Women In Finance And Accounting Need More Satisfaction

According to the latest Mergis Group Women in Finance survey, less than half (48%) of women in accounting and finance are satisfied with the progression of their careers and?nearly three-quarters (73%) of women in accounting and finance believe they face a dissimilar set of obstacles as opposed to their male counterparts.?Women in accounting and finance ranked being challenged (35%), compensation (27%) and flexibility (12%) as the most important factors to satisfaction in their career. However,?66% of women feel it?s a career choice that provides them with a nice balance between their personal and professional lives and more than half of women (61%) and men (55%) believe there is a need for greater promotion of accounting and finance as a career choice for women.?It is encouraging to the profession to note that both men and women are highly likely to recommend the profession to others,? said Patricia Dinunzio, regional managing director of The Mergis Group. ?But, that said, one of the greatest take-aways from this survey is that there is a clear need for accounting and finance mentorship programs. It is our responsibility to provide these resources to existing and future accounting and finance professionals to enable them to achieve their full career potential and contribute to the future development of the profession.?

Accounting especially has been seen as a great field for women.?The latest?available figures from 2010?show that women make up an increasing proportion of new entrants to the accountancy profession. Globally, women make up almost 50% of the accountancy trainee intake. Over half of members and students of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) are women now. This is a huge jump from?1970 when less than 10% of bachelor?s degrees?in accounting were awarded to females but by the mid-1980s, the share exceeded 50%. The big four accounting firms ?? Pricewaterhouse Coopers, KPMG, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and Ernst & Young ? are actually known for vying to create the most female friendly environments to keep women at their companies and they have been doing this for the?last decade.

As for other areas of finance, we know there are quite a few challenges for women but firms like Goldman Sachs are known for being female friendly. However, the intense nature of the finance industry is in itself tough for women who want to have families.?In the U.S., women account for only 2.7% of the chief executives in the financial industry, and 16.8% of the executive officers,?according to a study by Catalyst. The lack of women in leadership positions hurts the women coming up through the trenches that have no female mentor to look up to and aspire to be like. According to the Mergis Group study, half of the women and men surveyed claim greater mentoring programs would help in the industry.

Here are a few other interesting finds from the study:

• Relationship building and personal networking came in second according to 41% of women and 39% of men.
• 41% of men believe that developing management skills is a priority as compared to only 22% of women who do.
• Men in accounting and finance ranked compensation (35%), being challenged (29%) and flexibility (12%) as the most important factors to satisfaction in their career.

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Photo: Yuri Archurs/Shutterstock.com

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Source: http://thegrindstone.com/strategy/women-in-finance-and-accounting-need-more-satisfaction-575/

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