Time for merchants to diversify  

The BMF’s Intelligent Employment Plus service provider, Halborns, outlines simple steps to encourage greater gender diversity in the workforce.  
25 July 2018

The merchant industry offers an array of dynamic and exciting career paths to explore. It has opportunities for a diverse range of skills, experience and knowledge to flourish. However, as a sector we are still struggling to shrug off the ‘macho’ image and the preconceptions and stereotypes that undoubtedly come along with it. It isn’t an entirely unfair label; the sector is represented by roughly 85% men, which is a figure mirrored within the uptake of apprentices on the BMF scheme.  

While not flattering, such figures should represent an opportunity, not a hindrance. With the BMF looking to double the number of women entering the sector by 2020, this is an opportunity to open up a positive and transparent dialogue, internally and externally, to drive proactive initiatives and break down existing barriers to encourage more women into the sector.  

With women representing just under half of the available labour force in the UK, and a well documented skills shortage within the merchant sector, fishing in the same pools is leaving a vast amount of promising talent largely untouched. A diverse workforce is more innovative, creative and effective because it draws on experience from different backgrounds instead of reiterating the same ideas because ‘that’s how it has always been done’.  

So what steps can you take to attract, retain and develop female talent within your business?  

Champion your female role models. Whether a director, branch manager, sales team, it doesn’t matter. What counts is celebrating and encouraging positive female role models to demonstrate success and longevity within the business, so emerging female talent is exposed to the opportunities available to them to develop their career.  How about a mentoring initiative utilising your current female stars? Partner your new female recruits with strong and experienced female members of your team who can offer advice and guidance throughout their journey, and nurture them through new and exciting opportunities to develop within your business.  

Embrace flexible working. Caveat; flexible working doesn’t just apply to women or working mums. However, with women less likely to take up a role if it doesn’t fit with their childcare arrangements, embracing flexibility could be a valuable tool to attract talented and skilled females into your business. Variable start/finish times, flexitime, compressed hours, working from home, are all various ways in which you can shun the traditional 9-5 rigidity. Offering flexible working is an enticing proposition that portrays a modern employer brand, and helps attract, engage, motivate and retain talented individuals. Instead of asking ‘why?’, start asking yourself ‘why not?’.  

Gender doesn’t define a job role. Consciously, or unconsciously, job roles have a habit of attracting a gender label. ‘Men can do that because they’re stronger, women can do that because they’re more organised’, I’m sure we’ve all come across similar attitudes at one time or another. But to remove such attitudes requires a business wide culture shift, from the top down and across all aspects of your operation. Strive to have the right people in the right roles, and centre your focus on enabling employees to do a great job for your customers and your business, irrespective of gender.  

The task of attracting and retaining female talent within the sector is undoubtedly much wider than these suggestions, but they demonstrate a few steps to take to narrow the glaring disparity between women and men as they are currently represented. Open and honest conversations need to be had, and will no doubt require a degree of introspection, however the more businesses can share their experiences and struggles, and also shout about their success, the easier it will be to take positive action.   

Taking positive action is also likely to result in a more equitable working environment. Sectors with a tradition of gender disparity are more likely to find themselves defending sex discrimination and sexual harassment claims, which are often highly sensitive and difficult claims to navigate your way through. As such, the need for flexible and proactive legal advice from the outset is imperative. The BMF Intelligent Employment Plus service does just that.  It provides unlimited, fixed cost general employment advice from two commercially minded employment lawyers, who are experts at working within your sector. You also get access to Halborn’s bank of our up-to-date, contemporary and commercially robust employment law documents to support you throughout the employment journey.    

This article was supplied by Charles McHugh of Halborns, the employment lawyers supplying the BMF Intelligent Employment Plus service. For further details of any of the issues discussed in this article or the BMF Intelligent Employment Plus service please contact Halborns at [email protected] or call 0115 718 0333.  


This article featured in the Business Helpdesk in the July 2018 edition of BMJ.