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Why Grant Thornton
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Beyond global scale, we embrace what makes each market unique, local understanding on a global scale.
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In a world that wants more options for high quality services, we differentiate in the market to grow sustainably in today’s rapidly changing environment.
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Grant Thornton International Ltd acts as the coordinating entity for member firms in the network with a focus on areas such as strategy, risk, quality monitoring and brand.
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The relationship between a company and its auditor has changed. Organisations must understand and manage risk and seek an appropriate balance between risk and opportunities.
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As organisations become increasingly dependent on digital technology, the opportunities for cyber criminals continue to grow.
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At Grant Thornton, we have a wealth of knowledge in forensic services and can support you with issues such as dispute resolution, fraud and insurance claims.
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Mergers and acquisitions
We work with entrepreneurial businesses in the mid-market to help them assess the true commercial potential of their planned acquisition and understand how the purchase might serve their longer-term strategic goals.
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Recovery and reorganisation
Workable solutions to maximise your value and deliver sustainable recovery.
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Transactional advisory services
We can support you throughout the transaction process – helping achieve the best possible outcome at the point of the transaction and in the longer term.
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We provide a wide range of services to recovery and reorganisation professionals, companies and their stakeholders.
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At Grant Thornton, our IFRS advisers can help you navigate the complexity of financial reporting from IFRS 1 to IFRS 17 and IAS 1 to IAS 41.
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Audit quality monitoring
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We apply our global audit methodology through an integrated set of software tools known as the Voyager suite.
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Through our global organisation of member firms, we support both companies and individuals, providing insightful solutions to minimise the tax burden for both parties.
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Using our finely tuned local knowledge, teams from our global organisation of member firms help you understand and comply with often complex and time-consuming regulations.
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Transfer pricing
The laws surrounding transfer pricing are becoming ever more complex, as tax affairs of multinational companies are facing scrutiny from media, regulators and the public
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Outsourcing Changes to the Outsourcing legislation, specifically when offshoringSignificant changes to the dynamic of the financial services sector in recent years have shifted the paradigms in how we work. The increased digitisation of the workforce, changes in business models, globalisation, and remote working capabilities have led to a new approach to the delivery of services.
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Banking Holding banking to account: the real diversity and inclusion pictureWe explore how the banking sector can continue to attract, retain and nurture women to build a more diverse and inclusive future.
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Sustainability From voluntary to mandatory ESG: How banks can future-proof their operationsAs we move from voluntary ESG initiatives to mandatory legislation, we explore what the banking sector needs to prioritise.
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IFRS IFRS 9 - Audit of Expected Credit LossesGPPC releases The Auditor’s response to the risks of material misstatement posed by estimates of expected credit losses under IFRS 9
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growthiQ Steering your company to long-term successHistory has something important to tell us about the difficulties of steering a business to long-term success – through seismic shifts in technology, consumer demands and product development. With that in mind it’s unsurprising that over half the world’s largest companies in the early 1900s had shut their doors by the late 1990s. Some, however, have endured.
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Infographic Grow workforce loyalty during the Great ResignationEmployers must work harder than ever to grow workforce loyalty and meet the increasing demands for a purpose-led organisation.
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Article Climate change: planning for mandatory TCFD reportingTFCD reporting requirements are becoming mandatory. Here’s how retailers can get ready for reporting on climate change.
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Women in Business The power of diversity: can life sciences maintain their lead?Our Women in Business 2022 report shows that life sciences companies – in line with other mid-market businesses – are taking deliberate, necessary action to create more inclusive working practices and giving female talent access to senior positions in greater numbers than ever before.
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United States Driving an insurance carrier ecosystem strategyGrant Thornton’s Mathew Tierney, global head of Insurance, and Andrée Bourgon, principal for Insurance Strategy and Transactions, recently talked with John Weber of A.M. Best Co. for that company’s “Best’s Review” video series.
