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In our business lines, we are committed to creating a working environment where each individual is treated with dignity and respect here at Natixis. We seek to promote professional development for all our staff, and make sure that every voice is heard. We believe that differences, whether visible (age, gender, disability) or invisible (career path, background, sexual orientation) can be true drivers for fulfilment, innovation and performance.
Creating a working environment where staff can be themselves
Natixis is the leading bank in the ranking for gender balance in management bodies in the SBF 120, organized by the French Ministry of State for Gender Equality.
This is because Diversity and Inclusion are integral components of our corporate culture, which is based on the principles of community, open-mindedness and fairness.
We believe that companies that welcome diverse profiles – and are therefore representative of society as a whole – foster greater intelligence, wellbeing and performance.
Relentless efforts to achieve balanced gender representation
Gender equality in the workplace has been a key plank of our human resources policy for several years.
Natixis strives to ensure gender diversity across all its business lines and at all levels of management, in terms of both access to job opportunities and career development. We also pay close attention to wage equality, and specifically monitor compensation, with corrective actions taken to address any potential inequality in this area.
Our policy is built on both company-wide agreements negotiated with our social partners and ambitious programs that ensure extensive and consistent implementation of our policies across all our business locations.
Our company’s inclusion in external rankings, Ethic and Boards, Bloomberg index for gender equality, as well as the publication of gender equality indexes add to our in-house programs, and constantly drive us to progress on our initiatives.
Setting clear goals, taking strong action and developing precise performance measurements
Our ambitious gender equality in the workplace policy is based on three main priorities: diversity in business lines that are traditionally more dominated by one gender, female representation in top roles, and wage equality.
We believe that true progress can only be made when there are clear goals and when performances are monitored to assess progress. Our policy therefore includes quantitative commitments, which are monitored at the highest levels of the company as top management follows key performance indicators each quarter. These goals are also set out in our strategic plan.
Increase number of women in traditionally more male-dominated business lines
Each year we implement a raft of initiatives to showcase and promote our business lines with young women to challenge stereotypes and encourage them to consider a career in finance.
Not enough young women choose to study finance or go to engineering school – with numbers at less than 30% – so our female staff offer insight into their roles, take part in talks on campus or welcome students into their daily working lives during our open day events.
Offering insight into work in the finance industry
Almost fifty female university students took part in a job shadowing day with Mirova’ female staff in 2019, to take a look behind the scenes in the world of finance and gain a greater understanding of our business lines. Hear more from Soliane Varlet.
Similarly, where two candidates have the same skills, we are committed to promoting female candidates in businesses that have traditionally been more male-dominated.Turning this situation around requires action right from recruitment, so our recruiters put forward an equal number of female and male candidates in their shortlists.
Supporting women to take on senior roles
We believe that it is crucial to offer the same opportunities to every woman and man across all sectors of the economy and all levels of roles, and we have therefore rolled out a tailored action plan to increase the number of women in management positions:
- clear target figures are set and monitored across each business line;
- solid HR and recruitment processes are implemented on the basis of skills, not affinities;
- fully gender diverse career development programs are rolled out;
- succession plans should systematically include female profiles;
- a comprehensive parenthood policy is deployed to ensure that parenthood is not a career obstacle;
- steps are taken to promote flexible working hours for men and women.
We also launched the Women’s sponsorship program in 2020 to provide our most talented executive female staff members with sponsorship from our senior managers over the period of a year, thereby enhancing their visibility and actively supporting their access to career opportunities.
We have also provided coaching programs for our female staff for over ten years, such as the Female Career Advancement initiative (Réussir sa carrière au féminin), which each year offers women across Groupe BPCE the opportunity to develop their leadership skills and assert their career goals.
“We have made extensive progress over recent years as a result of our determined commitment. There were no women on the senior management committee five years ago, but 30% of the committee is now comprised of women, who hold strategic roles i.e. finance, technology & transformation, human resources and corporate culture. We must press forward with our efforts together to ensure we increase the number of women in our leadership circles, as set out in our strategic plan” states Cécile Tricon Bossard, Chief Human Resources.
Ensuring wage equality
We believe that men and women in the same role and with the same skills should be treated equally in terms of compensation.
We have therefore implemented an active compensation policy over the past almost ten years, with the aim of:
- ensuring fair treatment in wage increases and promotions;
- offsetting the impact of maternity leave on women’s compensation development – both fixed and variable components;
- reducing existing wage gaps by devoting an average budget of €1 million each year to closing these differences i.e. more than €10 million since 2012, benefiting 5,400 women.
We recently also developed indicators to ensure that we do not replicate existing market inequalities during the recruitment process and ensure that men and women are treated equally.
Challenging stereotypes is a matter for all
Promoting diversity and inclusion also involves training and raising awareness among all our staff, so we have increased our initiatives – campaigns, e-learning, conferences, tailored training courses – in all our business lines to make a real impact with our staff and encourage progress for change in this respect across the entire company.
In March 2020, following on from our partnership with UN Women France and its work to combat violence against women and gender stereotypes, we launched a vast prevention campaign to counter sexual harassment and sexist behavior.
The aim of this program was to encourage open and constructive discussion with our staff on this society-wide issue, provide information and break the taboos, while also offering a reminder of Natixis’ zero tolerance approach to sexism, as outlined in our code of conduct. Beyond our code of conduct that is distributed to all staff, we have also set up a program to prevent, alert and address any situations of harassment: disciplinary action to tackle this issue can go as far as dismissal.
A real place for women in the financial sector. Hear from Aurélie, Fixed Income Trader and Anouk, Equity Risk Manager.
View portraits of 18 other talented womens
WINN (Women in Natixis network)
WINN is a forum for all our staff to explore the theme of gender diversity and overall diversity more broadly speaking: the group opened up to men in 2020, promoting joint action to promote a more equal world. The network was set up in 2012 under the sponsorship of Laurent Mignon, CEO of Groupe BPCE and is now supported by the senior management committee. The group makes a decisive contribution to women’s career development, challenging gender stereotypes and more broadly speaking promoting women’s role in the company. It has more than 1,000 members worldwide and draws on several local branches in our international platforms that organize a wide range of initiatives.
Our pledges and accreditations
We signed the Diversity charter as early as 2009.
In 2019, we signed the United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles, promoting greater gender equality in the workplace, the market and the community.
We also supported the development of an investment fund promoting gender equality by our subsidiary Mirova, as well as the call for equality launched by the Marie-Claire Think Tank “Act for Equality” (page in French only) in June, where we outlined several commitments to promote greater diversity in the business world.
We are also proud to feature in the Bloomberg gender-equality index for the first time in 2020. Companies in the index stand out via their initiatives to support gender equality, as well as their transparency as they each pledge to disclose data on workplace equality in their businesses.
