Healthy and Committed Employees

Our staff are the key to the success of our ambitious strategy. We are constantly focused on improving the customer experience and ensuring that all PFA customers receive good, individualised and qualified advisory services.

A high level of employee commitment and high energy levels at work

Each year, we survey our employee’s commitment and energy levels at work. Commitment and energy are significant factors in ensuring the kind of performance results that are needed if your business strategy is to succeed. In 2019, the annual commitment survey revealed that PFA’s employees are very committed in their day-to-day work and that these high levels are being maintained. The overall survey showed a result of 5.9 on a scale of 1-7.

A healthy PFA

At PFA, health is about creating the framework for allowing individual employees to thrive in their jobs, maintain high energy levels and come home with enough remaining energy to see to their family, friends and leisure interests. Our health strategy is based on different approaches, including exercise and physical activity, diet, mental health and recovery. The aim is to promote initiatives that create healthy employees who, with a sustainable work-life balance, can also contribute to a healthy performance culture at PFA. Our employees take part in testing various initiatives and products in order to gather knowledge and experience on physical activity in everyday life, healthy digital habits and having positive energy. In this way, they help us learn more about the programmes that are also helping our customers.

Competent advisor services

We are constantly focused on improving the customer experience and ensuring that all PFA customers receive good, individualised and qualified advisory services. All of our pension consultants are externally certified, and we have formulated and published professional guidelines om how to provide good pension advisory services. By so doing, we allow the individual pension customers to make their own decisions based on a qualified recommendation from PFA.

Our recommendations from our pension advisors allow both the customer and advisor to get an overview and feel confident about the advice being discussed and it also improves the communication with our customers.

Employee policies

PFA’s internal employee policies are revised on an ongoing basis to ensure that they are always in line with PFA’s values. The policies help to ensure that employees at PFA know what is expected of them, also in situations where dilemmas might need to be managed.

The employee policies cover issues such as:

  • Hiring close family members
  • Working environment and well-being
  • Side-jobs and volunteer roles
  • Gifts and representation expenses
  • Internal knowledge and insider trading
  • Information security
  • Travel policy
  • Smoking policy
  • A ban on speculation
  • Whistleblower policy

Gender and management at PFA

Policy

PFA Holding A/S’s board of directors have specified targets for the proportion of the under-represented gender on the board and adopted a policy to increase the proportion of the under-represented gender at other levels of management in the PFA Holding A/S Group (hereinafter referred to as ‘The PFA Group’ or ‘PFA’). The work is based on the introduction of rules governing the gender composition of management teams, cf. the Danish Financial Business Act’s Section 79(a) and the Danish Companies Act’s Section 139(a). The policy entered into force on 15 March 2013 and was last updated in June 2019. The board of directors and the management tiers with only a few individuals are easily impacted by random changes, and this is why the development should be viewed over a long period of time. PFA is focused on attracting qualified female candidates for both board posts and management roles in general and to, over time, meet the targets that have been specified.

Status of 2019

Gender composition in management
PFA has a target stating that there should be at least 40 per cent female managers. By the end of 2019, this proportion was at 37 per cent, i.e. just three percentage points below the target. The proportion of female managers has varied slightly in the past few years, where the proportion of women in PFA’s management has been 41 per cent in 2016, 36 per cent in 2017, 39 per cent in 2018 and 37 per cent in 2019. 

In order to reach the 40 per cent minimum target, PFA will, among other things, continue to prioritise having both men and women as candidates when recruiting and making appointments and choosing the best candidate for the job.

In terms of the proportion of female managers at the team leader, manager and executive levels, the proportion is, respectively, 46 per cent, 31 per cent and 18 per cent in 2019. The proportion of female team leaders is identical to 2018, while the proportion of female managers has decreased by two percentage points. The proportion of female executives has decreased from 24 per cent to 18 per cent.

There were no women on the executive board as of late 2019.

Gender composition of the board of directors

The target for the gender composition of PFA Holding and PFA Pension’s board of directors is 25/75 per cent. The target for the composition of genders for boards of directors with three members is 33.33/66.67 per cent, for boards with four members it is 25/75 per cent and for boards with more than four members it is 40/60.

The boards of directors of PFA Holding and PFA Pension

As of 31 December 2018, the gender composition of the boards of directors of PFA Holding and PFA Pension (which are identical) was 21/79, and thus the target was not met. PFA’s ownership structure and thus the procedure for selecting board members for PFA Holding only makes it possible to change the gender composition gradually over the course of several years. 

In connection with the completed employee elections in 2019, two out of five board members elected by employees are women and the board of directors of PFA Holding/PFA Pension thus consists of 15 members as of 31 December 2019, including members elected by employees of which three are women, giving a gender composition of 20/80 per cent. The target has thus not been met at the end of 2019.

As part of working with targets and policies for the gender composition of the management teams, we can also note the appointment and election of board members with special competences for certain areas identified by the board, which may contribute to the efforts of realising PFA’s ambitions.

The target for the gender composition of PFA Holding and PFA Pension’s board of directors is 25/75 per cent. The target for the composition of genders for boards of directors with three members is 33.33/66.67 per cent, for boards with four members it is 25/75 per cent and for boards with more than four members it is 40/60.

Boards of directors with three members

For boards of directors with three members, which is the case for some of the Group’s real estate companies, the target was met by the end of 2019, as the gender composition was 33/67.67 per cent in these companies.

Boards of directors with four members

For boards of directors with four members, which is the case for the boards of some of the Group’s real estate companies and PFA Bank, the targets were met by the end of 2019 as the gender composition was 25/75 per cent in these companies.

Boards of directors with more than four members

For boards of directors with more than four members, which is the case for PFA Asset Management, the targets were not met by the end of 2019, as the gender composition was 0/100 per cent. In connection with a female board member leaving the board of directors for PFA Asset Management in 2017, and where the best qualified new candidate for the board was male, the gender composition became 0/100 per cent. In 2019, there has been a change in the makeup of the board of directors, as Group CEO of the PFA Group has stepped down and a new Group CIO has joined the board. As the Group CIO is male, the gender composition remains unchanged at 0/100 per cent.

Questions about corporate responsibility?

If you have questions concerning PFA’s work with corporate responsibility, you are welcome to contact Corporate Responsibility consultant Dorte Raahave Østerdal at doe@pfa.dk.