Gender Equality and the Global Jobs Challenge 6th Annual Women’s Empowerment Principles Event March 2014 United Nations Headquarters New York, NY This 6th Annual WEPs meeting focusing on gender equality and the global jobs challenge showcases an empowerment agenda that grows equality, business and economies The sessions confront some of the key barriers to enhancing and expanding women’s position in the workforce around the globe such as facing conscious and unconscious bias, juggling multiple responsibilities of work and family, overcoming barriers to higher positions and nontraditional jobs and connecting to women suppliers and entrepreneurs The WEPs 2014 Event highlights ways that stakeholders can work together from their various perspectives to fashion collaborative efforts that bridge acknowledged gaps, scale up opportunities for impact and tracks progress Examples from companies that highlight these policies, practices and programmes CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS BIAS: BREAKING STEREOTYPES, EXPANDING OPPORTUNITIES • Total, a global oil and gas company, has taken actions to increase the number of women at all levels throughout the company and to further the empowerment of women throughout the last ten years In addition to significantly increasing the number of women in senior management positions and on its Board of Directors, it has made efforts to promote equality of women in the company on five fronts: recruitment, wage equality, career management, raising awareness and combating stereotypes, and work-life balance In the area of raising awareness and combating stereotypes, Total provides training on non-discrimination and diversity for recruiters, career managers, and other human resource team members Other commitments include: increasing the percentage of women recruits, in both technical and business and support disciplines; setting aside a specific budget to study and address unjustified wage differentials and signed a workplace gender equality agreement with employee representatives in France, created a group called “Twice,” in order to promote career development through networking and mentoring; raise awareness about gender equality; and serve as a think tank for creating innovative practices, improving work-life balance for both women and men • Boyner Holding, a leading non-food retail company, rewrote its corporate values and ethical principles to incorporate equal opportunities principles into its ‘workplace democracy’ stance and all its Human Resources policies While any type of gender discrimination in the recruitment, talent and career management and payroll phases has been ruled out in the group’s Code of Ethics, any traces of gender bias and maltreatment have been eradicated in all of the group’s HR training material and marketing communications activities • Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage, and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world Symantec's Gender Equity Image Project works toward the ongoing improvement of gender representation and the reduction of the use of stereotyping imagery at Symantec wherever possible The project uses straightforward and easy-to-understand metrics Several members of the marketing team evaluated over 300 images across several categories in an effort to understand how gender is represented in Symantec imagery The initial results were presented for review to internal teams with functions ranging from advertising, brand and online to external stakeholders at our key design agencies with control over the various areas Each team committed to a 5% improvement in the first year Corporate Marketing incorporated appropriate best practices language in both the Editorial Styleguide and the Visual Guidelines documents to help individual contributors make the best choices WORK, FAMILIES AND GENDER EQUALITY: STRESS AND SOLUTIONS • Allens is a top tier commercial law firm with offices throughout Australia and Asia To support employees manage family responsibilities, Allens offers all female employees one and a half hours of individual “managing the transition” coaching before and after the birth of a child, and 18 weeks paid parental leave Allens provides a childcare kit to all employees; a ‘buddy’ program to help women to stay in touch whilst on leave; and transition luncheons whilst on leave to allow the opportunity to network with other women Allens recognizes that employees’ flexibility needs will vary at different life stages, particularly when family circumstances change The firm actively supports flexibility, offering one on one coaching sessions; flexibility guidelines for staff, managers and partners; and online resources • Cross Company, Inc., a Japanese apparel clothing ompany, launched a new paid and parental leave programme The new practice, initiated by Mr Yasuharu Ishikawa, President of Cross Company, will require male employees, including Mr Ishikawa, with children less than 11 years old to take a parental leave once a month This new practice comes at a time when, according to Mr Ishikawa, most male employees in Japan, especially in their 30s and 40s, hesitate to take paid leave for their families Cross Company has also introduced initiatives to increase gender equality and women’s empowerment through training and education of both female and male employees • Safaricom Ltd., a leading provider of converged communication solutions based in Kenya, has gone to great lengths to ensure that the needs of its working mothers are well met Through adoption of various best practices in creating a mother-friendly environment, Safaricom