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International Financial Reporting Standards Implementation of IFRS 17 ‘Insurance Contracts’The auditor’s response to the risks of material misstatement arising from estimates made in applying IFRS 17 ‘Insurance Contracts’
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IFRS Get ready for IFRS 17After twenty years of development the IASB has published IFRS 17 ‘Insurance Contracts’, find out more.
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Women in Business The power of diversity: can life sciences maintain their lead?Our Women in Business 2022 report shows that life sciences companies – in line with other mid-market businesses – are taking deliberate, necessary action to create more inclusive working practices and giving female talent access to senior positions in greater numbers than ever before.
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Report Technology insights Q2 2022What did Q2 2022 bring for technology, media, and telecommunications? Stay informed with our latest quarterly review.
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Mid-market industries‘Uneven’ is how we described the impact of COVID-19 on different mid-market industries – both when assessing initial destruction in H1 2020 and the early recovery in H2 2020. Midway through 2021, it is really encouraging to see some of that unevenness disappear and more industries participating in the overall recovery.
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Global business pulse - industry analysis Mid-market recovery spreads to more industriesThe index results for 13 key industries of the mid-market reveals a very uneven recovery from COVID-19
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Not for profit How to effectively leave the pandemic behindAs the light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel shines brighter, nonprofits are assessing the past year’s impact on their businesses and are focusing on the next steps to achieve success in the year ahead.
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Global business pulse - industry analysis A very uneven recovery across industriesThe index results for 13 key industries of the mid-market reveals a very uneven recovery from COVID-19
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Financial reporting advisory The rise of the Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC)While we are seeing a rise in activity for Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, what is a SPAC and what do you need to consider before entering into one?
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Private equity ESG for private equityMost US private equity firms are taking steps, prompted by a combination of European examples, imminent regulation, limited partner expectations, and their own sense of what needs to be done.
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Access to finance Raise finance to invest in changePrepare your business to raise finance to invest in change.
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Private equity firms Private equity in the mid-market: reshaping strategies for 2021When the global COVID-19 pandemic stormed across the globe in early 2020, the private equity sector was hit hard but deals are coming back to the market.
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Article Time to review funding and financing arrangements?What does the funding landscape look like for public sector organisations in 2022?
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Public sector Helping build the government of tomorrow, todayLearn about the Grant Thornton US public sector team.
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Global business pulse - industry analysis Mid-market recovery spreads to more industriesThe index results for 13 key industries of the mid-market reveals a very uneven recovery from COVID-19
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Global business pulse - industry analysis A very uneven recovery across industriesThe index results for 13 key industries of the mid-market reveals a very uneven recovery from COVID-19
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Industries European Real Estate PodcastJessica Patel, Tax Partner at Grant Thornton UK speaks with tax partners and directors across the network to share their insights on the real estate market and some of the challenges.
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Industries European Real Estate PodcastJessica Patel, Tax Partner at Grant Thornton UK speaks with tax partners and directors across the network to share their insights on the real estate market and some of the challenges.
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Global business pulse - industry analysis Mid-market recovery spreads to more industriesThe index results for 13 key industries of the mid-market reveals a very uneven recovery from COVID-19
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Global business pulse - industry analysis A very uneven recovery across industriesThe index results for 13 key industries of the mid-market reveals a very uneven recovery from COVID-19
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Article PSR report aims to make digital payments accessibleThe PSR aims to reduce barriers to digital payments but many remain hesitant. How can payment services move forward?
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Global business pulse - industry analysis Mid-market recovery spreads to more industriesThe index results for 13 key industries of the mid-market reveals a very uneven recovery from COVID-19
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Global business pulse - industry analysis A very uneven recovery across industriesThe index results for 13 key industries of the mid-market reveals a very uneven recovery from COVID-19
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Telecoms Can tech and telecom leverage economic headwindsAs most businesses brace for an economic downturn, tech and telecom could see new prospects. But, to turn the headwinds to your advantage, you need to find your unique opportunities and risks.
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Technology Mid-market tech companies lead the way on diversity and inclusionWe explore how the mid-market tech sector can continue to build and nurture a culture that’s increasingly more diverse and inclusive for women.
