OREANDA-NEWS. September 21, 2011. At the beginning of September SEB in Latvia was awarded with the status of a family-friendly entrepreneur. This status is given by the Ministry of Welfare of Latvia and it demonstrates that the policies and services of the company are friendly to staff, children and families, reported the press-centre of SEB.

This year, the twelve companies awarded this status were identified and selected jointly with the Sustainability Index, a cooperation that resulted in the development of the criteria connected with the implementation of a family-friendly policy and inclusion of such criteria in the index's questionnaire.
 
Gunita Meiere, Head of HR of SEB in Latvia: "Every year, our colleagues whose children start studies in Grade 1, receive a number of social benefits, including paid holidays. Likewise, we create pension savings for our staff and issue them health insurance policies. In addition to our internal initiatives, there is a range of external activities intended to support families. For example, for the second year now, there has been an initiative in which SEB life insurance has issued policies free of charge to all Latvian first graders, which amounts to more than 20 thousand children.

Moreover, as the current cost of education is beyond the means of some families', SEB Bank has granted a total of 20 scholarships to young people who study for their degrees at various universities of Latvia. Since 2006, we have cooperated with the SOS Children's Village to help children and to organise various activities. In terms of educating parents, we have had a multi-annual cooperation with the Mothers' Club TV programme supporting different ideas."

In 2007, SEB was the first bank in Latvia to obtain the status of a Family-Friendly Entrepreneur. Whereas, in recognition of its compliance with the criteria of a socially responsible and sustainable company in Latvia, in April this year, SEB Bank was awarded the Gold Category in the Sustainability Index.