With this month featuring International Women’s Day – Accord Mortgages’ managing director, Jeremy Duncombe, takes the opportunity to reflect on how far we’ve come on gender diversity in the workplace, and what men can do to support female colleagues.
I certainly don’t claim to speak on behalf of women. However, having had many conversations with female contacts and colleagues during the course of my career about their own journeys, and as a sponsor of the women’s network at Yorkshire Building Society (Accord Mortgages’ parent company), it’s clear that challenges remain for them when looking to climb the career ladder, and that’s why it’s so important to continue to talk about it, take action and be an ally.
Whether it’s dual standards, misconceptions, lazy stereotypes or assumptions, we need to be using every opportunity to ensure equality and create equity.
There’s no doubt there has been progress in this area over time – and it’s certainly true that, when I started out in my career, there was a long way to go. For example, there were perceived ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles – with senior managers almost exclusively male, and administrative and junior positions mainly held by women. In fact, the interview for my first role was mainly a conversation about sport, and I saw examples of women not being given promotions because they had just got married and were ‘bound to be off having children soon’.
Sexism was blatant, and diversity was not a topic that received much airtime.
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Whether it’s dual standards, misconceptions, lazy stereotypes or assumptions, we need to be using every opportunity to ensure equality and create equity.
Positive change
I’m pleased to say that I now work in a much more balanced professional environment, with more female senior leaders, better recruitment and promotion practices, and, as an industry, we’re less tolerant (but unfortunately still not intolerant) towards bias and poor behaviour. As a society, we have much better awareness and education, and there’s some great work going on. For example, within the intermediary mortgage market led by the Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association (IMLA) and the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI), we are supporting mentoring, attracting diverse talent into our sector and championing diversity.
Their website ‘Working in Mortgages – Shaping the Future’ is a great example of collaboration to improve representation, and we’re definitely seeing more women in senior roles within lenders and distributors.
At Accord Mortgages, our broker-facing sales team is now over 60% female – a huge change from when I started with my first lender, where our sales team was over 90% male.
We’ve also made some great progress in terms of supporting colleagues with flexible working at all levels, which has no doubt helped women with their career progression. Having recently moved to a more flexible working pattern myself, I’ve been delighted that so many people have spoken to me about the positive message it sends, but interestingly, also how many people have said they’re surprised that a man would choose to work part-time, especially in a senior position. I hope my personal example opens the debate around the wider topic of gender stereotypes.
However, statistics are only part of the story, and I could not confidently say that we’ve arrived at the ‘end state’ most people would like to see. There are still too many examples of behaviour which is not acceptable in our industry, which is why, in 2022, Accord launched an industry first – The Inclusion and Diversity Partnership Charter – which aims to give a safe environment for brokers and industry colleagues to call out unacceptable behaviour.
…statistics are only part of the story, and I could not confidently say that we’ve arrived at the ‘end state’ most people would like to see. There are still too many examples of behaviour which is not acceptable in our industry.
Providing support
This is a subject that is very close to my heart. Talking about it is so important – but it’s also about actually doing something about it. For me, this meant taking on my role as sponsor of the women’s network to support and champion diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I).
Here, I support and escalate topics discussed, raising awareness where needed to help secure change. The network has provided a voice for colleagues which I’m able to amplify, and I have personally learned so much – which I hope makes me a more rounded leader, with a better understanding and ability to support.
This is very important to me for a number of reasons, including the fact that many women have influenced me over the course of my career. For example, my first manager as a mortgage broker really had an impact. She balanced supporting and driving my performance with a real focus on organisation and detail, with a great sense of humour.
I realised that to be successful you needed to balance many traits, not just the enthusiasm and energy that goes with a sales role. I bumped into her almost 25 years later and was able to tell her about the role she’d played. My daughter always inspires me too. She always has, as she’s overcome her own challenges in her teens to have a great career and family life today. She’s always been the one I like to think I’m doing this all for.
Sponsoring a women’s network may not be an option for everyone, but there are lots of other things male colleagues can do to support women. Whether it’s mentoring or reverse mentoring, calling out poor behaviours or practices, championing talented individuals or ensuring that recruitment doesn’t have unintentional bias or barriers; we can all make a difference.
As we look forward, the ideal is that we get to a place where this is no longer a conversation we need to have – and I hope this happens for my grandson’s generation.
The future
As we look forward, the ideal is that we get to a place where this is no longer a conversation we need to have – and I hope this happens for my grandson’s generation.
However, the reality, for now at least, is that, whilst we have made progress, there is still a long way to go. And worryingly, events in America and other parts of Europe mean that there is concern that some countries may even be going backwards – which is why it’s so important that we continue talking about this, and supporting wherever we can.
I’m proud that Yorkshire Building Society has re-affirmed our commitment to DE&I in the workplace and I’m confident we’ll see positive change continue.
As a wider society, we need to use every opportunity to ensure equality – as well as promote equity of opportunity – for future generations.
