mBank Poland

Private Sector

mBank is a Polish bank operating in Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia, with a workplace culture that actively encourages men to become more involved in care.

Our Commitments

How It’s Going

  • 1

    Parental leave

    Our Action: Implement the EU directive on Work Life Balance standard.
  • Done
  • 2

    Family friendly workplace policies

    Our Action: Implement remote and flexible working, breastfeeding and childcare facilities, and mBank offers an additional two days of ‘child care leave’ for parents of young children.
  • Done
  • 3

    Workplace care programs with men

    Our Action: The employee wellness program ‘Hello Mum, Hello Dad!’ encourages partnership and competence in care, and builds on employees’ strengths for work and parenting.
  • In Progress
  • 4

    Internal company promotion of care

    Our Action: In addition to regular internal webinars and email promotion, mBank’s public relations actively promote the family friendly culture on the careers pages.
  • In Progress
  • 5

    Reporting on care equality

    Our Action: Each annual report includes an update on parental leave taken by employees, disaggregated by fathers and mothers.
  • In Progress
"The change in approach to family roles is visible. Younger generations of parents build a different connection with their children. It’s not like there is a working father and stay-at-home mother. The roles are shared and it’s a standard."
Michal Knapik, DE&I Senior Specialist, mBank Poland

mBank is one of biggest banks in Poland, operating also in Czech Republic and Slovakia, with more than 7000 employees. mBank’s Diversity & Inclusion policy strictly mentions an inclusive and gender equal workplace culture as a priority.

The progressive workplace culture of the company sets new standards in the banking industry in the region. One of male employees who joined mBank last year mentioned that in his previous job (another bank) it was seen as ‘weird’ for fathers to take child care leave, since work was regarded as more important for fathers. He was pleasantly surprised at mBank to experience a culture that encourages fathers to take shared responsibility of their children. The other company had not yet realized the value in fostering appreciation of care equality at work. 

“The longer game is that equality at home is equality at work.”

– Michal Knapik, DE&I Senior Specialist, mBank Poland

Michal Knapik, the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion specialist for mBank explains that the company realizes the importance of colleagues bringing their whole selves to work. He mentioned that they play the longer game and that ‘The longer game is that equality at home is crucial to equality at work. 

Regarding the MenCare 50/50 Commitments for Employers, mBank has taken actions that match each of the five commitments. The most influential commitment for the bank has been to promote care equality internally to normalize men’s caregiving. Care, and family friendly policies, match the company’s five core values of authenticity, empathy, courage, responsibility, and cooperation.

The bank has also been recognized externally for their commitments and was included for the third time in annual Bloomberg Gender Equality Index. Here is an example from mBank’s integrated annual report that shows how they report on parental leave.

An important principle for mBank is to ‘walk the talk’ or to ‘walk before you talk’ – in other words to act first and then talk publicly about the effects of these actions. The company has several plans in place to improve on the current workplace culture and additional new actions will be announced as they will be implemented. These include year to year comparison of fathers’ uptake of parental leave after a year of internal campaigns on the topic. The change is not expected to happen right away, but programs like the one mBank provides, will make the difference in the long run.