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Tax Eight tax approaches for global tech employeesCompanies need to understand the tax implications for each unique geography and country there employees reside in.
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Technology Responding to slowing growth: why the tech industry faces a more challenging outlook in 2022We spoke to tech experts about industry trends that could affect companies over the next 12 months and what their short-term strategic priorities should be.
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Telecoms Can tech and telecom leverage economic headwindsAs most businesses brace for an economic downturn, tech and telecom could see new prospects. But, to turn the headwinds to your advantage, you need to find your unique opportunities and risks.
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TMT TMT industry: Fully charged or on standby?Our research revealed five key trends that resonated with Technology, Media and Telecoms (TMT) industry leaders around the world. We asked a panel of our experts from UK, US, India Ireland and Germany, to give us their reaction to the findings.
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Cybersecurity One size fits nothingTechnology companies must adopt a new approach to digital risk: those that successfully develop a reputation for digital trust by demonstrating an unwavering commitment to cyber security and data privacy will be able to carve out a competitive advantage.
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Technology, media & telecommunications Why it’s time for a 5G reality checkFigures suggest the mobile sector is maturing. While data usage continues to soar, mobile revenues are expected to flatten out over the next few years.
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Mid-market industries‘Uneven’ is how we described the impact of COVID-19 on different mid-market industries – both when assessing initial destruction in H1 2020 and the early recovery in H2 2020. Midway through 2021, it is really encouraging to see some of that unevenness disappear and more industries participating in the overall recovery.
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International business Mid-market businesses lifted by rising tide of optimismOptimism among global mid-market business leaders rose to 67% in the first half of this year and they are markedly more optimistic about their prospects with global optimism having increased by 8%.
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Global business pulse - industry analysis Mid-market recovery spreads to more industriesThe index results for 13 key industries of the mid-market reveals a very uneven recovery from COVID-19
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Hotels COVID-19: Checking in with the hotel industry one year onCOVID-19 provided some hard lessons for the hotel sector. It is time to turn those into sustainable and well executed growth strategies.
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Women in Business 2024
2024 marks the 20th year of monitoring and measuring the proportion of women occupying senior management roles around the world.
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COP28: Mid-market firms should seize the opportunity from adaption and innovation
COP28 was the first time there has been a global stocktake on progress against the Paris Agreement.
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Scanning the horizon: Mid-market sets sights on global trade growth
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Mid-market businesses less optimistic, despite record numbers expecting increased profitability
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Women in Business 2024
2024 marks the 20th year of monitoring and measuring the proportion of women occupying senior management roles around the world.
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Women in business across the globe
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Women in business: Regional picture
We saw an increase in the percentage of senior management roles held by women, on a global level, but there are some significant regional and country variations.
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Pathways to Parity: Leading the way
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COP28: Mid-market firms should seize the opportunity from adaption and innovation
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Transition Plan Taskforce publishes its final disclosure framework
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Promoting ESG excellence through tax
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Mid-market businesses lifted by rising tide of optimism
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Appetite for investment grows among mid-market leaders
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Scanning the horizon: Mid-market sets sights on global trade growth
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IFRS Alerts
IFRS Alerts covering the latest changes published by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).
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Example Financial Statements
General guidance for preparers of financial statements that supports the commitment to high quality, consistent application of IFRS.
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Insights into IFRS 2
Insights into IFRS 2 summarises the key areas of the Standard, highlighting aspects that are more difficult to interpret and revisiting the most relevant features that could impact your business.
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IFRS 3
Mergers and acquisitions are becoming more common as entities aim to achieve their growth objectives. IFRS 3 ‘Business Combinations’ contains the requirements for these transactions.
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IFRS 8
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IFRS 16
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IAS 36
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IFRS 17
Explaining the key features of the Standard and providing insights into its application and impact.
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Pillar 2
Key updates and support for the global implementation of Pillar 2.
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Global expatriate tax guide
Growing businesses that send their greatest assets – their people – overseas to work can face certain tax burdens, our global guide highlights the common tax rates and issues.
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International indirect tax guide
Navigating the global VAT, GST and sales tax landscape.
