Many firms believe that having gender-diversified asset management teams and businesses is positive – but relatively few have women in senior roles and many don’t have initiatives to boost female careers.
A “handful of respondents” had reached the generally accepted 30% milestone for women on executive boards, but Aviva Investors – which surveyed 39 firms – said there was still a “gap between rhetoric and reality” on the issue.
Over 75% of the firms did not have gender-related targets for recruitment to executive boards, senior management, or the entire business.
On the investment floor, 5% of respondents reported that over 40% of their investment managers were female, but the majority had “well below this number” and a small number of firms had no women in investment management roles.
However, over 60% of respondents did monitor the attrition rates of women employees and over 50% had initiatives in place to reduce the loss of female talent.
Aviva Investors’ third biennial survey of global asset managers on environmental, social and governance issues conducted by its multi-manager team, polled 39 asset managers with combined assets of over £4 trillion.
Many (92%) of respondents believed teams and businesses that were more diverse were more successful. Over 80% of firms monitored the diversity of the workforce and more than 70% had policies in place to support women in the workplace.
Isabel Emo Capodilista, head of multi-manager research at Aviva Investors, said: “When it comes to diversity, it is clear that there is a gap between sentiment and reality. Bearing in mind the growing evidence that diverse teams have the tendency to positively influence investment performance, we would expect more financial institutions to institute policies aimed at narrowing the gender gap both in the workplace and at more senior levels.”
The survey also looked a pay transparency and found just over 50% of respondents believed pay should be transparent at the executive level, whereas only 18% of respondents support company-wide transparency.
©2017 funds europe
