On March 22nd Guidelines on Gender Aware Leadership (Riktlinjer för ett jämställt ledarskap) were launched in a workshop by Triple Steelix and Nordwit in order to inspire concrete policies and action for steel companies to attract and retain highly skilled female employees. The guidelines are based on knowledge and experience exchange between, on the one hand, women in research and development from companies in the Triple Steelix industrial region and, on the other hand, researchers in Nordwit.
Before lunch we were inspired by lectures by:
– Jesper Fundberg, Women’s success in working life – a matter of changing men.
– Nyamko Sabuni shared her experiences from the work of ÅF – Making future.
– Max Parknäs, Vinnova – Equal Innovation – Who, what and how?
– Ann-Cathrin Hellsén, Practical gender equality work in a traditional male workplace.
After lunch, we discussed what kind of interview questions one would ask if one wanted to recruit a gender aware manager. Some examples that came up were: Describe with concrete examples how you have worked to improve gender equality in previous workplaces. How do you ensure that you make equal pay as a manager? Have you worked at a male-dominated/female-dominated/gender-balanced workplace? Which one would you choose and why? We also discussed salary criteria, if gender equality should be rewarded in the paycheck. For example, high level managers could be rewarded by promoting women’s careers. Using negative jargon could be punished salary-wise.
Lastly, we discussed and concretized some of the recommendations in the guidelines. It is important to have data on a very local level, to show that inequality exists – both when it comes to measurable things and things that cannot be measured. It was also said that it is important that managers are aware of the competences of both women and men to make best use of them, and for that to become true, the workplace as a whole needs to be inclusive. It was also said that it is necessary to change men’s behavior in order to create better workplaces for all genders and that male managers with a gender agenda are crucial for making change.
Pictures and interviews from the workshop can be found here.
Nina Almgren & Minna Salminen Karlsson
NORDWIT 