Men rule and women perform in Romanian banks

The top management of major banks is dominated by men, but women form the majority of the middle management and overall personnel.

Most Romanians consider women stand fewer chances than men in their professional life or that they are incompatible with some professions, and looking at the Romanian banking system, these beliefs are evident.

Even though the human resources policies embraced by the major banks operating in Romania mainly aim to secure a balanced ratio between genders and are centred on the existence of equal opportunities for promotion and access to management positions, reality shows otherwise. Men are the ones holding the reigns in system.

Data released by the top nine banks in the banking sector (no data was available from Alpha Bank, the tenth leading player, on this topic), show men come to almost invariably hold executive positions.

Thus, with a single exception, the top management of the top nine Romanian banks is entirely or mostly made up of men.

It is only at Bancpost, the only one of the nine banks examined in this survey, where women have managed to adapt to management, filling six of the eleven executive positions.

“By their nature, banking activities require a greater power of concentration, meticulousness and attention to detail, namely qualities and abilities that are specific to women,” believes Felicia Lupu, head of the human resources department of Bancpost, where women make up the majority at all levels, accounting for 56% of middle managers and more than two thirds of the total number of employees.

Data related to bank personnel also show that the majority of middle management positions are held by women.

At the same time, the scale leans strongly in favour of women concerning the total number of employees.

“The bank”s human resources policy encourages the equality of employees” chances of being promoted on the basis of competence and professional achievements, with no discrimination along gender or age criteria,” says Corneliu Cojocaru, Banca Comerciala Romana spokesman. In the case of the biggest bank operating on the Romanian market, the proportion of women holding executive positions does not go beyond one fifth. Cojocaru then specifies that it is BCR”s demographic structure, which is dominated by a female population. This in turn is favourable to women wishing to fill executive positions. Within BCR, women account for almost three quarters of the total employees, as well as fill 62% of middle management positions. liviu.alexandrescu@zf.ro