Why has BNP Paribas implemented a mentoring program?

Several parts of BNP Paribas have set up a mentoring program to offer tailored support to our high-potential employees. Each career step—recruitment, development, change of job—works toward building the group's culture and we invest a lot in these steps. Thus, for a long time now, we have run a “Management Academy” where our managers can study for their professional development. With the launch of a range of mentoring programs, we have undertaken another step in professional development, since we can now offer high added value to those employees selected to take part. In addition to the professional skills and expertise acquired through studies and through doing the job, mentoring adds knowledge and understanding of the whole professional landscape. It allows the mentees to hone their understanding of the role of job position vis-à-vis others or simply to build self-confidence and a desire to improve. This personal growth, which the mentees experience through their relationship with their mentors, can be a determining factor at a key moment in their careers. For women, who are still too few in the group's senior management, I strongly believe that mentoring is highly effective, because, much more than men, women need to learn to express the full range of their capabilities and their ambitions.

What can we learn from this program, and what are the outcomes?

I believe I can say that all the women in the group who have experienced the mentoring program are enthusiastic about it in terms of what they have learned. Each one has responded to the programs in a different way, because that's the great advantage of mentoring—it allows the mentee to discuss any subject, any issue, and inspires them to act. The mentees win, the mentors win, and the company wins.

What would you like to see happen after this experience?

It's clear that we want to continue this program! One point is of particular importance however, and that is the pairing of mentor and mentee. The quality of the contribution to the mentoring relationship is in putting the right mentor with the right mentee and ensuring the right psychological balance between them. This is the job of HR. Furthermore, to be really effective, mentoring must exist at the senior levels in the company, which limits the numbers of those who can take part. I've personally had the pleasure of mentoring two young and brilliant women who belong to different business lines and come from different countries. In each case, the relationship was rich, but also highly demanding on both sides. In devoting two hours a month to each of them over a period of a year, I was able to notice a change in the way they responded and reacted to specific situations. With hindsight, I can say that their development was worth the time I invested in them. To give time, to give attention, to learn of the responses and experiences of others—what better way than to share things that have actually happened? In conclusion, I am convinced that to offer our high-potential talents this opportunity to exchange ideas, in a structured way and off the record, is something that is worth doing. I'm convinced that it can help them find their right paths more quickly, and therefore help them to grow and to move into our key jobs.

A Range of Measures

BNP Paribas' commitment to equality is evident in a range of measures, which include the signing of the United Nations' Women's Empowerment Principles in 2011, and the inclusion of equal opportunity in the group's career development principles.

Other BNP Paribas actions include the following: at the end of 2012, the signing of an agreement with the French Ministry of Women's Rights to share its experience of equality at work; an agreement to support its internal network of women managers, BNP Paribas MixCity (reviewed and extended in 2013); and the signing of the Parents' Charter at the end of 2008, and subsequent joining of the related monitoring watchdog in 2009.

Furthermore, the bank proactively supports coaching and mentoring in certain of its subsidiaries: Women in Leadership (Property Division), support for gender diversity (Leasing Solutions Division), and Women's Leadership Initiative (Corporate and Investment Banking Division), which is described later in this chapter.

To complement actions already undertaken, the banking group has also set up a Diversity Committee, and this monitors the Human Resource Department's recruitment and career development strategies and implementation. The committee also ensures that the group's diversity strategy is operationalized within each subsidiary throughout the world.

In addition, the group has expanded its internal and external public relations strategy in order to ensure that the diversity message is communicated, has participated in governmental initiatives (surveys, enquiries, Diversity and Equality audits undertaken in Luxembourg and Canada, etc.) and organized Diversity Days in New York and Paris, and a Diversity Week in London.

Impressive Results

The range of measures has reaped rewards. The 2009 goal of achieving 20 percent of women in senior management by the end of 2012 was exceeded by one percentage point, and reached 22 percent in September 2014. By the end of 2014, the group achieved 25 percent. It targets 30 percent for 2020.

Support from the Chief Executives

Training and awareness campaigns to fight discrimination and promote diversity continue: 9,000 employees had been trained by the end of 2013, 3,500 of whom were in France.

In order to continue the trend, the group pays particular attention to the percentage of women in succession plans: at the end of 2012, there were 29 percent of women in the succession plan “Global High Potential.”

The BNP Paribas MixCity network had 700 members at the end of 2013, a figure that is growing daily. In total, the group has 10 such networks around the world with 3,200 women who increasingly connect with each other. BNP Paribas MixCity offers professional and personal development sessions, which more than a thousand women have already followed. These sessions offer a range of topics: self-esteem, women and career positioning, life-work balance, and so on. A specific support program for women managers is also offered via individual and group coaching.

In 2013, three subsidiaries signed an agreement, or an additional clause to their existing agreement, on equality between men and women, making 16 agreements in total within the group in France. The fight to promote equal pay is manifested in a “catch-up” plan, which began in 2008, and, by 2010, almost 4,500 nonjustifiable pay differences had been corrected. Since then, the group has continued to correct any pay gaps and to prevent them occurring wherever possible.

For career development and promotions, new quantifiable goals for women's promotion at every level of the management hierarchy have been agreed upon. For example, in order to improve gender diversity for the key post of branch manager in the retail banking network, where women are still underrepresented, the group decided to increase the number of women in this post by six points between the beginning of 2013 and the end of 2015 (24 percent on December 31, 2012, to 30 percent on December 31, 2015).

Mentoring in Corporate and Institutional Banking

In 2012, Corporate and Institutional Banking (CIB), the investment banking division of BNP Paribas, launched a mentoring program named WLI (Women's Leadership Initiative). Its aim is to increase the presence of women in key posts throughout the bank. The pilot involved the mentoring of 28 of the bank's most talented women and was aimed at developing their careers in three ways:

1. Visibility: increasing women's visibility among the bank's directors in order to increase promotions
2. Opportunity: increasing the number of applications to posts of responsibility via mentoring
3. Ambition: developing awareness of stereotypes of women in terms of ambition

More than thirty of the most senior directors of CIB, including the chairman and chief executive, Alain Papiasse, became mentors in this program. Their involvement enabled the mentees to improve their positions in the bank, which facilitated career progression. The directors also provided leadership opportunities and opened their own networks in order to increase the mentees' visibility among other directors.

The pilot was rolled out in three phases.

1. Phase 1: the mentees each participated in a 360° leadership analysis and then met together in order to understand their roles and responsibilities in the program.
2. Phase 2: the mentor/mentee pairs met to agree on the terms of their contract and their method of working together, and to identify career progression opportunities.
3. Phase 3: the mentors and mentees took part in a workshop aimed at getting the best possible performances out of the women as leaders. This seminar aimed to develop awareness of how men and women manage, and a review of the methods by which women managers can give the best of themselves.

This program aims to see at least 25 percent of mentees benefit from career development over a period of three years by developing their leadership skills. In addition, it encourages the mentors to offer specific opportunities for career development to the women. More generally, the program will enable the bank to improve the mentors' and mentees' knowledge and to encourage the creation of actions aimed at promoting women. The Women's Initiatives Network, or WIN, has absolutely increased their confidence, enhanced their profiles, and frankly, improved their managers' understanding of their roles and potential. And then the network that they have developed means they're more likely to know whether there's a job opening in this spot or that spot. They're more likely to be able to call a woman who's in a group or in a job posting and connect with them in a self-help way. And then, of course, we have a mentoring program that's actually a year-long investment in their professional development.