The maths of gender diversity:

Evidence from the City is that women are performing at least as well as men in fund management, the law, insurance, and banking. It is equally true in ‘real’ industries outside the City. So how do you convince those in power to pay more attention to recruitment and retention? – Simple: show them everyone stands to gain.

From macro to micro

In our new edition of Coaching Women to Lead we show, once again, that there is plenty of evidence to demonstrate that gender-balanced teams perform better. Somehow this fails to resonate at individual company level, so we need to dig deeper.

Sector behaviour

Some sectors are more traditional than others and some are better at extracting cash value from diversity policy. Banking – investment banking in particular – has a high-fear environment, making it more difficult for diversity policies to take hold unless there is very strong sponsorship.

Companies within sectors will rapidly copy each other: when we worked on gender in oil engineering, the sector was willing to ‘do something’ but our clients were the first global company to really invest in the development and retention of women in all its activities, giving it a head-start but then also spurring others to emulate them. The same is true in City law firms or insurance for example.

Each talent pipeline is different

Even though all law firms start with a majority of female newly qualified lawyers, the timing and speed at which they lose them along the way to equity partner varies greatly: if you don’t understand where and why you are leaking talent then you won’t get the benefits of greater diversity, no matter what your sector.

Modelling for results

When we started modelling the cash impact of gender diversity – simply tapping the full talent pool and retaining high performers – we calculated that in a professional services firm a balanced blend would give every partner, male or female, an extra 10% net profit. This far outweighed the cost of introducing more flexibility or technology in the firm.

When we tried our model in real life we were faced with the usual pushback of “we are a meritocracy”, “natural female talent will emerge”, “we don’t do positive discrimination” and so on. A firm we worked with also confided discreetly that female partners were actually underperforming men. This was a bit of a challenge, so we really crunched the numbers with their HR team. Much to the surprise of the managing partner, the female performance data were inaccurate and women performed at least as well as the top male quartile. What weighed the average down was actually a long tail of underperforming men who had fallen below the radar. By then the business case for more women partners was compelling.

Adding bias to recruitment

Each industry, each company has a history which is reflected in the profile of incumbent managers. Not only gender but also race, education, social aptitude and so on. Many industries at the junior level have been working hard to remove bias with nameless CVs, providing aptitude tests independent of academic qualifications, etc.
The challenge for most companies is at a more senior level: how do you get top female performers as the number of candidates dwindles with seniority? – With a clear bias: demand females on every list, ask for an equal number of male and female candidates for promotion panels, use female networks, etc. Given the low numbers of senior women on the market, you’re highly unlikely to be accused of discrimination and you will do everybody’s take home pay a favour.

Conclusion: follow Tolstoy

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” – Leo Tolstoy

You really need to understand the unique way in which you are still failing to attract and retain female talent. Only then can you do something about it. Creating a quantitative model of your talent pipeline will help you build a clear business case, including the level of investment required to write a happy ending…

Getting it right scores across multiple dimensions:

Getting ESG right is complicated as so many factors and activities are intertwined. You need to be seen to do the right thing. Acting on Gender Diversity is highly effective and has a high signalling value. We will show you why.

It’s complicated to get it right

The basic principle of ESG is simple enough: does your organisation create value in a sustainable way? (And what should you report on that is important and not part of your financial statements?)

Reporting on ESG however is a bit like playing 3D chess: you need to decide which law applies to your business, which reporting framework to adopt, the level of depth of reporting for each category, how categories influence each other and who will help you to improve performance.

Three pillars

Although there are many frameworks, they typically rest on three pillars:

• Purpose and Governance
• Planet (in your firm and across your supply chain)
• People (in your firm and across your supply chain)

Gender is everywhere

Although there are 104 women for 100 men across the OECD, women represent the largest ‘minority’ in organisations. It is therefore not surprising that gender is tracked across all ESG dimensions. Ignoring Environmental reporting for the time being, here are some gender specific areas:

Purpose & Governance

• Gender balance of Board
• Gender balance of Executive team

Comment: we know that diverse teams perform better. They also are less subject to the kind of groupthink that leads to bubbles or unethical behaviour.

People

This is where most of the metrics reside, such as:

• Wage ratio by gender
• Employee turnover by gender
• Hours of training by gender
• Employees receiving regular career development reviews by gender

And many other direct and indirect measures of fairness…

Dynamic rating: you need to be seen to act

The challenge is not just to report on ESG: it is to express it in the context of your own activities and then to demonstrate convincingly that you are taking constructive action.

The FTSE Russell ESG framework measures both the management of a given theme but also the exposure specific to your company. So if, for example, your firm is staffed with a large majority of male computer specialists, you will score low on Diversity but you will also have a long term risk, e.g. never to close the Gender Pay Gap. Unless you actively invest in STEM graduate schemes or attracting and retaining women via a range of training and engagement activities, this will be scored as a high long term exposure.

The GRI standard uses a similar approach: it lists topics and then defines if a topic is material to your business (usefully providing sector-specific lists).

Gender interventions to the rescue

There is no silver bullet to ‘do’ Gender Diversity. It is a multi-dimension, multi-year activity which is best characterised as a ‘complex’ problem: one with multiple feedback loops that keeps coming back the minute you stop paying attention. There is no real ‘tipping point’. However, having a coherent set of interventions can help change culture and retain a high proportion of motivated, capable women and score on all the dimensions above.

Ready, Fire, Aim

If you are a large organisation you probably have D&I specialists, and have taken the time to analyse your talent pipeline. You therefore know where the best interventions lie – a top-down approach. For the rest of us however, it is more important to take action first: identify a group of women, typically at the ‘emerging leader’ category and sign them up on a good programme. This will be a great opportunity to both signal action and analyse which aspect of culture and processes need attention (for example by collecting feedback from the first cohort of attendees).

