Finance Monthly September 2019 Edition

35 www.finance-monthly.com WOMEN IN FINANCE - EQUALITY IN THE WORKPLACE ince the first #MeToo Tweet in October 2017, men have been vilified by some as a generally pretty nasty bunch. In many small ways, this continues today. And if we don’t address it in the workplace, we’ll all suffer. Let’s be clear. Some people deserve the criticism they’ve received, but many are just normal men who feel scared – and almost definitely annoyed at those acting incredibly badly. As a result, it can be tough for them to navigate the politics of gender equality in a workplace that has changed immeasurably in a relatively short amount of time. We need to remember, the corporate world has been designed by men for men and it is certainly not your standard male employee or manager’s fault that there were no women in the first place. In fact, it was enshrined in law until 1944. Up until then, all women were prevented from working during peacetime when they married. This has cast a long shadow and while much has changed, many men feel under scrutiny owing to the actions of a minority. In fact, there’s often a palpable sense of threat among men. Rather than involving themselves in discussions about what’s gone on, many stay quiet and try to “keep out of trouble”. But ignoring the truth doesn’t help. It allows the issue to fester. It creates divides. And ironically, it keeps women back. Why? Because this is not a battle between men and women. It’s a battle about whether a minority of men should be allowed to treat women badly in the workplace and abuse their power. We can’t allow a veil of silence to descend – especially when the system is already significantly skewed towards men. If we just see this phenomenon as a binary male vs. female issue, the impact could be men ignoring and side-lining women who are already shown to be a minority in leadership. Worryingly, we’re already seeing this taking place. It’s become “safer” to employ a man than a woman. We’re going backwards! The sooner we can openly talk about this – and empower men to do so – the quicker we can move past it, to everyone’s benefit. Yes, let’s call out bad behaviour when needed, but unless we all pull together, we’re not going to solve anything. Achieving this can be a challenge, but it needn’t be complicated. It just requires a few simple actions that can help break the deadlock and allow everyone to progress. Obviously, the first step any organisation should take is to provide strong procedures to ensure harassment can be reported and dealt with. But once this is in place – and let’s face it, it really should be in every organisation’s HR policies by now – what next? The second thing to do is to to get leadership to address the issue head- on. Male or female, whoever the leader of an organisation, they need to reflect on how women and men may be feeling, and instigate bridge-building where needed – for example, with unconscious bias training. When done well it can significantly improve awareness around the differences between men and women. This helps people to interact more efficiently and to build genuine, mutual empathy. There also needs to be specific attention on male line managers of women. They need to understand the processes and policies in place, but this shouldn’t change how they interact. Specifically, men mustn’t feel scared of making mistakes in the way they work S “ “ Let’s call out bad behaviour when needed, but unless we all pull together, we’re not going to solve anything.