Arion Bank and Vörður receive the Equality Scale Award for the second successive year

Arion Bank and Vörður have recently received the FKA Equality Scale Award. A total of 38 companies, seven local authorities and 8 public sector bodies were recognized this year and also received the Equality Scale gold symbol.

The Equality Scale, an initiative created by the Association of Business Women in Iceland (FKA), held a conference yesterday entitled Equality is a decision, which was streamed live on the website of the national broadcaster RÚV. At the conference Eliza Reid announced the recipients of the Equality Scale, namely those organizations which managed to achieve gender equality at the top level of management. The key criterion used in the assessment was the Equality Scale’s aim of having a gender balance of at least 40/60 at the top level of management.

For many years Arion Bank has placed great importance on achieving equality throughout its business. The main emphasis in recent years has been on ensuring that people are paid equal salaries for equally valuable jobs. The Bank first gained equal pay certification from the union VR in 2015 and was awarded the Ministry of Welfare’s equal pay symbol in 2018. In the last equal pay audit, the unexplained gender pay gap at the Bank was down to 0.1%.

In 2020 the CEO of Arion Bank signed a declaration of intent on the Equality Scale, and later that year the Bank received the Equality Scale Award. The Bank’s new equality and human rights policy and action plan place greater emphasis on balancing gender ratios at the Bank, not just at management level but throughout different job categories, committees and business units. The Bank recently announced a measure designed to further improve gender equality, by guaranteeing its employees 80% of their salaries during parental leave for six months. The Bank will therefore provide employees on parental leave with additional financial support where applicable and in accordance with the rules of the parental leave fund. This is on top of payments from the parental leave fund and contractual benefits so that the salary during parental leave reaches 80% of normal salary. The Bank will also encourage its employees to exercise their right to parental leave in full.