Finland has a history of being the happiest country in the world, and it’s among the most gender-equal, too.
A lot of that has to do with the laws and social policies it has in place. Many Nordic countries have generous paid leave policies, government-subsidized child care, free college (which can level access to high-paying jobs), pay gap reporting requirements and pay transparency policies.
Businesses take pay equity seriously, too. At Framery, a Finnish manufacturing company with roughly 400 employees, the difference between what men and women get paid is roughly 1%.
That’s better than Finland’s gender pay gap of 16%, according to OECD data.
Anni Hallila, Framery’s head of people and culture, explains three strategies that helped them effectively close their business’s gender pay gap.
1. Salary reviews happen twice a year
Framery’s compensation team does a pay audit for their workforce twice a year, Hallila says.
The company’s workforce is split between those who work on the manufacturing side, as well as corporate employees who work in an office setting. Last year, there was a 1% pay gap among genders in their manufacturing workforce, where women were paid 1% more than men on average; meanwhile, among their office workers, men were paid roughly 1% more than women.
Routine pay audits are important to account for periodic promotions, raises and other salary adjustments to “make sure that we are not creating unjustified salary differences between men and women,” Hallila says.
2. Salary gaps are made public
In 2023, the European Parliament and Council approved the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires employers in EU countries to review their compensation practices (including base pay, benefits, bonuses and other incentives) and publish their results to ensure gender equity. The directive also requires employers communicate salary ranges on job ads or to candidates before the interview stage.
Though these policies are set to go into effect in 2026, Hallila says Framery currently publishes their pay ratios between men and women at the company as part of their annual sustainability reports.
The company began publicizing these numbers in 2022 as an effort “to make sure people actually know this is an important thing for us, and that we are working actively toward ensuring an equitable pay for women and men,” Hallila says.
3. Men and women are promoted at the same rates
As for promotions, Hallila says they consider equity in the staff they advance to new roles or levels of leadership. Senior leaders are considerate of promoting men and women at similar rates: “There shouldn’t be a reason why there should be less women going toward more demanding roles as men,” she says.
That being said, Hallila acknowledges their workforce isn’t equally split by gender. Men are generally overrepresented at the manufacturing company, which is roughly 70% men and 30% women. The firm has slightly better parity in its leadership ranks, where 62% of leaders are men compared with 38% of women.
The company has a goal to reach a 60/40 gender split in the future through hiring, Hallia adds, though they haven’t put a deadline to that goal.
On the whole, Hallila says, Framery’s equitable pay and promotions policies are “about equal treatment of employees.”
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