The Right Ways to Attract and Retain More Women Advisors

Since the financial crisis, the push to ensure that the financial services industry recruits more women and other minorities has gained greater momentum. Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) has been a champion of this, and her efforts resulted in the inclusion of a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act that calls for Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion at each of the federal regulatory agencies—including the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the SEC and the FDIC, among others—in order to ensure the racial, ethnic and gender diversity of the work force and senior management. Each office would have its own director and staff to develop policies promoting equal employment opportunities and racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of not just the agency's workforce, but also the workforces of its contractors and subcontractors

"Many industries lack the inclusion and participation of people of color and women, perhaps none more egregiously than the financial services sector," Congresswoman Waters said in a statement.

The inclusion of this provision in the Dodd-Frank Act has drawn criticism from some quarters, the greatest argument against it being that agencies run the risk of hiring underqualified women and minorities simply to meet regulatory requirements.

Cheng believes that any entity in the governmen or private sector looking to hire more women has to do it the right way, by following a targeted, committed and genuine strategy, the results of which can only really be measured in the long term.

Here's how she sees it happening:

• Financial firms looking to seriously recruit women as advisors or for other roles must also make sure that they can retain them for the long term, she says.
• "Role models are important and some women advisors may like to have a women mentor," she says. "Peer-to-peer to mentoring allows advisors to share best practices and help one another, and some firms have women-only retreats and adopt a more holistic approach to advisor development by addressing work/life balance issues."
• Those firms that are serious about employing women also need to evaluate the incentives and marketing reimbursement programs they have in place and make these more 'woman friendly.' Female advisors may not, for example, want to take clients to a sporting event for business development, but they prefer to attend or sponsor a community charitable event, Cheng says.
• Finally, "financial firms have traditionally adopted a more universal approach to marketing: I think it is important to develop more women-friendly marketing materials," Cheng says. 

For more on women advisors, clients and wealth, see AdvisorOne's ongoing coverage of the Top Women in Wealth.