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Global transfer pricing guide
Helping you easily find everything you need to know about the rules and regulations regarding transfer pricing and Country by Country reporting for every country you do business with.
The coronavirus pandemic has given financial services firms the opportunity to reimagine what the immediate and long-term leadership of the industry could look like. New working models have opened up access to talent and could allow alternative routes to senior management. By acting on this potential window in which to create positive, lasting change, financial services businesses can ensure female colleagues reap the benefits of the altered working landscape. And by building more diverse teams, they will increase resilience within their organisations, and their ability to thrive.
Above and beyond the disruption wreaked by COVID-19, diversity and inclusion (D&I) is a key area of focus for financial services businesses. There is growing regulatory pressure for firms to respond to, and greater stakeholder demand for leadership that reflects the market and their clients. According to Grant Thornton’s 2021 International Business Report (IBR), which surveys the global mid-market, 72% of businesses in financial services believe stakeholder pressure to improve gender balance is set to increase.
Many financial services firms are already acting on these external and internal influences. Our IBR data reveals that financial services and banking businesses are a short step ahead of the curve when it comes to diversity, compared to the cross-sector aggregate. The percentages of women in senior leadership are higher in both financial services and banking than the global average: 33% and 37% respectively, compared to 31%. For financial services, this represents a three-percentage point rise since 2020.
But despite this improvement, there is still a long way to go in achieving gender parity at the top, with research from Catalyst showing that in 2019, women’s global representation on executive committees in major financial services firms stood at just 20%.[i]
The potential of flexible working post-COVID
Propelled by the pandemic, the rise of female leaders in financial services has the potential to accelerate. The impact it has had on the way staff are able to operate is striking. Three-quarters (75%) of IBR respondents in financial services believe new working practices as a result of COVID-19 have enabled women in business to play greater leadership roles, while 82% believe these will benefit women’s careers in the longer term.
“The lockdown restrictions have demonstrated that you can work effectively in an agile manner from home,” says Sarah Talbott, partner and head of financial services key (strategic) accounts and gender diversity lead for Grant Thornton UK. “This virtual and flexible way of working has created more ‘trust’ between employer and employee – people are measured on effective quality output and delivery rather than hours in the office.”
Enabling people to be more productive with their time through hybrid working – splitting time between home and office – will drive a better work-life balance, increase staff performance, and attract a broader talent base. “Agile, flexible working creates a more inclusive culture, allowing firms access to a more diverse talent pool, which in turn will lead to strong business outcomes,” Talbott adds.
But seizing on this window of opportunity will depend on financial services leaders taking deliberate action to propel what continues to be a traditionally office-based, hierarchical sector into a more inclusive future. There is a risk that financial services will return to a focus on presenteeism over production. Recent announcements by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley in the UK and US respectively, suggest that they may eschew a hybrid working environment, expecting staff to return to the office full time.
The inclusive culture challenge
Failure to fully appreciate the correlation between inclusivity and performance was also apparent among financial services firms in the height of lockdown. Grant Thornton’s research reveals that financial services firms were slow to act on engagement during the pandemic, and are weaker at creating an inclusive culture than other industries. Only 32% of financial services respondents instituted new working practices to better engage all employees, compared to 37% across all sectors. Similarly, at 36%, financial services businesses were nine percentage points behind the global score in promoting work-life balance and flexibility.
The seeming contradiction between the relatively encouraging numbers of women in senior management and the belief that flexible working benefits women’s careers within the sector, and its sluggish progress on inclusion may reflect the work of quantitative diversity policies and quotas around gender balance, versus an established organisational culture that has yet to evolve.
To change this state of affairs, cultural tone must be set by those at the top, and cascade throughout the business.
“The issue of gender diversity and female leadership is not just a women’s problem, it is a business issue, and until such time as senior males are on board with representation and diversity at all levels, we’re not going to get there,” says Madeleine Mattera, national head of financial services, Grant Thornton Australia.
So should quotas and D&I metrics be abandoned in favour of organisational transformation?