has ensured that the needs of a working mother are amply met over and above the market trends Safaricom offers a comprehensive medical coverage for pre and post natal requirements, as well as immunizations for the child up to months The company has also included a new state of the art contact centre, which provides a room for breastfeeding mothers, a free state of the art child day care facilities run by childcare professionals, and an in-‐house doctor who can attend to the children should they fall sick while on the premises The HR policies have also been adapted to support the working mothers, including months maternity leave while still being entitled to annual leave Safaricom has worked hard to create a mother-friendly working hours for the employees deployed in shift based positions, where new mothers are allowed to choose from various mothers’ shifts encouraging breastfeeding for the first months after delivery • Boyner Holdings, a leading non-food retail company in Turkey, states special arrangements for female employees reinforce traditional gender roles; companies must restrain from doing this For example, instead of giving a day off for female employees on the first day of school, we should give a parent day off for both female and male employee Activities towards the parental development of company employees should not only be targeted at mothers, it should be voiced towards both parents, female and male employees • A multinational healthcare company based in the United Kingdom, has an onsite child care center at the US Business Center and offers priority access at a community-based center for a smaller site Both programs include a tuition subsidy based on family income The company also makes back up child and eldercare available to all US employees • Several companies including (HCL Technologies, Wipro Limited, Eczacıbaşı Group, Banco Brasil and Agroholding Mriya) find it beneficial to offer childcare options HCL and Wipro offer daycare facilities onsite Eczacıbaşı Group and Wipro offers flexible work schedules and extends these benefits to parents who adopt Turkcell provides breastfeeding rooms at workplace locations and administrative leave for mothers to be with their children on the first day of school At Agroholding Mriya each young mother can benefit from the right of individual work schedule: reduced working hours, longer lunch break, a break to feed the child Banco Brasil provides day care center assistance by reimbursing expenses for day care centers, preschool institutions, domestic help or nannies for parents with children under seven, including adopted children Banco Brasil also provides additional services and support for parents of disabled children INCREASING WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE: OPENING THE DOORS AND CHANGING THE COMPANY CULTURE • CA Technologies, a global IT management software and solutions company with expertise across all IT environments, is committed to supporting the advancement of Women in IT and is firmly focused on nurturing a culture of diversity and inclusion both inside and outside the company Through its partnership with the Anita Borg Institute for Woman and Technology, CA Technologies supports programs that bring together members of academia, industry and government to discuss the preeminent issues facing women in technology In addition to creating a strong online community for CA Technologies women, the company has instituted several key Gender Equality and the Global Jobs Challenge, 5-6 March 2014 / Agenda as of 31.01.14 programs including new leave processes to ease transition back to work after giving birth, and the company’s Tech Girls Rock initiative, which was launched in partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) to encourage young women to discover an interest in tech related educational opportunities and careers CA Technologies also saw the highest increase by far for the representation of technical women at the entry level, building on the company’s continued commitment to the advancement of women in IT • One of the world’s largest gold producers, is committed to encouraging greater participation by women in its business and to paying special attention to gender in its impacts on and interactions with local communities wherever it operates For example, in Ghana, the company established a gender mainstreaming programme that encourages women to assume greater responsibility within the mine and amongst the company’s host communities It operates a 75-member Women’s Consultative Committee, runs (with the IFC) a small business development project which identifies and strengthens female suppliers and targets women particularly for nontraditional areas of its mining operation including metallurgy and engineering • An Indian multi-national steel-making company, has launched a number of initiatives in the last few decades in support of the advancement of women and diversity The Tejaswini Programme was started in 2002 to help empower women on the shop floor to move into non-traditional positions The first of its kind, Tejaswini, was designed to transform the female employees into proficient operators of heavy mobile equipment like tractors and locomotives Successive batches of Tejaswinis who have been trained in other trades, such as, welding, gascutting, rigging, grinding, and bench-fitting are carrying out skilled jobs alongside their male colleagues • Rio Tinto is a leading international mining group headquartered in the UK Traditionally, the involvement of women in mining has been slight Rio Tinto recognizes the importance of gender as a factor