United Women @Riverty
Inclusion, diversity, gender pay gap: these buzzwords are being tossed around increasingly in today's society. Companies are also constantly advertising with diverse teams and gender equality. However, what companies actually do to ensure equal rights for all employees usually remains behind closed doors. We have kept a rather low profile on this so far, as it is important to us and we don’t want to make any empty promises. With specific measures that have been taken into action, we would now like to show you what our contribution is to equal rights and equal opportunities for our employees and potential employees at Riverty (former Arvato Financial Solutions)!
Creation of the network
As we began to focus more intensively on the topic of gender equality, we noticed that women are still very underrepresented, especially in higher management positions. This is something we were not willing to accept, which is why we started thinking about how we could tackle this issue in the best possible way. That's when the idea of founding a women's network came to life. After all, what better way than to bring together women from all levels of the organization and from a wide variety of nations to stand up for their equal rights? The founding of our women's network "United Women @ Riverty" is intended to strategically address these kinds of issues, among many others, in order to achieve long-term changes within the company. New approaches are constantly being developed in order to realize a gender-equal workplace in the future.
Our projects
In a wide variety of projects, we are trying to work towards achieving equality and equity for all employees within our company, one step at a time. The analysis of Riverty’s gender pay gap was one of the first projects to be driven forward by the network. In Germany, the gender pay gap is currently around 6 percent. After a thorough review of our data, an average pay gap of 0.1 percent was found. At management level, the gap was slightly larger. Here, the difference measured 1.9 percent. Despite the fact that Riverty is below average in this regard, we have not reached our goal until there is no difference in salary between men and women performing the same work.
To ensure that women are visible and their voices are being heard at higher management levels, "United Women @ Riverty" is committed to eliminating prejudices against female talent. For this purpose, we initiated the unconscious bias training. This special training raises awareness about implicit bias against women in leadership positions and serves to enable equal opportunities. This elaborated concept helps our executives to reflect on their own prejudices and consequently make more objective decisions. That way, women are not merely reduced to their gender. Instead, the focus lies on the skills and competences of each individual, giving women better opportunities to climb the career ladder in the future.
The overall women's quota at Riverty is also being closely examined by our women's network. In this context, we are not just aiming for an increased women's quota of 35 or 40 percent. In our opinion, equality is only achieved when there is an equal gender distribution in the company. Equality simply doesn't exist before this is achieved. Therefore, we are also working more intensively on acquiring and retaining female talent. This begins with the way we approach potential female candidates. To ensure that all applicants feel personally addressed by us, we have worded our career page and all of its subpages in a gender-appropriate manner. After all, we are not explicitly looking for men or women, but rather for highly motivated people who want to make a difference within our company. By gendering correctly, we ensure that no one feels excluded and instead everyone feels welcome.
However, it is not only important that everyone feels spoken to but is also equally treated. And that is our top priority. Although our women's network is still in a development phase, the first initiatives have already been put into action. We are very excited to see what further changes the network members will accomplish in the future. But one thing is certain: Only when the women's network is no longer needed throughout the company will we have truly achieved our goal. And until then, the women's network will be aiming for the finish line and will be bringing us closer to our goal one project at a time.
Learn More!
You have become curious and want to read more about the benefits we offer and the way we work at Riverty? Have a look at our People Blog and see what our employees have to tell!