Kaine Adamson, P&N Group General Manager Broker believes it’s time for leaders in the mortgage and finance industry to treat the issue of female broker retention with more urgency, and work collaboratively to build a more inclusive and diverse industry to ensure it remains relevant to the diverse customers it serves.
Acknowledging women and men have different experiences in the industry, breaking down the barriers for women and re-evaluating what the mortgage and finance industry celebrates as success, are just some of the things Kaine believes will help make the industry more inclusive to women and other diverse groups.
“Inclusion is all about breaking down barriers and I think sometimes acknowledging that those barriers exist can be the biggest hurdle of all,” he said.
“As leaders we have one of the most important roles, we need to have the courage to speak up, we need to role model the types of behaviours we want to see in our industry, we need to speak out about discrimination and bias, and be mature enough to acknowledge the fact that we all have biases.”
Kaine believes the industry tends to put a lot of emphasis on loan volumes and profitability as the ultimate measures of success, and there’s a need to expand the definition of success to include other indicators that are equally important.
“Factors like flexible working conditions, the ability to run your own business, and the nature of the work can be just as important, particularly for women,” he said.
“At the end of the day profitability is important for any business, but we need to start valuing the diverse needs and priorities of everyone in our industry, regardless of gender.”
A fall off a ladder and a broken coccyx altered Kaine’s career path from the defence force into banking 24 years ago, but he says he wouldn’t have it any other way and really enjoys the role that finance plays in changing people’s lives. But he says staying relevant to the evolving and changing needs of a diverse customer base will be a challenge for the mortgage and finance industry if it fails to retain a diverse mix of brokers.
“For any industry to remain relevant, it has to represent the customers it serves,” he said.
“With female broker participation sitting at just over 25%, we can and we need to do better at creating a more diverse, equitable and inclusive industry that meets the expectations of our customers.”
As a father of a nine-month-old daughter, Kaine says it’s also his imperative to create an industry where his daughter has the same opportunities as everyone else. And given the data shows that female brokers are coming into the industry in higher numbers but not being retained at the same rate as men, this should be a concern to everyone.
He says male leaders in this industry can no longer ignore the facts and he encourages them to take a more active role in being part of the solution.
“I’ve worked in this industry for 24 years and I can appreciate that I undoubtedly have benefited from a society and industry that doesn't have the same barriers for men as there are for marginalised groups,” he said.
“It would be unthinkable for any business leader to sit there and think that discrimination, sexual harassment, or bullying were tolerated and not do something about it.
“I want to make sure I am actively removing those barriers and championing change not just for my daughter, but also for the other females that I work with in the industry.”
He says removing barriers for greater diversity and inclusion within the mortgage and finance industry should start with leaders looking internally to understand what their organisational culture looks like. And, in an industry that values data, Kaine says looking at the data on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is the starting point.
At P&N Group that started in 2018 when the organisation took a deep dive into the data on the representation and experiences of diversity across its employees.
“We knew that if we wanted to build a workforce that was more reflective of our diverse customers, we needed to make our workplace more inclusive and equitable in order to organically attract and retain diverse talent,” he said.
“The data we collected showed the employee experience varied across different groups, with women experiencing the largest gaps in perceptions of flexible work, career development, and pay.
“As a business, we realised we needed more representation and equitable access to opportunities for everyone We’ve since started that journey and begun having conversations with our people and leaders to tear down the barriers that create those perceptions, make changes, and shift things in the right direction.”
That has included embedding DEI as a central pillar of everything that P&N Group does, identifying key priority areas, such as gender equity, cultural diversity and LGBTIQA+. The organisation’s focus for gender equity includes analysing equity and bias in processes and systems for career progression, recruitment processes and systems, pay, and parental leave, such as encouraging more men to take paid parental leave to helps break gender stereotypes around caring. Kaine is himself heading off for three months paid parental leave in June.
In addition to its internal focus, P&N Group is also supporting initiatives that break down gender inequality in the housing industry by participating in the Federal Government’s Family Home Guarantee Scheme, which is helping more single parents, especially females, get into home ownership.
P&N Group’s CEO, Andrew Hadley is also a member of the CEOs for Gender Equity, a collective group of leaders who are committed to addressing gender inequity by making meaningful changes in their businesses and removing systemic barriers that hinder gender balance.
“I don’t think we will achieve greater diversity without challenging ourselves to do better. It’s not enough just to talk about DEI issues,” Kaine said.
“We need to take an active role in supporting, sponsoring and implementing DEI initiatives within our organisation and the industry as a whole. When leaders take an active role, it sends a powerful message to their employees as well as their wider network.”
Kaine adds that solving for greater diversity and inclusion in the mortgage and finance industry requires a collaborative industry-wide approach in partnership with government. He supports the suggestions that the Mortgage and Finance Industry of Australia (MFAA) made in their submission to the Federal Government’s Economic Whitepaper about investing in female broking businesses, incentivising recruitment sponsored pathways and forming a partnership with government to increase female participation in the broking industry.
“When government and industry work together on initiatives like this, it can lead to better outcomes for the economy,” he said.
“Ensuring brokers are included in the various housing schemes will help to increase the number of people who can benefit, particularly those who may have been excluded in the past due to their socio-economic status or those living in regional areas.
His one wish for the industry on creating greater diversity and inclusion is for male leaders to make a much more conscious effort to close the gap in perceptions and experiences of male and female brokers.
“Education is key and I’d like to see more business leaders understand what true inclusion means and make this part of everyday business, rather than something that tends to be talked about one day a year,” he added.
Finally, what is Kaine’s advice to his younger self?
“Focus on achieving a better work life balance. The one thing you can’t buy is time, and it goes by way too fast. My daughter is already nine months old and teething, and those are the years I don’t want to miss,” he concluded.
Champions of Diversity is brought to you by Teachers Mutual Bank Ltd and is part of MFAA's Opportunities for Women initiative. Find out more about the initiative and read the 2022 report.
