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The real estate sector is a significant part of Finland’s economy and offers a wide range of job opportunities. However, the industry has faced the same challenge as many others: gender equality is still not fully realized, particularly when it comes to pay equity.
In Finland, both men and women work in the real estate industry, and the distribution varies depending on the role. Traditionally, there has been a clear majority of men in construction and property maintenance positions. On the other hand, women are more represented in property management, real estate brokerage, and housing management. According to Statistics Finland, women make up 48% of the workforce in this sector. At Retta, women also hold a significant share, with 54% of the approximately 1,300 employees being female.
In addition to monitoring the gender distribution of our overall workforce, we also track the gender balance in leadership positions. Our goal is for the proportion of women in leadership roles to reflect the overall gender balance of the workforce. Currently, 50% of our executive team members are women, which is a very positive development. We have also succeeded in promoting gender equality compared to Finnish listed companies, where only about one in four executive team members is female. Gender equality in company boards has been a long-standing issue in Finland. On average, women make up about one-third of the boards of Finnish listed companies, meaning gender equality is still not fully realized in this area. At Retta, there is also work to be done, as only 20% of our board members are women.
Another key aspect and metric we follow regarding gender equality is pay equity. In Finland’s real estate sector (Tilastokeskus, 2022), the wage gap between men and women is approximately 19%, meaning the real estate industry faces similar challenges to many other sectors: women’s wages are significantly lower than men’s. At Retta, the wage gap is about 13%, so we also have pay disparities.
The wage gap is largely due to the fact that more women work in lower-paid positions. When we take into account the different roles, their requirements, and experience, the pay gap between women and men is only 2.8%. Our goal is to achieve full pay equality between men and women when the requirements of the roles are considered, and actions to address this have already been initiated. We are also focusing on structural pay disparities and are working to reduce the wage gap by balancing the gender distribution across different roles.
We continuously monitor the development of our wage structure in the right direction. We have also launched other initiatives aimed at promoting gender equality, such as drafting a diversity pledge, communicating on the topic, and training our managers. Additionally, we support the reconciliation of work and family life through our flexible work model, which allows employees to combine remote and in-person work in a way that best suits their family situations. We believe that diversity and equality broaden perspectives, foster innovation, and help advance the entire industry. Furthermore, diversity and equality make our work communities more attractive and better places where everyone can feel welcome and have a sense of belonging.
Text: Director of HR, Katariina Lindholm
