BNP Paribas traders are not happy with their new job titles
Once upon a time, BNP Paribas people didn't have job titles. They were all part of one happy non-hierarchical hangout where no one was a managing director, a VP or an analyst but everyone somehow knew who to defer to. Then, in 2016, BNP thought it ought to create some managing directors in its London corporate finance business so that clients understood that the 35 year-old they were talking to was a person of importance. Last week, BNP rolled out similar titles across the London trading floor in its corporate and investment bank. We understand that it's caused some problems.
"People with ten years' experience have been given the same job titles as people with three years' experience," says one BNP Paribas trader. "A lot of people are very unhappy about it."
In an email to London staff in the corporate and investment bank (CIB) seen by eFinancialCareers, Arne Groes, head of global markets UK at BNP, said the new titles were a response to employees' wish for, "a clearer articulation of career pathways and seniority as well as a desire for corporate titles to reflect the different roles across the business." Groes said the new titles in the markets division will be: analyst, associate, vice president (VP), director and managing director (MD). He assured people that they will provide a "framework for career management and progression." The titles are being communicated between now and the end of 2022.
The communication appears to be ruffling feathers. "A lot of managers were given director titles," says one trader. "And people who should have been directors have been told they're VPs. The titles haven't been allocated in line with seniority."
BNP Paribas said: "BNP Paribas is communicating corporate titles to employees in the London Branch that reflect their existing roles to standardise terminology across all business lines."
The complaints appear to stem from the fact that BNP had quotas for the number of people who could fall into each new category. "We were told that the team can't have a majority of directors," says the trader. "It's a pretty lame excuse."
For the moment, the new titles in the markets business aren't being rolled out in Continental Europe. That may yet happen. The new regime in the UK seems to have been in response to the successful discrimination case brought by Stacy Macken, a former member of BNP's prime brokerage division. Macken received £2m in compensation. Among other things, Macken argued that she was underpaid and the judge in her case suggested that BNP's pay structure was opaque. The new hierarchy is an attempt to remedy this.
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