Study on non-legislative initiatives for companies to promote gender ...

Gender equality initiatives 5
In the framework of research studies, network activities and projects dealing with
gender equality, sometimes one of the outcomes is a compendium of good
practices. This means that a number of enterprises which have an outstanding
commitment in terms of gender equality in the workplace are presented in detail in a
publication and/or on a website. The main reason for providing such compendia is to
set examples for other enterprises and to share knowledge. Presenting good practices
in terms of gender equality in the workplace have the potential to be an inspiration for
other enterprises and workplaces. They may help to raise awareness and change
social norms in order to minimise and/or eliminate gender inequalities. Frequently,
compendia of good practices arise from competitions for prizes / awards, where good
practices of winning or participating enterprises running for a prize / award are integrated
in a publication or success stories are collected on a website.
The largest group are compendia in the field of equal opportunities for women and men
in general, including thematic issues such as recruitment, training and career
opportunities, salary as well as combining work and private life, but there also exist
compendia with a specific focus (e. g. “Ligeløn” (equal pay) in Denmark).
What companies do to promote gender equality at the workplace
How do companies address the various dimensions of gender equality more
specifically? Multinational enterprises (MNE) adapt their strategies and approaches
according to the legislative and cultural environment of the country they are operating
in. So, a MNE’s specific measures may vary from one country to another. Also, while
some of the company initiatives have a rather industry specific background, others
appear to be more general and can easily be transferred across industries.
The analysis has revealed the following seven fields of intervention: recruitment,
reconciliation, retention, career opportunities, training, networking and communication.
As multinational companies usually have in place rather comprehensive gender
equality or diversity strategies, which include measures for several if not all the fields
mentioned above, the strategies have been disaggregated into their components to
allow for a structured analysis. A measure that is applied in a certain field by one
company can thereby also be taken up by another company and transferred to other
fields (e. g. while one company uses female role models to encourage applications
from women, the measure “role model” could, in principle, as well be applied by another
company to promote career progression of women). The practices of the model
companies can as well be an inspiration for the designers and organisers of nonlegislative
initiatives when shaping their initiatives.
Recruitment: In general, when recruiting, companies (have to) formulate their job
advertisements in a way to attract both men and women. Nevertheless, there are ways
to positively influence applications by the gender that is underrepresented in a
company’s employment structure. On the one hand, such gender biases often exist in
certain industries and especially companies that are active in technology oriented
sectors have elaborated ways to attract more women (while companies in e. g. the
cosmetics industry are working on raising their share of male employees). On the other
hand, a bias may also occur within one company in different job positions (e. g. when
women tend to work in administrative jobs and men in production) or in different
hierarchical levels. Many of the enterprises considered in this study have implemented
procedures to attract and employ more women in order to achieve a better balanced
staff structure and to benefit from the diverse talents and skills. The initiatives and
measures go beyond quotas and range from simple to more sophisticated procedures.