutions rather than seeing it as a problem and denying opportunities.
the upside is that now you are a business owner – that is what we need more female entrepreneurs, not more mandated female employees or board members.
Interesting comments… obliviously the outcome is to deliver high quality meaningful advice with a service that can be delivered by a man or a woman. However there are many roadblocks if you are female in this industry. Perhaps there are many who don’t empathize because they simply haven’t experienced these roadblocks for themselves. That being said, I don’t believe in quotas but I do believe in addressing the roadblocks and focusing on the values of diversity whether that means, gender, age or ethnicity. The more advisers and leaders we can attract to the financial services that care about their clients and the industry as a whole, the better off we will all be. Regardless of the package they come in, what we need is to ensure that we make it easier for more people to step into those roles by offering and encouraging training, flexible hours and losing the stereotypes and presumptive thinking about what we think someone will do or how they will be based on those stereotypes.
It will be a telling time for this sector if employees are chosen on anything other than merit!!
To make this plan totally inclusive, consideration needs to be given to hiring transgenders, shims and undecideds? We also need to have ethnic quota inclusions so that those who speak a language other than English are not excluded. Simultaneously, there needs to be room for dwarfs,,,etc,,,etc.
Oh no, you would have to accommodate a diverse workplace of keen and capable people! The worst.
I run a small accounting and financial planning firm of which I am the only male and have 8 females. They were employed on the basis of best for the role and certainly not gender.
Is the author suggesting some of those may need to be sacked and replaced with males to get a gender balance?
I also sit on a local community group board of which I am the only male director. It has over 12 staff which are all female. Gee, I hope the gender police don’t come knocking.
Not a chance. If the feminazi AFA keep pushing such sexual discrimination, expect members to leave. And if it is forced, expect a fight in the courts. Anything less than hiring on merit is tantamount to breaking the law as per the sexual discrimination act.
Diversity quotas are just revenge based discrimination. It is completely hypocritical to argue against historical discrimination that worked against your demographic, then try to impose a discriminatory regime that works in favour of your demographic.
Well said Andrew. This is a complete distraction. How about focusing on delivering high quality meaningful advice and then backing it up with a deliverable service proposition that can be delivered either by a man or a woman. Grow up AFA.
No, you hire the best person for each job. You should not be duty bound by hiring a male or female to keep the quota under control. This is why I would never waste my time at an AFA roadshow event again, they simply don’t know what they are talking about
Are you suggesting that hiring the best person for the job has resulted in the existing gender gap? Or that if we simply hired the best person for the job we will always arrive at 50/50?