The world is facing a churn in women employee participation in the workforce. This is no news! However, some of the world’s biggest financial companies are facing a crunch of the involvement of male employees in departments like HR.

Royal Bank of Scotland, BNP Paribas and Virgin Money have rolled out programs to attract more men into business functions that are slanted towards women. HR departments and administrative functions are top of their list.

According to reports, the action is part of struggles to address the gender pay gap.

Finance has been recognized as one of the most significant gender pay gaps of any industry in the UK, with women dominating low-paid administrative jobs and men far outnumbering women in senior roles.

RBS, which had a gender pay gap of 36 percent last year, has set the targets to hire more men into female-dominated departments of the bank in March. The company has also introduced a “male-only development program” within the female-dominated departments.

BNP Paribas, which reported a 32 percent pay gap last year, aims to hire male candidates for its HR team in London. 

Virgin Money has drafted its program to attract and retain men to lower-paid customer service roles in stores and contact centers. Women make up around 70 percent of these positions, but the bank wants to achieve a 50/50 gender split.

Earlier according to a government ruling, all employers in UK with 250 or more staff were asked to report their gender pay gaps to the government for the first time last year.