The past year has taken its toll on the financial services industry and the tarnished image that remains has created the challenge of finding staff. The Royal Bank of Scotland Group is now 70 per cent owned by the Government and is embarking on what John Last, director for group policy and employment, says is “probably the biggest financial salvage operation in modern times to return RBS back to stand-alone strength”.

Women make up 57 per cent of the RBS workforce in the UK but, while they are well represented at the clerical, assistant manager and manager levels, that is not the case in the senior management and executive layer. It is time for positive action, says Last, which means stipulating that there must be at least one female on the shortlist for senior positions.

Gender is a key strand of the diversity and inclusion programme at Barclays, with a focus on employing more women in senior positions. Last year 25 per cent of the bank’s senior managers were women, up from 20 per cent in 2007.

Women are still under represented in the boardroom. In the FTSE 100 companies, 15 per cent of non-executive directors are female. “Organisations with a combination of men and women board members tend to outperform companies that consist of only men,” says Christine Lawrence, of Women in Banking and Finance.

Research by the Bank of New York Mellon found that women wanted training in assertiveness and negotiating, plus help with achieving worklife balance.

“Women have told us, and I know myself, that sometimes they feel awkward about discussing those sorts of things with their manager, who is often male,” says Helena Morrissey, chief executive of Newton Investment Management, which is part of Bank of New York Mellon. The bank created the Bowstring Group to provide training and networking, and to address the work-life balance issue.

Developing women is an area “where the competitive boundaries come down” in the City, says Morrissey, and companies have begun to co-host events to encourage women together as an industry. Despite the challenges of the past year, she continues to receive “tremendous CVs” from young women and men who are keen to get that first step on the career ladder. But she adds that the City needs to get across the message about what it actually does “and that it’s not about greedy bankers”.

When HSBC identifies a business area where the representation of women is not as strong as the company would like, it works with female employees in that area to demystify the area for other women. That includes helping women to understand what the requirements of the job are, then supporting them through coaching and mentoring.

Finding an effective mentor was an area that women particularly wanted help with, so HSBC set up a scheme under which 350 senior managers have posted their profile online. Employees can approach them about the possibility of being a mentor.

Women are essential to the future of HSBC, says Tony Ramos, head of recruitment. To ensure a balanced flow of young people into business areas, HSBC’s graduate programme works to help people to understand what opportunities exist so they can make informed choices.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch invites women with A levels to spend a day at the bank to shadow employees, learn how to read the Financial Times and see what a banker does from day to day. “With familiarity comes comfort,” says Christine Eosco, chief administrative officer, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

“The success of women at Bank of America is essential to our success,” Eosco says. “As other industries recruit and retain top women in leadership roles, we need to make sure that we are at least par with the curve, if not ahead of the curve, in terms of our ability to attract and retain top talent.”

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