Equidade de gênero em cargos de chefia: análise da experiência da Caixa Econômica Federal

Abstract

Gender equity has been treated as part of the efforts of increasing the value of women and of promoting diversity within the companies, one of the themes included in the corporate social responsibility agenda (CRS). In particular, within the banking sector, gender equity has received special treatment and has been related to practices of CRS and diversity. Nevertheless, management practices are little sophisticated and there are prejudices and stereotypes at work, due to a social-historical context. From this viewpoint, the current project-dissertation aimed at verifying which are the challenges facing women in trying to ascend professionally within one of the biggest Brazilian banks, the Caixa Econômica Federal (CAIXA) – Federal Savings Bank, as well as proposing actions to improve the pro-equity practices in all head positions, exploring theoretical-conceptual frameworks related to gender, diversity management at work and CRS, adopting these as the fundamental basis for the analysis. This study was developed between 2007 and 2009 from practice observation. Some doubts and questions on the subject came up. It was possible to analyse these questionings from theoretical-conceptual frameworks mainly related to the construction of gender concepts and to CRS. Empirically speaking, data were collected on the subject through interviews and questionnaires directed to employees located at the bank headquarters. Information was also obtained from several documents such as social balance sheets, reports and other CAIXA publications. The author’s experience in working at the Federal Savings Bank for twenty years, occupying technical and managerial positions, through the company’s three segments (business, administrative and strategic) was also taken into consideration for this study. The relation between the collected data and the adopted frameworks provided the basis for the presentation of proposals to improve the actions within CAIXA in favour of gender equity. This information was presented in one chart relating four main general objectives to their respective intermediate objectives. Among the conclusions, it was possible to verify women still face great obstacles to their career development, either for matters related to social culture, or for the difficulty some people have in dealing with the question within the company, even though CAIXA has presented efforts to incorporate CSR to its management model and to improve the value of diversity and the promotion of equity in its policies. Beyond the traditional and cultural aspects, diversity/equity management is still incipient and data availability does not occur in an ample way.