How your bonus structure can drive gender equality

In leading a business that has grown through acquisition in the financial service sector one of my largest challenges has been tackling gender equality, the under-representation of female employees, in the senior management team. History has dictated that my senior managers are all male, and in the short term there is little I can do to change this.

So, we have set about a series of changes to support women’s careers by providing the experience and learning required to fill future roles and also by educating their male colleagues about how their actions could have a positive impact on change.

To give a strong, clear message we recalibrated the senior manager bonus structure so that 30% of their potential bonus would be dependent on achieving diversity and inclusion objectives. Historically, their discretionary annual bonus would have been solely linked to revenue and profit targets, with an element also linked to regulatory objectives. By adding diversity and inclusion objectives it has forced managers to think harder about how they are going to achieve them and act sooner.

An example objective may be – Have a one-to-one meeting with every female employee in the division to discuss their medium-term career ambitions and implement a learning and development plan for realising those ambitions. This objective has not only elevated the importance of their career choices but has also created a formal platform for female employees to raise their profile with their senior managers, further helping their careers.

This balances the fact that men have historically used their networking time in the pub or social situations to connect with senior managers, providing them with an unseen advantage in the workplace.

To support senior managers in achieving their objectives, we have embraced reverse mentoring: when the mentee is the older or more senior person in the pair, and the mentor is the younger or more junior person. Although we didn’t introduce reverse mentoring solely to encourage gender equality, it has played a key role in achieving just that – motivating a significant number of women to progress their careers with us.

In reverse mentoring, the payoff for the mentee is that they gain insight into a different generation or culture and find out more about practices and ideas from someone outside their typical circle. Given the current situation in our industry, women are more likely to be the mentor in this pairing. That has allowed senior male staff to gain insights into the lives, challenges, pressures, and ambitions of younger women in the business.

Senior managers can learn from a female mentor about things that their customers might also be experiencing, feeling, believing, or liking. In the mentor role, women can gain visibility with the senior management team, displaying the talent that the company is developing as they look to the future.

Reverse mentoring can be challenging, and some of the first few meetings can be uncomfortable or even awkward. The senior manager may struggle with taking advice from someone who is in a more junior role in the organisation; a more junior employee may not feel comfortable with being transparent about their concerns and priorities or with challenging the thinking of someone who could hinder their career. The most important factor that will shape these meetings in the positive manner intended is mutual respect.

Although the gender split of our middle managers is 50/50 our experience has been that middle managers can often inadvertently become a blocker to change, usually through lack of knowledge or not joining the dots on how their actions are perceived.

To address this, we have implemented monthly manager networks to discuss and agree on the best practice around our management techniques through a D&I lens. As an example, our managers have proposed changes to our recruitment processes; including moving to a structured interview framework to ensure fair opportunity for all candidates.

Finally to build the experience of women in the business we replaced the existing executive committee of eight senior male managers with seven operational committees that included representatives from across the business. This led to more diverse, multigenerational teams contributing to the leadership and business strategy, and participation from women at management-level operational committee meetings increased from 0% to 38%.

Women taking part in the new style of management meetings say that having their voices heard and valued has opened a door. Many have fed back that being involved in these meetings has increased their confidence and participating in decision-making has broadened their horizons.

We obviously have some way to go to balance our senior management team, but without these changes, we never will.

Written by Steve Butler, CEO of Punter Southall Aspire and author of Inclusive Culture: Leading Change Across Organisations and Industries