We often hear how among corporate law firms, there is a glass ceiling that women, for all their sacrifices, seem largely unable to penetrate. But is this the case in respect of major accounting firms?
In late December last year the AFR published an excellent article profiling accounting firm partnership statistics among females. The statistics show a worrying, but unsurprising preponderance of men in partnership ranks.
As reported in AFR 21/12/09:
While women account for at least half of graduates employed by top ten firms, that has dropped to around 30 per cent at senior management and 11 per cent in partnerships.
Deloitte had the highest number of women partners at 18.5 per cent, followed by PwC with 15.8 per cent and KPMG with 13 per cent.… Deloitte chief executive giam swiegers said that leadership came from the top down. He said the firm would continue to have its targets but would not be drawn on what they were.PwC chief executive Mark Johnson has set a goal that the firm reach 25 per cent women over the next five years. The firm has already raised the number of women partners 5 per cent in the last six years. “We do really well up to senior management grade – over 35 per cent of our directors are female. – but moving to partner is the challenge,” Mr Johnson said. “The reality is that we are losing some of our best people and we need to make sure we do better.”KPMG chief executive Geoff Wilson agreed that the step between senior manager to partner is where the problem lies. “I suspect that transition point is an important point for everyone in their careers. That is a point where people are making decisions about pursuing flexibility… What we’re keen to do is to look at more creative models to enable that flexibility to include the firm in the longer term.”Ernst & Young’s Australia CEO Gerard Dalbosco said the firm was not where it wanted to be but declined to provide numbers of women partners.
So there you have it. Females are vastly underrepresented, but the firms are committed to ‘doing something’ about it.
Do you have any bright ideas on how to foster partnership equilibrium?
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Perhaps if women are prepared to sacrifice the time away from family necessary to become partner that many men are then it will even up a bit?
This may be in case in the partnership but in the internal firm services at PwC the management is dominated by females where the CIO, head of Human Capital, Business Solutions buying, events, resourcing, the helpdesk, facilities, reception services, switchboard, and the legal group. these are all women in management, maybe this is the practices way of empowering our females?
Another perspective – why would any sane person (male or female) WANT to be a partner in one of these places? The hours and stress are terrible, you can bet your bottom dollar that your colleagues would eat their own children for more equity points, you no longer really need the money (unless you count your “need” for an upgrade to your place so that you can see a tiny bit more of the harbour from your balcony), and you gradually lose all ability to communicate with people in the real world. The only thing which keeps most people going in my view is greed – a famously male trait. Honestly, I couldn’t think of anything worse.
Good luck to the people (women or men) who have a little bit more perspective in their lives.
It is attitudes such as James that are part of the problem. Where I work, the females have stellar careers until they hit 30ish. They work harder, are more dedicated, show more leadership and are more outstanding than the males. They have the potential to be partners. The suddenly the quality of work they are given by the partners diminishes in quality. They are given the crap work that the males don’t want, work that has more administrative focus, less profit focused,less client focused. (There is a study that shows this is the case – so it is just not one firm). They are isolated, passed over for client opportunities and events and for promotions. No matter what they do and how impressive they are, they are excluded.
If they have kids, the treatment intensifies. The work diminishes. Their confidence and morale is destroyed. They look around and see that no other female has made it past their mid thirties. They leave and go somewhere else. They are career women – they do not just quit.
The consequence, no senior females that can be promoted to partner.
The reason? The predominantly male partnership see females as an problem, it is inconvenient for them to be on maternity leave, it is inconvenient for them to only want to work part time (despite the fact that they actually work harder). Oh and the paid maternity leave has to come out of the pocket of the partner they work for. What they fail to understand is that those females were their best asset.