“It should be the right person for the job in every circumstance, and it’s a falsehood to force that,” says Andree Bourgon, managing director for insurance strategy & transactions for Grant Thornton US. In the financial services industry, leaders tend to hire the people they recognise and trust, rather than those who are different from them, she suggests. Tracking hiring practices rather than staff demographics might encourage leaders to use a more diverse lens.
“One data point we don’t get a view of is how many people of which genders are long listed for a role, how many are short listed, how many get interviewed, and who gets hired,” agrees Mattera. The intention to increase gender parity in senior leadership is insufficient: there needs to be a strategy. “You say you want to recruit women, so you show me what you’re going to do.”
Taking action through mentoring
One such strategy being pursued by financial services firms is mentoring, an action which consistently features in Grant Thornton’s Women in Business research on the female talent pipeline problem. In this area, the financial services sector appears to be ahead of the curve. IBR data shows that 45% of financial services firms, and 41% of banking organisations, provide mentoring and coaching to promote gender balance. This stacks up against a global average of just 32%.
Coaching and mentoring play very specific and different roles, says Bourgon. “Coaching is synonymous with leading a sports team. We’re there to help them understand the field, and pick up a specific set of business skills.” Mentoring, by contrast, is more about life skills, she opines, and mentors need to be carefully selected. “Forcing mentorship will not yield success. We need to be creative about how we match people up so that we can help them develop career life skills.”
Coaching and mentoring should be available throughout women’s careers to stem the pipeline problem, beginning from day one. “If we don’t start coaching them as they come out of college, and allowing natural mentoring to take place, then we don’t fix this problem,” concludes Bourgon.
Building psychological safety
To enable effective mentoring, a sense of psychological safety must prevail, giving people the belief to speak out, step up and self-lead. But Grant Thornton’s research shows financial services workers feel less empowered to contribute than those in other sectors. During the pandemic, only 35% of financial services firms focused on creating an environment where all colleagues can speak up with ideas, issues and questions, compared to a global average of 43%.
This needs to change, because inclusive leadership is about creating an environment where everyone is heard, believes Amanda Ward, financial services advisory partner at Grant Thornton Ireland. “We need to facilitate constructive arguments and give actionable feedback, reward authenticity over conformity, and allow people to express opinions without feeling disadvantaged,” she says.
Emily Lai, business risk advisory partner at Grant Thornton Singapore, points out that local differences can significantly impact employees’ sense of psychological safety. In particular, she says, it is not yet embedded in Asian businesses. “Psychological safety is not a naturally occurring concept in Asian culture. People tend to be less inclined to speak up or go against the bosses.”
However, reports Lai, progress is occurring. “The dynamic is slowly changing. With the adoption of a more diverse, open culture, there’s promotion of communication and direct access to senior managers.” Leaders need soft skills to respond to employees’ needs, she suggests, especially among the emerging diverse, multi-generational workforce. “Millennials have a different mindset. We need to connect with them on a personal and emotional level.”
Mattera concurs that local culture has a huge impact. “We are a product of the society in which we live. In Australia, the paradigm is that women stay at home or work part time, but men are the breadwinners. To create change, we need to create a work environment that can transcend what goes on in suburbia.”
While Talbott believes the UK had experienced a “tremendous culture shift” in acceptance of gender diversity, she admits there remains a long way to go. Ward points out that, across all geographies, business structures are still arranged to suit a model worker – most often male, middle-class, able-bodied, from the ethnic majority, and free from caring duties. “Only by breaking through these long-standing stereotypical norms can the situation change,” she states.
In the wake of the pandemic, and on a wave of regulatory and stakeholder pressure, financial services firms now stand before an open window of opportunity to increase gender parity in senior leadership. To do so will be to reap the business benefits of engaging more agile, flexible, diverse, purpose-driven teams, but will require conscious action to create a change of culture from the top down.
For more insight into how your people and your business can benefit from the window of opportunity to a more inclusive future, and explore our Diversity and Inclusion hub.
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i. www.catalyst.org - Women in Financial Services (Quick Take) - 29 June 2020