BKS BANK AG - MAMFORCE

Industry Finance

Employees 996

BKS Bank AG – MAMFORCE standard in GROW category

BKS Bank, headquartered in Klagenfurt, Austria, employs around 1,100 people and operates banking and leasing operations in Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and Slovakia. The company has the MAMFORCE GROW Standard since 2018. They have gone through two MAMFORCE assessment cycles and have implemented many new measures that facilitate work-life balance and workplace equity.

Open positions

Industry Finance

Employees 996

Challenges

More efficient management performance
Better support of WorkLife balance for employees
Higher share of women in leading positions
Development of managerial competencies

By participating in the MAMFORCE evaluation, we detected more subtle biases that we were previously not fully aware of. Many more employees got actively involved in rethinking values and opportunities, and a positive impact on the organisational climate is already visible.

Juraj Pezelj,

Director

MAMFORCE Partnership

In close cooperation with the MAMFORCE team, the management of BKS Bank recognized the lack of female experts in their ranks. The data showed a systemic issue of unconscious bias, a significant barrier to employment and professional development of female employees. In response to the need for a systematic approach to gender equality, BKS Bank’s top management sponsored an unconscious bias training organized by the MAMFORCE team.

The Bank’s management has decided to strengthen its commitment to combating workplace bias by redesigning recruitment and promotion policies and procedures to make them gender sensitive. The Bank continues to monitor diversity indicators. Since the completion of the MAMFORCE assessment, the Bank has paid special attention to the development of women’s talent.

The bank began to organize an annual family day to introduce children to the professional life of their parents, and to become a family-friendly employer. As a result, the Bank is truly fulfilling its commitment to support working parents – for each newborn child, its employees receive maximum parental compensation and a gift, and during the school summer holidays, the Bank subsidizes summer camps and other activities for the employees’ children.

Results

The share of women managers increased from 16% to 30%

Women’s promotion rate increased from 0% to 50%

Support programs for working parents have been introduced

Financial support is assured for parents for with newborns

Employee experiences

Matea Ferenčić,

Credit risk management expert

I am just starting my first parental leave and it is a wonderful custom for me that BKS Bank presents all employees with newborns with a special gift. I started my career at BKS Bank as a student and from the very beginning I felt that the competencies and efforts I put into my work are enough, that is, that the ‘other side’ (manager, HR, directors) will recognize it and ‘do’ their part. – encourage me, advise me, understand my needs for additional education and adequately reward me. However, I myself was surprised when this summer, as a pregnant woman, I was offered a higher position, that is, when, as a young woman at the time of starting a family, I progressed within the department and the bank. I am now ready for new, private challenges to which I can fully dedicate myself, without fear for the future, knowing that with my return to the bank I will have the same job and the same conditions I am leaving.

Mirjana Padovan Banić,

Head of Branch – Business with Legal Entities

When I got a job at BKS Bank, almost 10 years ago, my son was 4 years old and my daughter was only 7 months old. With a baby and aware of all the risks associated with sick leave, etc., they gave me a chance in the competition for the position of advisor for corporate clients, and I got the job. The first years in BKS were a real ‘parallel slalom’ between the need and desire for business affirmation, but also the simultaneous need to spend as much time as possible, in those earliest years, with my children. Although I had great family support and good ‘logistics’, various flexible working time models that the bank offers to all employees, eg redistribution of working hours, creation of so-called ‘bank hours’ and the use of these hours depending on private needs, as well as the use of annual leave when children are on holidays or, for example, in the first week of school, and most of all a clear message I received that my parenting and harmonious and happy family life interest and my employer, helped me a lot in that.

Our impact

FIDUCIA

UNICREDIT GROUP

INTESA SANPAOLO GROUP

HBOR

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