Over Half of Female CU Professionals Experience Gender Bias: GWLN Report

Fifty-one percent of female credit union employees who are also members of the Global Women’s Leadership Network (GWLN) said they have experienced gender bias at work, and that the biggest factor holding them back from accessing leadership positions is “lack of confidence to advocate for themselves,” according to a new GWLN “pink paper” based primarily on a 2021 survey of GWLN members.

GWLN, an initiative of the World Council of Credit Unions’ charitable arm, the Worldwide Foundation for Credit Unions, released “We for She: Advancing Women’s Leadership in Credit Unions” Monday, providing a snapshot of the barriers to success women face in credit unions worldwide as well as career advancement advice for credit unions and female credit union professionals.

The report, which was developed in conjunction with the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based CUSO PSCU, revealed over 60% of the 202 total respondents named a “lack of confidence to advocate for themselves” as a major reason why they are held back from accessing leadership positions, followed by “being held to higher standards” (over 40%), “family responsibilities” (about 38%) and “fewer connections and networks” (about 30%).

“It was astounding to hear similar challenges that women seeking to advance in leadership still face today. We must first take action for ourselves as individuals, and then for other women,” Lena Giakoumopoulos, GWLN program director and one of the report’s authors, stated in a news release.

According to a 2019 global statistical report from WOCCU, Europe has the highest mean percent of female credit union CEOs (60%), followed by North America (40%) and Asia (25%). The Oceania region has the lowest mean percentage of female credit union CEOs (16%); however, that region in fact reported the highest mean percentage of female credit union board members (45%). This was followed by Europe, Asia and North America, with mean female credit union board member percentages of 43%, 36% and 34%, respectively.

When asked about the types of bias experienced in the workplace, 51% of respondents said they’d experienced gender bias and 36% faced age-related bias. Types of bias experienced less often included pregnancy/maternity-related bias (17%), socio-economic status-related bias (14%), race/ethnicity-related bias (12%) and sexual orientation-related bias (5%).

The report, which was also based on interviews with 20 GWLN women credit union leaders, executives, CEOs and board members worldwide, offered recommendations for addressing what it identified as five key issues facing female credit union professionals: Promoting women’s leadership, confronting explicit and implicit gender bias, supporting work/life balance, increasing women’s confidence and self-esteem, and confronting racial injustice and harassment.

Recommendations for credit unions included:

• Offering “leader connectedness sessions” to build networking opportunities between senior executives and managerial staff that enable women to understand pathways to leadership, and offering growth assignments to help women gain more skills and experience.
• Intentionally setting human resource strategies that specifically prioritize diversity and women’s advancement, and featuring the achievements of women and other diverse leaders in onboarding trainings, annual meetings and outreach events.
• Creating sessions and services that promote well-being, and investing in flexible and remote work arrangements.
• Destigmatizing mental health, and organizing self-esteem-building activities such as counseling, mindfulness meditation, yoga and martial arts.
• Building and promoting a culture that embraces diversity, equity and inclusion, including promoting people of diverse backgrounds to leadership positions.

Recommendations for female credit union professionals included:

• Building and utilizing strong professional networks, and setting up a personal board of advisors to receive feedback and support.
• Creating a personal strategic plan for career growth, mapping out specific steps to reach goals and evaluating their performance regularly.
• Challenging assumptions about gender and leadership that may have been formed early in life, such as that men are more “natural” leaders.
• Advocating for themselves first, then advocating for other women.
• Setting and maintaining work/life boundaries.
• Identifying challenging activities outside of work that can translate to bringing confidence back to the workplace, and exploring services such as therapy and spiritual counseling.
• Educating themselves about racism, white privilege and sexual/racialized trauma, and making a personal commitment to speak up and act against injustice.

The full report can be accessed here.