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Are Gender Equality Plans Needed In Business?

By Vanesa Marcos - Global Open University (GOU)
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By Vanesa Marcos | Communications and Pedagogic Innovation Director - Tue, 10/11/2022 - 15:00

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Real equality between women and men is still a goal that has not yet been fully achieved, at least not in a great deal of companies. A useful tool to advance in this process are so-called "equality plans." In Spain, for example, these are legally obligatory for companies with more than 50 employees. However, what is meant by a company equality plan?

Article 46 of Organic Law 3/2007 for the effective equality of women and men defines these plans as an ordered set of evaluable measures, adopted after a diagnosis of the specific situation of women and men in a company, aimed at achieving real equality of treatment and opportunities for all of them. The approval of such a plan involves a five-stage process. The first is the decision to set the process in motion and to set up the negotiating committee to draw up and approve the plan, which must be equal in two respects: on the one hand, in the number of representatives of the company and of the workers; on the other hand, in the number of women and men. It is crucial that experts in gender equality are involved to ensure that the process does not stall. 

The second stage is to carry out a serious and reliable diagnosis, based on quantitative and qualitative data, of the different situations of male and female workers within the company. This diagnosis will outline the set of problems to which the plan must respond. It will be necessary to identify how many workers there are in the company; what functions they carry out (to assess whether there is horizontal segregation); what positions of responsibility they hold or lack (to determine whether there is vertical segregation); what degree of training, seniority, age they have; the different working hours and types of working day; pay for work of equal value; promotions and how they affect male and female workers differently; how they reconcile work and family life; how sexual harassment by bosses and colleagues and gender-based harassment are prevented, among many other issues. Obviously, the diagnosis will yield an uncomfortable truth for the company, but the only way to cure a disease is to first identify it accurately. 

The third step is the elaboration and approval of the equality plan. Each measure responds to a detected problem and must consider its objective, how to achieve it, who is its target, who is responsible for deploying it, in what time frame, with what resources and how to evaluate it through specific indicators. A plan is prose, not poetry; it is muscle, not fat.

The fourth phase is the monitoring of the plan, which will be multiannual. The plan should have a designated body to monitor compliance and even to propose partial revisions to make it more effective. Plans should not be static, they have to be continuously updated because life moves fast in surprising and unexpected ways.

Finally, the fifth step is the elaboration of an evaluation of the process, outcomes and impact of the plan. The evaluation is the proof of the goodwill to make equality between male and female workers real and effective. And, without a doubt, it serves as a diagnostic element for the following plan. It goes without saying that evaluation cannot and should not be a way to highlight only the positive aspects of the plan. It should reveal the real facts, be those what they may. Only by facing the truth will we be able to deal with essential facts of gender equality.

It is not only about fighting for real equality between women and men, especially in the business world. It has to be done intelligently and this requires high-level professional training and investment. It is true that we have come a long way in the development of laws that take into account the equality of men and women in the workplace, but we need smart investment to achieve the goal, as well as solid training to lead cultural improvement in gender equality: both men and women need to reshape their views.

The university that I am honored to lead, GOU, takes gender equality education particularly seriously. The commitment is everyone's, and it is a colossal and crucial one. We are aware of the need of professionals who have the know-how to make companies places of well-being and personal fulfillment and, therefore, we have designed degrees to train experts in the field of gender equality who can work as advisers to CEOs and human resources managers. We have evidence that those institutions, organisms and businesses that have complied with the issue of drawing gender equality plans have improved their processes and have boosted their turnover.

Photo by:   Vanesa Marcos

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