Is the glass ceiling breaking?

“I’ve always been treated fairly and I’ve never been discriminated against for being a woman. It’s very equal,” says a Toronto-based woman banker at Laurentian Bank of Canada (63% of the Laurentian bankers surveyed were women).

According to 1999 statistics from the Canadian Bankers Association (the most recent to date), 72.8% of all Canadian bank employees were women. That percentage has dropped since the first employment equity statistics in 1987, which showed 76.9% of all bank employees were women.

“You’re seeing about 80% women at teller levels. I know banks are trying to change that,” says Barbara Annis, president of Barbara Annis & Associates Inc., a Toronto-based gender and leadership consulting firm. “Those women who are tellers aren’t orientated to pursue positions such as CEO; it’s the women coming out of university today who are. However, there is so much window dressing that once women are in, they realize that things have not changed that much and they are disappointed.”

An Ottawa-based Bank of Nova Scotia employee agrees that things haven’t changed much. “They are still doing a whole lot to push women back,” she says. In IE’s 2001 survey of bankers, half of the Scotia bankers were women.

But not every banker agrees time has stood still.

One Toronto-area banker who has been with Bank of Montreal for several years says, “What really counts is performance. While there are more men in the professional ranks, I think the relevant factor is that there are more women coming in.” About 55% of BMO bankers surveyed were women.

The Toronto-area BMO employee also spoke highly of the leeway the bank gives her to attend to family obligations. “I have two children and I have had a great deal of flexibility — for instance, starting times that range from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.”

Many bankers polled believe that difficulties are no longer experienced just by women.

Time for families

“For men, it may be more challenging to take advantage of flexible schedules, paternity leave and opportunities to attend to family obligations, although a male banker I know took paternity leave for six months. The bottom line is the bank has policies and they’re available to both men and women,” the Toronto-area BMO banker says.

Sensitivity to gender differences means understanding where the other person is coming from, says Annis: “To appreciate differences, you must first recognize that there are differences and work from there.”

One woman who knows first-hand the challenges women in banking face is Linda Crompton. As former president and CEO for five years at Citizen’s Bank of Canada, and the first woman to hold such a role in Canadian banking history, Vancouver-based Crompton says that while the industry may still be male-dominated, it is changing.

“There’s considerable evidence to suggest a gap in areas such as equal compensation,” she says. “But you have to give credit to the big banks, which are making a consistent effort to close that gap.”

Working toward effective teamwork, motivating people and listening to employees are key strategies in creating a supportive environment, she says.

“Hopefully, one of the legacies I’ve left is having paved the way for a new way in how we perceive leadership — looking toward a more holistic and humanistic model,” says Crompton.

Though it may be slow, it seems the times are changing. This appears to be reflected in statistics and statements from bank employees, both male and female. Change can happen with just one person, Crompton says. “Ethics and morals have to be put on the table because that’s just as important as return to shareholders,” she says.

On a different level, men and women working together may sometimes not know what is socially correct behaviour. Annis says there is a difference in the way the two genders communicate. Men and women must understand how the other interprets verbal and physical signals.

“For men my suggestion is not to make any assumptions. Treat co- workers like clients,” she says. Women should learn to have “straight” conversations with men — frame expectations and focus on action-orientated discussion. IE