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Women in Business
produced a report recently for Chancellor George Osborne, that found while more women than men start out in the City’s financial services sector, “as they progress, the majority fall out, especially at middle management level. This leaves almost all of the top jobs in the hands of men”.
The Empowering Productivity – Harnessing the talents of women in financial services report made recommendations about fairness, equality and inclusion for men and women, noting that “achieving a balanced workforce at all levels in financial services will undoubtedly improve culture, behaviour, outcomes, profitability and productivity”.
Childcare top topic
Morgan shared that report earlier this year with a few local female contacts, all in senior positions. “All the conversation went back to childcare – the availability – and flexible working”, she says. Now some 20 women have asked to take part in further discussions and having more meaningful data in Gibraltar has been identified as a necessity.
Gibraltar’s Minister for Equality, 39 year old Samantha Sacramento recognises the information shortfall, proclaiming: “We are looking statistically in government to see where the gaps are in the workplace – gender pay gaps and pay differentials – on a sector by sector basis, and at new ways to collect data, so that it is more obvious.
“At the moment the focus is on the gender pay gap... and about women in leadership, because they are in a minority when compared with men”, she maintains.
Sacramento enthuses: “We need to
Don’t single out women, argues chief scientist Dr Liesl Mesillo Torres
When those women return to work “they want part time or flexi working hours and our clients generally are very reluctant to offer that.
“I believe employers should offer more flexibility of working times, because it is becoming the norm the world over, and potentially women bring more skills into the workplace,” Kinlay notes.
Beta Service Recruitment was founded five years ago by 32 year old Kathleen Victory when her son was a year old. She previously worked for another recruitment firm, in company management and as a Royal Gibraltar Police Force constable (where she passed the Sergeants exam with the 2nd highest grade from six mostly male successful candidates).
No special treatment
She points out that “some smaller firms do offer flexibility of hours to help with child- care, because they don’t want to lose a good employee, but when [applicants] come from abroad, that’s the thing, they struggle, because they must put their children in a nursery, which can be quite costly, so they need to get a job that pays enough.”
However, Victory believes women should not expect special treatment and achieve their goals regardless of their sex by working hard. “You don't ask for equality, it is already there if you prove you are worth it,” Victory declares.
Dr Liesl Mesilio Torres has three daughters aged 5 to 11 years, and was surprised after interest focused on her gender rather than as a chief scientist when three years ago she became the first female to fill in as acting chief secretary in the Civil Service.
The 38 year old Environment Department chief executive is adamant: “We should focus on a Network of Professionals
and not have either gender single themselves out. Singling out women means you are almost being positively discriminating of the male sex”, she maintains.
Minister Sacramento, having worked in Cardiff for two years as a barrister and advi- sor on policy at what is now the Equality and Human Rights Commission, attended a Gibraltar law firm interview that “ended up with asking me if I had a boyfriend and I said ‘what does that matter’. And then I went off on one: I couldn’t see how it was relevant to the job... questions like that are a no-no in an interview”.
Raising awareness first
Sacramento, who is unmarried, sees the next generation as being key to changing attitudes towards women in employment. Her mes- sage to school 6th formers: “You need to work hard to achieve what you want and it’s about not letting anybody get in the way, because you are a woman – you don’t want family saying ‘you don’t want to do this or that’, because you are a woman.”
The Minister’s empowerment strategy hopes to raise awareness of people’s rights under the employment and equal opportunities laws. “The legislation is there, the protection is there, against discrimination on grounds of your gender; the only part of the legislation that protects a woman is [in respect of] maternity and specifically relates to entitlements,” she affirms.
Women statutorily receive £87.64 per week whilst on maternity leave for 14 weeks (plus a one off grant of £600) with up to 18 weeks leave, the balance of 29 weeks being unpaid, unless employers make up the difference: in the UK, it’s £139.58 for 39 weeks.
Female civil servants are entitled to six months maternity leave on full pay and another six months without pay, a practice that some private sector firms replicate.
Last year Desiree McHard, managing partner at BDO Gibraltar accountancy network, became the first female president of the Gibraltar Society of Accountants where more than a third of the 350 members are women.
BDO has introduced “more flexible working hours [for women] and in respect of maternity pay, basically top-up the statutory government minimum payment”, she states.
Married with three school age children McHard has achieved a work-life balance, but adds: “I suspect that there are others in the
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Prove you are engage the private sector and hope to have
worth it: tangible information by the Employment
Kathleen Victory, Beta Service Recruitment earlier.”
survey in 2018” and possibly, some details
Deborah Kinlay has worked in recruitment for 20 years, almost half that time as a director for Quad Consultancy in Gibraltar. She reports: “The attitude towards women, particularly in the gaming sector where we specialise, is positive and most of our applicants are international from all over Europe – men and women – and it’s a case of whoever is
best qualified gets the job.” However, there are more male applicants, particularly at senior levels, because she believes, they come from an already male-dominated pool, or where women are having families.
16 Gibraltar International
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