in social dynamics, community development and stability Thus, Rio Tinto tries to include women in every aspect of work in the field of mining As a result of this initiative, Rio Tinto published a resource guide entitled “Why Gender Matters” to explain key considerations regarding gender during the planning and implementation of gender-related policies and initiatives • A leading European airline participates in projects that encourage schoolgirls to consider traditionally maledominated jobs in the airline industry (pilots and mechanics) and schoolboys to consider traditionally femaledominated jobs in the airline industry (retailers, bookkeepers, flight attendants) EXPANDING WOMEN’S ENTERPRISE OPPORTUNITIES, BUILDING BUSINESS AND SOCIAL VALUE • Cross Company, Inc., a Japanese apparel company, held an event with the Liaison Conference for the Promotion of Gender Equality, Ochanomizu University (one of two women’s national university), Kanagawa New Business Association and “J300” (coalition of the women owners) in January, 2014 on Principle of the WEPs in Tokyo The event brought together about 300 participants included many women-owned companies, some large Japanese companies and women universities The event aimed to provide an avenue for women-owned enterprises to expand business relationships with large companies as well as to empower female university students through exposure to women-owned companies • The Coca-Cola Company's 5by20 global initiative aims to enable the economic empowerment of million women entrepreneurs across our value chain by 2020 The Coca-Cola Company is the world’s largest beverage company with more than 500 sparkling and still brands available in more than 200 countries worldwide Through 5by20, women entrepreneurs around the world – from fruit farmers to retailers to artisans – business skills training courses, access to financial services and access to support networks of peers or mentors to address the barriers they face to business success The Coca-Cola Company works with partners around the world to bring 5by20 to life, encouraging innovation, scale-up and replication For example, UN Women and Coca-Cola work together to leverage UN Women’s reach and influence as a leader in promoting gender equality and economic empowerment in the context of Coca-Cola’s broad global value chain and extensive business expertise Their $4 million partnership will reach more than 40,000 women in Egypt, Brazil and South Africa over the next three years and will provide valuable insights on sustainable project models that can be scaled up worldwide By the end of 2012, 5by20 reached 300,000 women total since its launch in 2010 There are 5by20 programs in 12 countries: Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, Haiti, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, South Africa and Thailand In the years ahead, Coca-Cola expects to reach every region of the globe as 5by20 grows exponentially Gender Equality and the Global Jobs Challenge, 5-6 March 2014 / Agenda as of 31.01.14 • Jindal Stainless Limited, a metal and mining company in India provides opportunities for financial empowerment of women through micro-enterprise initiatives Through this program three enterprises have been established to increase the income levels of women and make them self-sustainable The trades of stitching & dress designing, papad making and bamboo packaging were chosen and the women were provided extensive training and handholding Partnership with intermediary organizations was established, who were already involved in enterprise development program and had marketing linkages • HCL Technologies, an IT firm in India, initiated a program to provide vocational training in tailoring to 50 marginalised women from Hoshiarpur Village in Noida Volunteers taught them tailoring and embroidery skills and also trained them in selling, marketing and negotiation skills, to enable them to become self-reliant and selfsustainable in life HCL has set up kiosks in the cafeterias inside some of their facilities where the women collect orders • Unilever (Ghana) is addressing the waste problem in Ghana Plastic waste is growing in Ghana as sales of products packaged in plastic increases Unilever's Tema factory sponsored the first national forum on the management of plastic waste in 2000, in collaboration with the Ghana National Packaging Cluster and the International Centre for Sustainable Development Samples of jewelry made from waste plastic were displayed at the forum The Centre for the Development of People – a non-governmental organisation based in Kumasi – encourages women's groups and small businesses to collect rigid plastic waste from homes, factories and refuse dumps, and put it to good use The used plastic is cleaned, melted and coloured then wrapped around straw and cut into pieces to make attractive beads for jewelry The sale of these products provides much-needed income to the women Gender Equality and the Global Jobs Challenge, 5-6 March 2014 / Agenda as of 31.01.14 ... January, 2014 on Principle of the WEPs in Tokyo The event brought together about 300 participants included many women-owned companies, some large Japanese companies and women universities The event. .. ENTERPRISE OPPORTUNITIES, BUILDING BUSINESS AND SOCIAL VALUE • Cross Company, Inc., a Japanese apparel company, held an event with the Liaison Conference for the Promotion of Gender Equality,... Company' s 5by20 global initiative aims to enable the economic empowerment of million women entrepreneurs across our value chain by 2020 The Coca-Cola Company is the world’s largest beverage company