"WOMEN ARE VITAL IN BUILDING A STRONGER ECONOMY" …

Do professional services have a fair representation of women employed and if not, why not?

It’s a fact that businesses with a greater number of women in senior positions deliver stronger organisational and financial performance, and better results. Reports linking performance and gender balance on the board Fortune 500 companies with 3 or more women on the board gain significant performance advantage over those with fewer. (source www.20-first.com).

New research has revealed that there are more women on company boards, but there is still a long way to go in terms of boardroom diversity.

“Women are vital in building a stronger economy”, according to Maria Miller, Minister for Women and Equalities,  who made the comments after new research revealed that the number of women on company boards is growing at a steady pace.

Pictured left: The Rt Hon Maria Miller MP

A report by the Cranfield School of Management found that females now account for 19 per cent of FTSE 100 board positions, and they also make up 15 per cent of boards in the FTSE 250.

This is the highest level since the organisation started monitoring the number of females in Britain’s boardrooms in 1999 and in the last six months, 27 per cent of new appointments in the FTSE 100 went to women, while females secured 30 per cent of roles in the FTSE 250.

Miller added:

“This new research shows that we’ve made unprecedented progress in increasing the number of women on boards following Lord Davies’ report in 2011. It is good to see the pace of change in the number of board appointments in the FTSE 250 have been higher than in the FTSE 100.”

She also said that firms in the FTSE 250 need to make sure they produce policies on boardroom diversity in order to increase the number of females in senior positions and the Government wants at least 25 per cent of FTSE 100 directors to be female by 2015.

Traditionally Hallidays employed a much higher proportion of men especially in the more technical and senior positions. Anna Bennett, partner, can recall a time when the ‘all male’ partners wore bowler hats and pinstriped suits, smoked cigars in the office and went out for long lunches!

Hallidays leads the way …. 

Well long lunches and indeed client entertaining has reduced significantly as a number of businesses face new challenges in a changing market place. Clients want help growing and developing their businesses so it’s important that time is used productively.  To help with this Hallidays have been running bi-monthly breakfast forums for owner managed businesses to help them grow and develop their business which are free for first time attendees.

At Hallidays over 60% of the entire team are female with 50% of the senior partners/directors being female and it is not just those with accounting qualifications.

One of the female partners, Valerie Wain, (pictured far left) heads up a team within Hallidays, and is FD of Hallidays LLP and Hallidays Financial Services Limited;

another partner, Lyndsey Hayes, (pictured left) heads up the IT team which offers a range of IT technologies, with the first being a free IT audit to Hallidays’ clients.

The Hallidays Ethical Resourcing Limited (HER) division is headed up by a female director and was set up in 2007 as a reaction to Hallidays’ disappointment with the poor service within the financial recruitment sector.

This same balance is reflected within the management team; Hallidays believe that this mix helps the teams internally due to different approaches and styles, and can see the same benefits when working with their clients, prospects and introducers. However Hallidays actually take on team members for their overall ‘attitude’ and use DISC profiling to assist in selecting the right mix of people.

Relationships have always been important and increasingly play a more important part in business whether male or female. Helping your team to communicate and adapt to different styles of communication, and understanding how people react to change, so you can develop strategies to support your people and your business, is critical to business success and growth.

Nigel Bennett, Managing Partner:

“The more aligned we are with our clients the better we can help them achieve their personal and business objectives. If our clients achieve their goals we achieve ours. Our clients really appreciate the holistic view we take and recent client happiness surveys reflect this with a 98% score.” 

Hallidays can help with communication within teams, insights into team leadership and how to get better results.

If you would like to develop strategies to support your people and your business call Jane Bennett on 0161 476 8276 or email clientservices@hallidays.co.uk.

To attend our next business growth seminar Tuesday 28^th January 7.45a.m.-10a.m. on ‘Success Habits – The ultimate key to unlocking greater profits and capital value in your business’ 
email bbforum@hallidays.co.uk to reserve your place.