Women's Corner

Basic concepts for managing gender issues, Gender Mainstreaming

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Gender impact assessment for SME Environment

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Main conclusions for SME Environment

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Basic concepts for managing gender issues

Most of the companies would say they provide equal opportunity for genders since they are applying a neutrality policy. Often women are the main advocates of this type of policy because they would feel uncomfortable having a positive discrimination in their professional carrier. It is true that women have the necessary skills to professionally compete with men. However, many research have concluded that policies often have different impacts on men and women since they have specific working characteristics. Thus an equally applied neutral policy may result in unequal impact on the two genders. This approach is called gender-blindness and results in indirect discrimination. Since many of the existing policies applied are more favourable for men than women there is a general widespread systematic discrimination existing and resulting in the previously described current situation.

Mainstreaming is a management tool to handle gender issues efficiently (Fitzgerald, 2002). According to mainstreaming equality should not be treated separately from decision-making, but as an integral part. Thus through the planning and design gender impacts should be considered and applied in the decision-making. An element of mainstreaming is called a good practice . In case of equal employment opportunities good practices cover strategies to attract, recruit, retain and promote women. Examples for good practices in women employment are (non-comprehensive, keyword list):

• Diversity programmes - integrated programmes

• Awareness of different working styles

• Quarterly diversity network meetings

• Flexible work arrangements

• reduced work schedules, family care leave, care for dependants while travelling, flexible work schedules, job sharing, working from home

• Top management leadership, clear on business benefits, work/life balance, change organisational style, 'style workshop' for working in a diverse work-style environment

• Time management practices

• Flexibility of work organisation

• Flexibility of working hours

• Compressed working weeks

• Teleworking

• Reduction of working time; part-time work

• E.g. until her children is 10-12 years old

• Optional part-time return to work after giving birth

• Yearly basis working time reduction

• Management of pregnancy and maternity

• Part-time work option

• Maternity, paternity, parental leave

• Special childcare service (e.g. for meetings)

• Career breaks (with opportunities for training or substituting others in order to remain updated)

• Telework

• Childcare vouchers

• Creche

• Recruitment, promotion, wages and a mixed workforce

• Diversified workforce for good teamwork and smooth functioning

• Gender preferred recruitment (when other factors equal)

• Personal mentorship to help promotion

• Network building

• Networks

• Conferences

• Mentoring up (younger manager introduce equality issues to senior managers)

• IT supported networks

• Internet databases

• Continuous training

• Management training (based on different styles)

• Time management, team work (because of more tasks)

• Partnership between companies and schools

• Company visits

• Awareness raising on science and technology education opportunities

• Study grants

An efficient tool to assess gender impacts is called the gender impact assessment (GIA). GIA is applied to compare and assess, according to gender relevant criteria, the current situation and trend with the expected development. This is carried out through four dimensions (EC, 1997) :

• Participation

• Resources

• Norms and values

• Rights

Gender Impact Assessment of SME Environment

A simplified gender impact assessment will be carried out for the direct and indirect impacts of the SME Environment project. This will be done through four matrices.

Table 1 Classification of gender impact assessment categories in the SME Environment project

	Current situation and trend	Expected development
Direct Impacts (participation in the e-learning course)	I.	III.
Indirect Impacts (employment of women researchers at CEE SMEs)	II.	IV.

The following tables will provide the results of a simplified GIA in the mentioned four categories.

Table 2 I - Current situation and trend - direct impact

	Comparison of gender relevant criteria
Participation	There are much less women in the target group of the course
Resources	Less time (for taking part in conventional courses), or interrupted time (during maternity break) Slightly less access to Internet Less money (due to general discrimination in salaries)
Norms and values	"women are to take care of family, it is unnecessary for them to learn"
Rights	It is assumed that there are no legal barriers for women to take part in the course. In some cases it is possible that family members may not allow women to take part due to above mentioned norms.

Table 3 II - Current situation and trend - indirect impact

	Comparison of gender relevant criteria
Participation	There are approximately equal graduates in both genders. There are fewer postgraduates among women. There are even fewer women employed in the for-profit research. Women are at a lower number members of formal or informal professional networks.
Resources	Due to the above reason women are more in the lack of postgraduate research knowledge than men. Women have less time for carrier due to family. Women have less capital to start own business. Women have less contact capital in formal or informal professional networks. Women have different type of management and work style than men (and currently the latter is the more widespread).
Norms and values	"women are less reliable workers due to current or future family enrolments"
Rights	There are generally no direct discrimination, however indirect discrimination survives through gender-blindness and applied neutrality policies.

Table 4 III - Expected development - direct impact

	Comparison of gender relevant criteria
Participation	The course should train higher ratio of women than their participation in the target group.
Resources	The course should provide a flexible time arrangement, inexpensive opportunity to learn.
Norms and values	The course should be directly offered to women and widely communicate that it is a special course tailor made to women's needs.
Rights	The course should be directly offered to women and widely communicate that it is a special course tailor made to women's needs.

Table 5 IV - Expected development - indirect impact

	Comparison of gender relevant criteria
Participation	The course should be offered to graduate students and women at maternity break as well in order to help their (re)introduction to the market. The training material should introduce companies good practices how and why to employ women.
Resources	The training material should provide specific information on different work style of genders and their best utilisation. Links should be offered to women's scientific networks as well as venture capital opportunities. The course should provide sufficient knowledge to increase women researcher's chance to find employment or strengthen their company.
Norms and values	The training material should raise awareness on the benefits of women employees.
Rights	The training material should raise awareness on the practice of mainstreaming.

Main conclusions for SME Environment