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

78 Gender equality initiatives
The main organiser is Gender Studies, a public non-profit organisation. An open call for
applications is announced at the beginning of the year and it gives companies over half
a year to consider participation and fill in the mandatory questionnaire. Some companies
are approached actively by the Gender Studies team and they are offered onsite
presentation on the working principles and possible benefits.
There are no minimum criteria for companies to participate. It gives opportunity for
everybody to try and receive feedback on how they are doing. Also there is a special
award called “good start” which is supposed to motivate companies which recently
started with their programmes and activities.
Fields which are evaluated include company environment (gender audits, statistics,
surveys, programmes for women – mentoring etc., targeted recruitment), position of
men and women (female/male ratio at different levels), work-life balance strategies and
their development over time, marketing, Corporate Social Responsibility (until 2008)
and processes of dealing with complaints, fair remuneration, women in management
(since 2009). There are also cross-cutting themes such as innovative character, female
representation in managerial positions in relation to all female employees, measurability
of initiatives in place, communication within the company about their equality
programmes, gender diversity and transferability to other companies.
In a first step, the company sends the completed questionnaire to the Gender Studies
team. All information from the questionnaire is verified by a personal interview. If there
is a comparison possible with a questionnaire from the previous year(s), companies
need to show significant progress. In a second step, a short-list of eligible companies is
presented to the jury, which changes every year and consists of representatives of
different fields (gender experts, social scientists, PR experts, HR experts). The jury
identifies the winner by taking the following aspects into account: development of
equality policies, innovativeness, transferability to other companies, communication
within the company, measurability of results and level of gender diversity.
Apart from these prizes in the field of reconciliation of family and work, there are also
special prizes regarding this matter in the frame of “Best Workplaces” conducted by the
Great Place to Work® Institutes throughout Europe. See section “Lists of best workplaces
for women – special awards in the frame of Great place to Work®” below for a
detailed description.
Women in leading positions – breaking the glass ceiling
A special category among prizes / awards recognising efforts on gender equality in the
workplace is awarding enterprises which implement initiatives in order to increase the
number of women in leading positions. In contrast to the above described initiatives on
reconciliation of family and work, this category stresses the support of women in the
workplace. Overall, the five prizes identified cover fields like women in management,
leadership and board positions as well as increasing the share of female managers.