In last week's blog, I talked about cultivating respect in the financial services industry, and what to do if you don't feel that you're getting enough of it, regardless if you are a man or a woman. In this blog, I'd like to focus on disrespect toward women.
In my experience, women in the financial services industry typically run into one or more of four major disrespect issues. Here's a description of each, along with solutions on how to overcome them.
The first, which could fall into several troubling categories, including disrespect, is compensation and advancement. A lack of equal compensation for the same jobs is a common complaint among women in financial services — a complaint that has been backed up by numerous stories and industry studies over two decades.
Here's the good news: While this disparity does exist in some financial services businesses, I must admit, of over 1,000 firm compensation incentives we have seen and developed in the past decade, we don't see it anymore. What we have seen is firms paying more (which creates a whole new issue) in order to attract and recruit women as advisors and as executive talent.
Consequently, my suggestion to women is to take control of your own compensation and career. If you're not happy at your current firm — whether it's for compensation or other reasons — start looking for a new job to pay you and/or treat you equally.
The second area in which women tend to feel disrespected is in "inclusion." While the growing influx of women is slowly changing things, our industry does still have a "good ole boy" network. This network doesn't always give women the respect and belonging they need to share ideas and knowledge to advance their careers.
