Gender equality certification: how does it really work?

There is a lot of talk about it: there are those who do it out of obligation and those who do it for fashion, as a facade, but Stefania Pompili who drives in Italy Above SteriaEuropean leader in digital transformation, explains that “the certification of gender equality, in itself, is not a necessary and sufficient condition to demonstrate that a path is being followed, there must be a minimum level, but one can always progress”.

So many words, but they do not always correspond to a strong conviction and coherent action. So how do you carry out a real certification of gender equality? “For us the certification was a moment in which we wanted to measure ourselves in some way. We have seen the theme of 360-degree care of resources at the center of our agenda with a particular focus, naturally, on the theme of women”.

Sopra Steria is among the few companies in the ICT sector in Italy to have a female workforce of over 30%, of which 20% in top positions and 40% represented on the Board of Directors. The company aims to increase the female workforce from 30 to 40% by 2025. The first step was precisely the measurement of the phenomena. «Even I, who said that I had no discrimination within the organization and that I thought I was free from bias (distortions in the evaluation of facts and events, ed.), I realized that even within ours there were behaviors actions that came from a deep bias.” In this company organized by levels, from one to six, they realized that as they went up there were all those “defects” that they wanted to fight.

«We encountered the issue of the so-called broken step. We had a good, although not sufficient, percentage of women joining, but then as we moved up the hierarchy this percentage decreased quite significantly. Just as by analyzing the other fundamental theme, that of the gender pay gap, we realized that there too there were anomalous phenomena that we tried to investigate.”

These differences only partially came from the topic of motherhood. «There are many studies that say that after 3 or 5 years of work with an identical entry level for men and women, women then earn less. We have encountered this phenomenon. On the one hand, we began a process of awareness of what the biases could be, we did a lot of training for managers and paid great attention to promotion moments. We have a very effective people assessment cycle: young people are assessed twice a year and the entire population is assessed once a year. We took care to verify that in the evaluation and promotion processes the percentages of at least compositions of men and women at the different levels were respected. If we had 70% men in a level and 30% women, we would investigate the congruence of promotions. This does not mean that we automatically promoted an identical percentage of women, we have always paid attention to competence and value, however we have traced a series of behaviors on the part of managers who are predominantly male and who in some promotion processes had the bias of mother of the family not 100% available and therefore in some way this had an impact on the evaluation of a possible promotion”.

In addition to this profound work on culture and awareness, there was the constant monitoring to intercept any anomalies or distortions. «This certification process results in having a score of 78 out of 100 which is a good score».

Is there a comparison with other companies? Is this path applicable to all sectors? Are the problems always the same? «Each sector has its specificities. A tech company certainly discounts the availability of skills that come from the world of school with a limited number of women. However, what we have done can be done by any company: that is implement all those processes and behaviors of a good family man who protects all collaborators in an equitable manner, valuing them all regardless of gender, belonging, religion, all these components. Here we talk about women, but for us the concept of diversity is 360 degrees. It takes great awareness. This certification process further helped us understand what we could do better. They made us understand that training cannot just be optional and therefore we willingly took up the suggestion to make it mandatory just as all training on the topic of anti-corruption and IT security is mandatory for us.”

All the managers said that they would never discriminate against women, then after specific training a new awareness was born in them. «The very fact of knowing that the company goes to verify the correctness of the criteria applied and that the managers were actually correct in their assessments is also an important point. It's not about wanting to necessarily promote women to reach a percentage because otherwise we would only hurt ourselves, but about recognizing the value we have. A woman who has children may not be able to travel, but she is capable of doing other jobs well.”

The key word is compulsory training, not only in the company, but already at school, since childhood. «The large institutions that educate, the family and the school, have a fundamental role. Companies can do a lot, but we must not delude ourselves that it is a simple process: we have a zero gap at junior levels, 5-6% at senior level. Every organization has professional profiles and, with the same professional profiles and skills, it makes no sense for a man to earn more than a woman.”

Do women have this awareness that we try to teach managers? «Women give up very often. In the sense that even today many girls that I personally have many times make the choice to give priority to private life over professional life, but also because unfortunately it must be said that as far as companies can do, policies to support women in general on healthcare issues in Italy have considerable room for improvement. We have started this same path of awareness also for women, as well as managers. We create focus groups on issues that are priorities for us from which proposals and solutions emerge which we then naturally implement and apply.”

For women it often seems like there is no choice. «It's very difficult to put everything together, it takes great willpower and to have it you need a stimulus and motivation because a person makes great sacrifices if he has an advantage, a return. This is a bit of the role we have: stimulating our women. It's not that it's easy, you have to have a really strong determination to do it and then also have a family context that allows you to make some choices, some support. One of the mistakes many women make is giving up. The typical statement is: “The babysitting costs me more than going to work.” I recommend paying the babysitter because children grow up. There is a great sense of frustration at having given up, it seems like a choice, but it is a sudden choice. Better to have something besides family.”

For the family, Sopra Steria has flexibility and support policies for new parents, a Welcome Back program for those returning from leave, in order to support them in returning to everyday working life, two days of paternity leave more than the national average, and an 80% smartworking system, with a minimum presence on site of 5 days a month. From 2024, the company will integrate 100% of the expected remuneration for the entire period of parental leave and implement new policies on the leave necessary for parents to assist their children under 18 admitted to hospital, which from January will be considered paid leave.

Source: Vanity Fair

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