On July 1st of this year, the Italian government issued a decree concerning equal rights between men and women at work. BOKS member in Italy, BLCI International, provides commentary on the process of obtaining the new gender equality certification for national and international clients.
The measures aim to ensure greater participation of women in the labour market and to reduce the gender gap by creating a national system of gender equality certification with the scope to improve women’s working conditions, quality, remuneration, and role in companies. All companies can get the specific “equality certificate”, regardless of the sector of reference and the number of employees.
The advantages are very significant since the companies can gain a good score for the public funds (national and local) or other incentives with such a certification. The Italian public administration will be required to indicate in the tender calls the advantages they intend to recognize for companies possessing this certification.
The equality certificates are issued by specific entities accredited in this area (EEC Regulation n. 765/2008).
The certification mechanism is based on specific “KPI” (Key Performance Indicators) and six areas of evaluation, namely (I) culture and strategy, (ii) governance, (iii) HR processes, (iv) opportunities for growth and inclusion of women in the company area, (v) income equality, (vi) protection of parenthood and work-life balance.
Each area is characterized by a percentage weight contributing to the measurement of the organization’s as-is level and against which constant progress is measured over time: to issue the certification, the company must reach the minimum score of 60%. In addition, the company union representatives will be tasked with verifying compliance with the requisites necessary for maintaining the minimum parameters.
For corporate governance, the “empowerment of women” will soon become an important compliance matter to which companies will have to adapt to avoid the risk of not excelling in competitiveness and rewarding participation in tenders.
BLCI International’s experts, leading ESG and payroll areas, are ready to support their clients with specific tailor-made advice, to assess all such KPIs, to settle and obtain such a certification. For more information, please contact [email protected].