What is good for women is good for everybody

Obviously women are not the only Diversity you need to report on, but what we have found out through 20+ years working on gender is that women interventions bring greater fairness and transparency to all business processes, slowly changing the culture for everybody. Beyond this, what is good for women is also appreciated by the younger generation millennial managers, a key to overall retention and people risk.

Conclusion: as simple as 1, 2, 3

When I was a young consultant I was encouraged to write the draft of my final report on day one, and then look for the evidence to support or modify it. ESG reporting is a bit like this:

• Write down a list of dimensions which you think are important for your business to report on, from Governance and people risk to diversity and general fairness (plus environment of course)
• Figure out quickly what your starting metrics are and which interventions will help ‘move the needle’ (hint: gender should be high on the list!)
• Measure action taken/progress while you refine the framework and how you will report

Ignoring it will hurt your pocket:

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) value drivers first emerged from a UN conference in 2005. Over time it has become an important filter for investors and employees. But what is it exactly and who does it apply to? What are the consequences of ignoring it? This post sets the scene and helps you act.

A bit of history

There has been a long battle since Adam Smith between ‘blind profit’ objectives and running a responsible business. Recent iterations have included the Capital Asset Pricing Model (1960s) which evolved into concepts of value creation/destruction and an orthodoxy about how to run businesses based on hard corporate finance principles. This went largely unchallenged until the financial meltdown of 2008. Since then, there have been numerous attempts to redefine capitalism (‘stakeholder centric’), creating ecologically sustainable practices throughout the supply chain and, since the pandemic, questioning the wisdom of long distance travel for manufactured goods – let alone executive travel…

What is ESG?

ESG reporting has become a mainstream requirement for listed companies: it covers a variety of topics from resources use, human rights, health and safety, corruption and transparency. Originally it was limited to specialist ethical funds: fund managers would only invest in those listed companies with good ESG reporting. It has evolved to now cover all listed businesses. It will soon cover most medium sized businesses including unlisted/family owned down to 250 employees.

Is ESG the new CSR?

Corporate Social Responsibility is a general model (i.e. unregulated) where companies present themselves as socially accountable to all stakeholders. It helps the company to both have a social impact and improve its image to the public and employees. Because of its unregulated nature, there has a considerable amount of ‘CSR-washing’ with companies taking token action at home while keeping a blind eye on their supply chain for example.  ESG is more regulated, even if a clear standard has yet to emerge.

Pushed by investors and Governments

Another key difference between ESG and CSR is that ESG has become a requirement for fund managers and covers all asset classes: shares, bonds, private equity… Governments are pushing for this too, with the UK adopting both EU and OECD requirements. Perhaps a better analogy for ESG is Socially Responsible Investment (SRI), a precursor which screened out those companies that operated in certain industries (e.g. tobacco, military equipment) or countries (e.g. apartheid South Africa).

Burden of the proof is with the business

Every company falling under the remit of ESG must report on it yearly (normally as part of their annual report if listed). They need to indicate both where they are in each area but also how they intend to do to improve. If the answers are absent or unsatisfactory, they may be rejected by investors and regulators.

It’s complicated to get it right

Reporting on ESG is a bit like playing 3D chess: you need to decide which law applies to your business, which reporting framework to adopt, the level of depth of reporting for each category, how categories influence each other and who will help you to improve performance.

A jungle of rules and frameworks

There are two schools of thought: formal reporting (e.g. ISO 140010 for environmental reporting) or ‘framework’ reporting (e.g. the UN Global Compact). In Europe the most widely used is the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Another is the FTSE Russell ESG rating model – used to rate investments for inclusion in indices. In addition some industry bodies are doing their own thing (e.g. Lloyd’s insurance market).

To make things worse these frameworks then cross with local initiatives. For instance in the UK the various Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) frameworks and the legal requirement to report on the Gender Pay Gap.

Far beyond Environmental reporting

Many companies have tackled their carbon footprint first as well as labour conditions in their supply chain. They have not worried about the mental health of their UK employees, their tax transparency, their community impact or managing people risk. The FTSE framework contains 300 indicators with an average of 125 applied per company!

Make early choices, refine later

The first thing to do is to choose which components of the reporting are relevant to you today or will be in the next couple of years. Then decide which indicators you want to supply and where. We suggest that ESG reports into the CFO, even if a lot of information needs to be supplied by HR, Legal, Operations or Supply Chain. In each case, think about what you already have (Learning and development activities, anti modern slavery monitoring, tax reporting…) and investigate the gaps with best practice. Then decide who will own which topic both in terms of reporting and improvement. Get it wrong early so that you can improve it the following year: this is a messy business and you may need outside help in various areas. 

Conclusion: pay attention now or pay later

The cost of being seen as slack in this area (ESG-washing?) falls into four categories:

• For listed companies, being rejected by fund managers will have a direct impact on the valuation of the business as well as the cost of capital. ESG accounts for over 70% of all assets under management in Europe. You don’t want to be left out. 
• ESG has a strong brand impact: in each sector customers, employees and investors carry out peer comparisons:: being the ugly ESG duckling will hurt your attractiveness to all stakeholders (and your share price if listed). 
• Short term performance: companies with lower environmental standards pay more fines; companies with unhappy employees incur more absenteeism and disrupted production.  Customers are prepared to pay a modest price premium for ethical, true-green companies’ products
• Long term performance. To quote Larry Fink, CEO of investment giant Blackrock: “The more your company can show its purpose in delivering value to its customers, its employees, and its communities, the better able you will be to compete and deliver long-term, durable profits for shareholders.”

So it’s worth paying attention to ESG. Each case is different. Contact us to discuss yours.

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