Diversity: a growing commitment at BNP Paribas

Keeping a close watch over diversity issues 

In 2010, the Observatoire des métiers de la banque (Observatory of Banking Professions) published a report entitled "Diversity and Recruiting in Banking".  The study aimed to respond to several challenges that banks have and continue to face: 

1. Rising tensions, whose effects had already begun to emerge on the job market for banking-administration-finance graduates 
2. The need to restore a balanced age distribution throughout the profession
3. And the importance of hiring more people with disabilities (regulations in France require at least 6%)

The Observatory’s first study also included a list of actions taken to achieve this objective. These efforts fall into one of two categories: 

1. Nationwide programs, often initiated by the French government, such as the "Plan Espoir Banlieues" (Hope for Urban Neighborhoods Plan), which led the French Banking Federation to sign a national commitment to employing young people from these neighborhoods, or "Coup de pouce pour l’insertion” (Helping Hand for Integration), which facilitates employment for young people from disadvantaged urban areas and with little or no education.
2. Specific actions within the banking profession, particularly including training programs to enable job seekers or young people lacking qualifications to access banking professions, or actions in favor of integrating people with disabilities (like the operations led together with InserFormabanques, operations carried out through “DU Passerelle", the HandiFormaBanques initiative, etc.).

The report concludes that “operations are numerous, diverse, innovative and voluntary”, underlining the “concerted policies that receive substantial resources”. 

BNP Paribas leading the way since 2004

Within the BNP Paribas group, discrimination is a key issue that the bank has long taken into account: 

1. In 2004, BNP Paribas signed and enacted a Diversity Charter
2. Since 2006, risk of discrimination was included in the 30 major operational risks facing the Group

Over the years, the Group’s diversity policy has been steadily reinforced through several company agreements. For example, the Group signed a disability agreement in 2012 (renewed in 2015 and signed unanimously), a Generation contract and a Diversity agreement in 2013 (both renewed in 2016). At the same time, BNP Paribas obtained a Diversity Label in 2012, attesting to its adoption of best practices and reflecting the Group’s commitments. 

Finally, the Group has put in place: 

1. Diversity training to enhance employee awareness  
2. Measures to improve workplace equality between women and men 
3. And a Disability policy to promote recruiting and professional adaptation, via the Disability Unit 

In June 2016 BNP Paribas, ever the pioneer, became the first French bank to sign the ILO Global Business and Disability Network’s charter on disability inclusion. This global commitment to disability inclusion reaffirms the Group’s own pledge: in over 20 countries where it operates, BNP Paribas has signed agreements or taken measures to facilitate the hiring and retention of people with disabilities.

Recognized commitment from the banking world

In 2015, the Observatory of Banking Professions put together a second version of the study,  focusing on the following:

1. Recording the practices put in place to promote diversity in recruiting
2. Analyzing how these practices were implemented, and what difficulties they may have encountered, in order to share feedback and experience
3. Identifying the support methods used by banks to help job seekers enter the job market

The new edition not only revealed a significant evolution in practices and actions, diversity having become a reality in the banking world. It also showed the active commitment by banks towards three different groups: people with disabilities, young people and seniors.