Zopa narrows gender pay gap
ZOPA has revealed that it has reduced its gender pay gap from an average of 25.5 per cent last year, to 18 per cent today, as it continues to work towards gender equality in the workplace.
The median pay gap is now 22.8 per cent, down from 37.8 per cent in 2018.
In a new blog post, the peer-to-peer lender and challenger bank revealed that it began to decode all its job adverts earlier this year in order to remove gender bias. It has also taken steps to make its interview panels more diverse, and to ensure that candidate shortlists are diverse.
As a result of these changes, over the past year the percentage of women employed within Zopa has increased from 34 per cent to 37 per cent.
Zopa added that it has also seen a seven per cent increase for women in the upper pay quartile, and a four per cent increase for women in the upper middle pay quartile.
“A balanced and diverse workforce is important to Zopa,” said a company spokesperson. “We want to create a fairer and more inclusive working environment in which everyone can be themselves. Gender diversity is one such part of this.
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“Over the last year we have seen an improvement in our gender diversity across the whole of Zopa. Diversity metrics are regularly reported at board meetings and management committees.”
Last year, Zopa became the latest P2P platform to sign up to the Women in Finance Charter, an industry-wide body which promotes gender equality in financial firms. The charter encourages companies to hire women in at least 33 per cent of their senior management positions.
“When we signed up to the Charter, 38 per cent of our senior management team were women,” said a Zopa spokesperson.
“As of 31 August 2019, this number remains flat. We are however committed to our goal of increasing this percentage by five points by December 2021, with a focus on maintaining an appropriate gender balance not only in hiring but also in promotions and leavers.”
Zopa added that it is also working on improving its diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, and disability, in order to strengthen its offering and better represent its customers.
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