In the past 7 sessions
you learned about
the business case for gender equality
gender norms and stereotypes
and how they impact the workplace.
Then you learned about
different equality aspects or spheres.
Inclusive hiring
Voice equality
The gender pay gap
how you calculate it
and what actions you can take to reduce it
Sexual harassment in the workplace
Occupational safety and health
and how it affects men and women differently
And also how your organization
can support employees
to integrate work and life better.
All this can be
an overwhelming amount of inputs
and a lot of areas for potential action.
So, where and how do we start?
How do we prioritize?
We suggest you go back
through all the spheres
and review data of your company
where it's available
and also collect feedback
on what the most pressing issues are
in your organization.
We then suggest
you identify 3-5 actions from different spheres
that you think you can implement
over the next 3 months.
Hi, my name is Elizabeth Natalia.
I am a trainer in the international SCORE Programme.
For all spheres
you can rely on
a combination of the
following tools and approaches
to make progress.
First and foremost
it is important that
you raise awareness
among your managers and employees.
A lot of gender gaps and discrimination exist
because of lack of understanding of
gender norms
and dynamics
and behaviors that reinforce them.
To change attitudes and behaviors
we need to inform people of
what needs changing and why.
Awareness raising is a tool
you will need to use constantly
in formal ways like campaigns
but equally important in informal ways
like everyday conversations.
Awareness raising also works for managers
in particular
highlighting the business case
what is in it for the company?
And increasing investor pressures
can convince management to start paying attention.
You can start by
sending your manager
a new article
on the issue today.
Secondly
You need management commitment.
To support real changes
direct participation by the highest level management
is required.
Otherwise
initiative might fall behind
other organizational priorities.
Often it is companies
with a senior manager as a champion
who start making changes.
Thirdly
policies and procedures are the
nuts and bolts of your organization
whether they focus on
recruitment
pay
disrespectful behavior and complaints
occupational safety and health
flexible work
child care
or parental leave.
If policies and procedures are biased
and widely followed
they will reproduce inequality
and hamper your organization's performance.
To institutionalize changes
focus on the policies and procedures
used mostly by HR
but also by other departments
to achieve better outcomes
for your company and your workforce.
Training goes one step beyond awareness raising
and teaches people
specific skills or behaviors
whether they focus on
hard or soft skills.
Training will
for example
be required in teaching HR staff
on how to revise policies and procedures.
Occupational safety and health inspectors
to learn about women-specific health risks.
For managers
it can focus on
how to spot bias in themselves or others
and on inclusive leadership skills.
Peter Drucker famously said
"What you cannot measure
you cannot manage."
To understand your gender gaps
and how they impact performance
you need sex-disaggregated data
from different departments.
Monitoring the data should tell you
whether your efforts are making a difference
and you can set targets
to motivate staff
and hold people accountable.
For example
on equal representation
and equal pay.
Be careful though!
Targets can also incentivize wrong behaviors.
For example
don't set targets like zero complaints
because that might lead people to
making complaining more difficult.
Remember Goodhart's Law
"When an indicator becomes a target
it ceases to be a good indicator".
All your efforts should take place
in consultation with
your workforce and worker representatives.
You can use regular surveys and group discussions
to elicit feedback
on your efforts and remaining gaps
and involve the workforce through
consultative bodies
Enterprise Improvement Teams (EITs)
or by putting people in charge of different initiatives.
Constructora Colpatria
a Colombian construction company
with 600 employees
implemented important changes
following their participation in the
ILO SCORE Training module on Gender Equality in 2019.
To ensure everybody understood the issues
the company trained 392 employees and managers
on the transforming gender roles in society
on inclusive hiring
inclusive communication
and unconscious bias.
To get a better understanding of gender gaps
HR started to collect disaggregated data.
The first sphere of action Colpatria chose
was Inclusive Hiring.
While 43% of employees overall
were women in 2019
men dominated some segments
like middle management and supervisory levels
(who we used to call foremen)
and also building inspectors
where men made up 70%.
The company revised job openings and advertisements
trained leaders on inclusive hiring and bias
and designed a standardized
semi-structured interview questionnaire.
It also introduced
the Anonymized CV
to reduce bias in recruitment.
300 CVs were anonymized in the first year alone.
Collected data showed that
where anonymous CVs were used in hiring process
7% more women than men
made it to the top 3 finalists
and 16% more women than men
got hired.
In the hiring processes
where the anonymous CV was not used
results were actually inverse
with 28% more men being hired than women.
Through all these efforts
women's percentage in Colpatria's workforce
has increased by 4% to 47% in 2021.
As you can see with these examples
you need to start somewhere
and with persistence
you too can make progress in your company.
Do you know the saying
What is the best time to plant a tree?
It's 20 years ago.
What is the second best time to plant a tree?
It's today.
So we suggest
you start today.
Even with small steps
and a focus on long-hanging fruits
to achieve visible results
in a few months
which can spark motivation
to engage in further changes
that require more resources and more time.
By that
you make it a continuous improvement journey
where everyday you do something
better than yesterday
and over time
you change your organizational culture.
If you involve everyone
change can happen quickly.
This concludes our ILO SCORE Training module
on gender equality in the workplace.
Thank you for your participation.
We hope you enjoyed the module
and will now take concrete action
to boost your company's performance
by advancing equal opportunities.