Our Culture

At MetLife UK, we are committed to supporting employees in balancing their family, home and work lives.  The policies we have in place are designed to focus on the things that matter to them outside of work, allowing and enabling them to thrive both professionally and personally. These policies include:

• Employees taking maternity leave and adoption leave who have 26 weeks service at the 15^th week before the Excepted Week of Childbirth or 26 weeks service at the week they are matched with a child, receive 39 weeks of pay. The pay consists of 18 weeks at full pay, followed by 21 weeks at the weekly rate of Statutory Maternity or Statutory Adoption Pay.
• All of our core benefits remain in place for all employees during maternity and adoption leave.
• Employees taking paternity leave receive 2 weeks of full pay.
• Our shared parental leave and pay mirrors our maternity and adoption leave and pay and employees can ask to split their leave into shorter periods with periods of work in between.
• Maternity, adoption, shared parental or paternity leave payments are not repayable by the employee should they choose not to return to work.
• In line with statutory requirements, all employees who are parents are entitled to take up to 18 weeks unpaid leave per child up until the child’s 18^th birthday. 4 weeks of leave can be taken per year in blocks of 1 or 2 weeks at a time.
• Any employee who is going through fertility treatment or who is supporting a partner going through fertility treatment is able to take up to 5 days paid leave per year.
• Employees experiencing a bereavement or in the event of a serious illness or injury of a close relative or friend are able to take a period of paid compassionate leave.
• Recognising that at times in their lives, people are likely to have caring responsibilities, our employees are able to take reasonable time off to deal with emergencies involving those that depend on them.
• Those who do have caring responsibilities are supported by our Carers Policy which ensures they are encouraged to access the relevant leave/time-off policies.
• Employees are able to request an unpaid sabbatical of up to 12 months in duration if they wish to pursue something that really matters to them such as volunteering, travelling, extending maternity leave or re-training.
• All of our employees have the right to request to work flexibly, including (but not limited to) flexible hours, home working, part-time hours and condensed hours.  We’ll always do our best to be as flexible as possible.
• Up to 30 days paid holiday per year (plus public holidays). All employees have a core holiday entitlement of 25 days with the option to buy or sell up to 5 days through our Flexible Benefits scheme.

Women in Finance Charter

MetLife in the UK have made a pledge for gender balance across Financial Services by signing up to the Women in Finance Charter.

This is a commitment by HM Treasury and signatory firms to work together to build a more balanced and fair industry. Firms that sign up to this Charter are pledging to be the best businesses in the sector.

In 2016 the government commissioned a review into the representation of women in senior managerial roles in financial services. This work complements the government’s wider programme of work to tackle gender inequality and support women in the workplace.

Financial services is the highest paid sector in the UK economy, where the gender salary gap for full-time employees is at its most stark. This review looked at the issue of unequal gender representation in the financial services sector that worsens as employees rise into more senior positions.

The review, ‘Empowering Productivity: Harnessing the talents of women in financial services’ was published on 22 March 2016, and makes four recommendations to industry to improve gender diversity in financial services, which have received widespread support from the sector.

In 2024 we committed to the following milestones:

Hiring

• Female representation for every role advertised
• 100% unbiased resourcing practices, including: equal opportunities; gender mixed agencies; mix of male and female assessors; recruitment training for hiring managers

Engage

• Maintain of 50/50 split of male and female employees within UK Branch
• Target of 50% women people leaders at GG9 and above within UK Branch​
• Target of 33% women leaders at GG13 and above within UK Branch​​

Develop

• Target of 50% women in Exec-1 Accelerate and Progression Talent
• Maintain of 50/50 split of male/female attendance at developmental events and training

Please click here to see our 2024 commitments and results.