In December 2008, the Group’s Human resources department renewed its Gender Equality agreement. The latest achievements were presented to a monitoring commission in February. “We implement action in all areas that can boost gender equality in the workplace: recruitment, training, part-time work and mobility”, says Françoise Renard, Deputy Head of Social Affairs. "Pay and returning to work after maternity leave are the two areas where we find the greatest expectations from female employees and where need to maintain our efforts.” In the first of these two areas, this year the Group is continuing its programme to diminish unjustified pay discrepancies between men and women via a one million euro budget. Regarding career management, systematic interviews have been instigated before and after maternity leave to pre-empt mothers’ return to work.

60% of the Group’s workforce consists of women, but they only represent 41% of senior management positions. To adjust this discrepancy, Societe Generale pays particular attention to criteria that promote gender equality, and encourages (without relying on quotas) the detection of talented female staff. One example of the efforts made by the Group to create a pool of female executives is the presentation and promotion of the bank’s businesses and professions by female Societe Generale employees at engineering schools, where the sector is still considered to be a mainly male domain. Within the Group, the training provided since 2006 for female managers at specific times in their career have enabled over 400 women to improve their professional development objectives.