Recruitment: Gender / Cultural Diversity & The Finance Industry

By Michelle Joseph (12th January 2021)

The SMH article about BHP ‘working on ending the boy’s club’ made for interesting reading. There are many parallels with the Finance industry, which I recruit in and equally, are working to increase Gender and Cultural diversity in its ranks.

The Mortgage Broker Industry Body has been working over the last few years to survey and understand the perceptions of Brokers amongst other questions, with consistent results showing that the perception of male brokers differs to that of female brokers on key topics.

The following may go some way to explain why.

A Stanford University Psychology graduate conducted a study where people were assigned to 2 groups: Listener and Tapper. The Tapper had to think of a well-known song like Happy Birthday and tap it out with their fingers and the Listener had to guess the song.

Tappers thought that Listeners would guess the song 50% of the time. However, after 120 songs, the Listeners only guessed 3 songs, 2.5% and the Tappers couldn’t understand why the Listeners found it so hard.

Why was this the result?

The Tapper already knows the song and can hear the tune in their mind and once you know something you can’t imagine what it’s like not knowing it. Nor can you understand how someone else can’t know it too especially as we can’t create something in someone else’s mind.

This may go some way to explaining why predominately white, male industry subjects who have known the benefits society provides to their demographic is going to have a completely different perception on opportunities, leadership, support and other topics. The tune in their head is different from what women for example are hearing and have heard from their life experience.

How to get around this?

 “He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.” -The Art of War by Sun Tzu

War strategy books are often recommended for business professionals since Business appears to borrow elements from War strategy, think: ‘know your enemy, ‘outflank’ and ‘outmanoeuvre’. More specifically the strategy I refer to is that of Command Intent, used by the ADF and defence forces across the world.

In war, conditions change rapidly so a plan is great but could become obsolete in minutes out in the field. Hence the Strategy of Intent. For example, if the Command Intent is to prevent the enemy from reaching the northern border, all soldiers know the Intent and no matter how conditions have changed even the last soldier standing knows what he has to do and has the flexibility to improvise in whatever way possible to achieve the Intent and not necessarily the plan.

Going back to BHP, the Command Intent: Gender diversity is ‘mission-critical’ and the target is 3% growth in female representation per year. Why? It’s a competitive advantage said CEO Mike Henry.

Statistics alone can though cause eyes to glaze over so a clear Intent/goal is helped by being ‘grounded’ in language everyone understands. For example, 1. Attracting to our business, women who represent a cross-section of the population and 2. Attracting men and women who come from a family where English is the 2nd language.

Every Recruitment action then has to be evaluated against the question: Will this hire contribute to us achieving the Command Intent? The answer should then determine the resulting action.

It’s hard to change the status quo however the mortgage industry has an average age of 41 and is male-dominated, likely these are also fathers to young boys and young girls.

Visualise for a moment how you would feel in explaining to your Shareholders the increase in the business bottom line due to Competitive Advantage by attracting new and more diverse clients as a result of diversity in Recruitment. Now visualise your pride explaining to your daughter, the contribution you have made to change the playing field of her future workplace and others like her!

Questions? Thoughts? Let me know!

Michelle Joseph
Headhunter / Director - Michelle Joseph Consulting
Director - blumedia.io

Credit: Chip Heath Credit: Elizabeth Newton