WOMEN'S WORK
Going with
IT Update
THE GRAIN
organization
continued from page 1)
Board-member Burghouts' main message appeared to the reiteration of
'no affirmative action' thinking. He repeated the bank's aim to 'facilitate'
career development, but insisted this should apply equally to both men
and women. 'We are talking "people" here, not just women,' he said.
Anneke Broere
A further contention was that the
situation, ie. the number of women in
middle and senior management, was
improving. However, the figures do little
to confirm that optimism. At present, the
two Rabobank Nederland sectors
represented at the meeting, the Member
Bank Sector and (the Dutch arm of) CBS
both number 28 percent women in higher
echelon positions. In 1990, the
percentages were 26 and 28 respectively.
No figures were available for the whole of
CBS. They may have proved quite
revealing, especially in view of the
relatively high number of women in top
positions in, for example, the Far East.
No one doubts the fact that the
Netherlands are not the pioneers when it
comes to promoting women into the really
top jobs. There are some socio-cultural
underlying causes here - few Dutch
married women worked until well into the
1970s and 1980s, it simply wasn't done.
However, women are gaining ground,
slowly but not always surely. The glass
ceilings that have been shattered in many
other countries are still gleaming and
unbroken in Holland, not least perhaps
because of all the women's heads which
rub them with often impotent regularity.
'We're not talking here about an insistence
on a 50/50 representation in the Board of
Directors,' Broere argues. 'What we do
want is a chance to show not only that we
mean business, but also that our
motivation, enthusiasm and know-how
adds value for the bank. Burghouts
himself pointed out one of the main
problems. Men tend to recruit men, and
men tend to be behind the top jobs, so...
Men also work through networks. Our
feeling is that a "young women's"
network may prove a step in the right
direction when it comes to tackling the
"old boys".'
Burghouts did have one crack in the glass
to offer Rabobank Nederland's official
women's network. Recruitment is
currently ongoing for the so-called
Management 2000 drive, a training
program to meet senior management
shortfalls predicted for the end of the
century. 'If you've got the potential,' he
challenged, 'go for it. You have to do it
yourselves.' As the women broke up into
discussion groups, a lone man who had
been sitting in the audience stood looking
slightly lost. This reporter couldn't resist
asking him: 'Well, how does it feel?' He
thought about it before replying: 'But
you're used to it. We're not.'
Anyone, including Rabobankers in
international offices, who is interested in
learning more about the Women's
Network, should contact Anneke Broere
in Utrecht on +31 (0)30 216 3282.
VROUWENNETWERK
Op 12 maart jl. vond in
Utrecht de start plaats
van een intern
vrouwennetwerk, dat zich richt op
medewerksters van het Hollandse deel van
Rabobank Nederland. De opkomst was
groot, tweederde van de genodigden was
deze avond aanwezig. Anneke Broere, een
van de initiatiefneemsters,formuleerde de
opzet van het netwerk als 'het duidelijk
maken dat vrouwen gemotiveerd zijn en
zich oriënteren op hun carrière'. De laatste
7 jaar is slechts weinig vooruitgang
geboekt. De Rabo-vrouwen willen geen
voorkeursbehandeling, maar wel gelijke
kansen en een gelijke behandeling.
Rabobank'sTrade and Commodity finance
department played host to representatives
from the US Feed Grains Council (US FGC)
during their annual internal strategy meeting
held in Amsterdam this year.The US FGC is a
trade organization representing and
marketing the American grain interest around
the world,'says Paul Dekker. They have offices
in some 50 countries worldwide and are in
touch with all parties involved in the global
grain and compound feed business.
Rabobank New York is a member and our
department and the branch frequently share
information on development in the industry.
Every year the US FGC organizes a meeting for
their people at a different location.They were
in Amsterdan this time, so we took the
opportunity to explain our role as trade and
commodity finance department and get
better acquainted with the people in this
important organization.'
During the past few weeks, the bank's intet-
national IT project - back-office, front-office,
(management) reporting applications and
telecommunications facilities for offices
worldwide - has been the subject of a
diagnostic review. It focused on the
international business needs as well as
objectives.constraints and strategie IT
principles.The review examined whether the
current international project provides the best
IT solution to deliver the desired business
benefits to our offices, both in the short and
long term.
The findings are currently under discussion
with senior management. Once they have
been studied.an implementation strategy will
be developed that focuses on ways of
providing the most effective, efficiënt and
reliable IT solution.
A priority area of focus for the international^^
network is the need for IT infrastructure to sup^^
port back-office business processes. It is the
back-office which is the key to successfully
handling the top deals generated by the front
office.