EQUALITY GUIdE - KU Leuven

Chapter 3 ! Career management 169
to avoid gender colouring in language in general and more specifically in the job descriptions.
Some exercises and useful tips are also included in the scheme.
4.3.2.1. Step 1: gender awareness
Looking at language through a gender perspective is trying to recognise gender-coloured
values, standards and behaviour of human relations at all levels. Gender awareness is the
first step to make a change. The best approach is to sensitize all parties involved and to
make recommendations concerning sex neutrality in job rating.
In a first step, two exercises are given to raise gender awareness. The first exercise asks to
list up possible tasks for a co-worker of the HR-department and to do the same for an
HR-assistant. The job titles ‘co-worker of the HR department’ and ‘HR-assistant’ appear
to have a different connotation. Sometimes male job titles sound like they entail more
responsibility than female job titles. In this case also, a job title can mean more or can be
seen as inferior.
A second exercise reveals how easily prejudices and stereotypes influence one’s perspective.
The exercise lists a number of functions and asks respondents to indicate immediately
whether they think the function is performed by a man or a woman.
Finally, a useful tip is given to create an information brochure containing general information
about the job classification project but also draws attention to gender-neutral job
descriptions. Job holders (i.e. the person who performs the job) are frequently involved in
collecting information for describing jobs. By making them aware of this issue, they can
take it into account.
4.3.2.2. Step 2: job holder and standard form
In the job rating process, the nature of the job serves as a criterion for ranking jobs, irrespective
of the characteristics of the person who does the job. The job itself is evaluated,
not the achievements of the job holder. One should evaluate as it were the chair and not
the person who sits on it. It is important that the job description reflects the job requirements.
A job description is recognizable if job holders can recognize themselves in the
description. The job holder is a privileged source of information, so make sure that both
sexes are represented.
It is important that jobs are described in a uniform manner and conformal to the demands
of the job rating system chosen. For this reason the use of a standard form is recommended.
That way, job descriptions can easily be read and compared. Moreover, a
standard form guarantees that male and female jobs are established in the same way. By
using a fixed classification, one can take into account all characteristics. Furthermore, the
examples of tasks and activities that are sometimes given to fill in the form must be described
in a gender-neutral way.