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

Gender equality initiatives 133
However, there are several challenges to overcome in order to fully utilise the
advantages connected with engaging in a non-legislative initiative:
• Gender equality as a top-down strategy: Gender equality assumes a climatic
change in the enterprise’s culture. Regardless of which quality the implemented
measures are, they require the unrestricted commitment of the management.
Moreover, managers should act as role models to illustrate this organisational
change.
• Internal communication: The manager’s commitment and the measures have
to be communicated accurately. Although gender equality is a top-down
strategy it takes shape in the interaction of the whole staff. Thus, internal
communication offering the possibility for an open discussion between management
and staff will be crucial. It will not be sufficient to just emphasise that
gender equality has become one of the company’s principles.
• Costs: Measures for increasing gender equality entail costs. There are direct
costs such as the investment for childcare services, the implementation of
teleworking stations, or training activities. But there are also indirect costs as
e.g. a person will dedicate his/her working time for the co-ordination of gender
equality measures and the recruitment process could be longer if women are
explicitly required in male-dominated sectors etc. The costs seem to be much
more visible and occur immediately while, in contrary, the benefits of gender
equality initiatives are more difficult to be assessed in terms of figures and
normally are only visible in a long-term perspective.
• Clear responsibility: The successful implementation of measures often relies
on the creation of clear responsibilities. The best designed measures will fail if
nobody is in charge of the implementation and evaluation and would assess
whether targets are achieved or not. Such a person must have time to manage
the process and the power to intervene if misguided developments occur or if
the commitment lacks concrete actions.
4.4 Comparative assessment of non-legislative initiatives
In the previous chapters important success factors and challenges of non-legislative
initiatives have been summarised and impacts in participating enterprises have been
identified. Although these arguments are more or less true for all types of initiatives,
there are still some differences in effectiveness and appropriateness.
Looking closer at enterprise benefits resulting from the participation in non-legislative
initiatives it becomes obvious that prizes have broad marketing effects as awarding
ceremonies usually provoke a wide echo in the media. The same is true for rankings
which, in addition, are recognised as being very objective since based on quantitative
data. In contrast, labels and charters give enterprises the opportunity to clearly
communicate their mission statement respectively their commitment for gender equality
and to present themselves proactively as a forward-looking organisation. The participation
in a labelling process gives the enterprise the possibility to analyse and review its
HR policy with the help of external consultants. Signing a charter often entails the
possibility to enter a network of likeminded enterprises. In contrast, compendia of good
practices have positive side effects for other enterprises as they illustrate good
practices on how to promote gender equality at the workplace.