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Revealed: females make up less than 10 per cent of top 100's equity partner ranks

Professional service firms generally (accountants and actuaries as well as law firms) have always rewarded the traditional ambitious-male model of working insanely long hours and bringing in insane amounts of money. Some women also choose to do this, whether or not they have a family, although from my observation, the majority who do, do not have any caring responsibilities (sorry about the generalisation and, yes, I am a woman who balanced working full time with rearing a family and I made it to FEP). Unless professional service firms grasp the nettle of working out how people who don't follow the traditional model (both men and women) can be rewarded with equity status (if they want it) because they bring something other than shed loads of money to the party, nothing will change. In my view, it's an issue that is not restricted to women, although it's a more obvious problem for women. There's no reason why the "something other than money" criteria shouldn't be as tough and challenging as something that often ends up with a wrecked marriage, estranged children and non-existent social life. I doubt it will happen, to be honest. SMART objectives are easy to apply to tangibles like billable hours and winning new clients. They are almost impossible to apply to intangibles.

25-Oct-2012

12:58 pm