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

Gender equality initiatives 105
tion in these programmes (that are primarily applicable for “office” jobs) is subject to
approval, in order to combine personal and work requirements best. Employees in
manufacturing jobs may have opportunities for shift-trading and other flexible
options.
Multinational companies that are active in Europe, such as Motorola Inc., in general
report that, whereas flexibility in work place and in work time is used by men and
women in a similar degree, it is mostly women who work part-time and who take
longer leave periods due to the birth of a child.
Job-sharing can be regarded as a very specific way of part-time working, i. e. two
persons share one job and these two employees negotiate and agree upon their competencies
and working time themselves. The possibility of job-sharing exists (for certain
positions) e. g. at IBM Corporation, IKEA or Polgár-Társak 2000 Kft.
Some companies also pay special attention to set meetings at times when it is
possible for everyone to attend (i.e. not in the late afternoons), e. g. Formastur SA or
IKEA (moreover, in the latter company it is common practice that male or female
employees may quit meetings due to child care responsibilities). Stormberg demonstrates
that not only large companies can hold telephone conferences/”meetings” on
telephone – and thereby reduce travel time of employees and allow home based
employees to attend.
Stormberg AS is a Norwegian company in the retail sales business (sportswear). It
started in 1998 and has had a very positive development both in number of employees
and economic numbers. There are about 100 employees, where 45 are women and 55
are men. In the board 2 out of 5 are women and in the leader group 3 out of 8 are
women.
It is important to underline that the initiatives that have been implemented to support
gender equality at Stormberg are not seen as a strategy or programme by the company,
but rather as an incorporated way in how Stormberg wants to operate as an
enterprise. It could be said that the measures are an internalised part of the business
culture.
Stormberg has implemented several concrete measures, among these are:
• flexible working time arrangements;
• shift arrangements;
• telephonic meetings (to reduce travel time);
• possibility to work from home (home office);
• children are allowed to come to work if day care is closed, etc.;
• men are motivated to take parental leave.
Stormberg underlines that focusing on family oriented/work-life balance measures, has
not only been welcomed by the employees but has indeed also benefited the
company in several ways. First, it has created stability among the employees. Second,
the level of absence due to sickness has been at around 5.2 % of total working time per
year in the last few years, which is very low for companies in the retail business. Third,
Stormberg has been an attractive workplace both for men and women. Forth, the
enterprise has also created good economic results and this is partly assigned to the
good balance between family/work-life.