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Description
The project aims to create/adapt and test instruments to measure and study gender inequalities in work organisations, involving the direct and active participation of organisations. Since the project''s actions are essentially directed at the business sector, it is of utmost importance for companies to participate in this process, contributing from the outset to the co-construction of the products addressed to them, analysing their feasibility and feasibility in their contexts and anticipating obstacles and ways to overcome them. The first phase is dedicated to the construction or adaptation of tools to analyse inequalities in work contexts (e.g. tools to assess and analyse the level of sexual segregation of certain professions and tasks; to measure wage inequalities; to analyse the perception of support in reconciling work and personal and family life and its impact on levels of stress and/or burnout; to assess gender stereotypes and representations, among others). In a second phase, the instruments created will be disseminated to other organisations (in a second training action) and will then be the support for carrying out the equality, conciliation and diversity inclusion diagnoses in the participating organisations, which in turn will underpin the intervention plan to be drawn up for each organisation. Finally, and already in the second year of the project, it is planned to start the implementation by the companies of the measures contemplated in their equality and conciliation plans (3rd phase). The project team will make regular monitoring contacts with the participating organisations with a view to monitoring and supporting the implementation of the measures in the plans outlined.
Summary of project results
The project bridGEs: Alto-Minho companies for Gender Equality aimed to create/adapt and test instruments to measure and study gender inequalities in work organisations, involving the direct and active participation of organisations. Since the project''s actions are essentially directed at the business sector, it is of utmost importance for companies to participate in this process, contributing from the outset to the co-construction of the products addressed to them, analysing their feasibility and feasibility in their contexts and anticipating obstacles and ways to overcome them.
- Creation of a website and Facebook and Instagram pages, with weekly publications.
- Three communication events: Opening Conference, bridGEs MeetUp and Final Conference, involving a total of 116 people and around thirty organisations.
- Two training actions on gender equality (58h each): 27 professionals from 8 companies of Alto Minho were certified. The vast majority (85%) of people who participated in the trainings report a transforming impact of the actions, both in their professional lives and in the organisations they are part of, as well as in their personal lives.
- Three tools for analysing inequalities developed with and for organisations: Matrix for Inclusive Communication Analysis; Attitudes Scale on the Promotion of Equality and Non-Discrimination in Work Contexts; Questionnaire on Equality Practices in Social and Community Intervention
- Consultancy and tailor-made intervention in the organisational context with 5 organisations from Alto Minho: application of instruments, diagnosis, follow-up/support to the implementation of equality measures.
- Bilateral cooperation with Norway: visits, with the partner KUN Centre for Equality and Diversity, to various companies and public entities in southern Norway with good practices in gender equality; organisation, by the Director of KUN, of a workshop on sexual harassment in higher education institutions, held in Porto; KUN''s intervention at the project''s closing conference, held in Viana do Castelo.
- Dissemination of knowledge, results and products generated by bridGEs project: 4 scientific articles written; 6 participations in national and international scientific events, with the presentation of 5 posters and 3 oral communications.
Companies applying gender equality instruments: in the tailor-made intervention activity (activity 7), the instruments were tested and applied in context in 5 companies, as a support to the diagnostic procedures of the 5 intervened organizations.
Development of practical instruments to measure inequalities between women and men at work: 3 instruments were developed, corresponding to the needs identified by the organizations during the training actions carried out:
• “Inclusive Communication Self-Analysis Matrix” – “Likert Scale, with 34 items that, distributed over 7 dimensions, represent measures that promote equality. They should be scored from 1 to 7, according to the degree of disagreement or agreement of the respondent. Allows individual or multiple application and quotation, in which case the average results of a given group are returned. It provides the results for each dimension of analysis, which must be located in predefined intervals, in order to identify the corresponding percentile and interpret the value found. According to the result achieved, the scale also points out guiding strategies for intervention”.
• “Questionnaire on Equal Practices in Social and Community Intervention in Organizations” – “The instrument makes it possible to analyze the quality of an organization''s communication practices, with regard to the adoption of inclusive, non-discriminatory and gender-sensitive forms of communication. It is based on verifying the presence of certain criteria in a sample of organizational documents. It provides two results: one regarding the use or not of inclusive language resources, and another regarding the content of the communicated content. It includes guiding strategies for intervention according to the result achieved”.
• “Scale of Attitudes towards the Promotion of Equality and Non-Discrimination at Work” - “Questionnaire composed of 16 items that represent not only behaviors in interaction with others, but also reflections on the professional practices of those who respond. This tool, of self-application by organizations, helps to assess the extent to which communication practices and professional relationships with users/clients, partner entities and colleagues are conscious and intentional and reflect principles and values of gender equality, inclusion and non-discrimination.”
Summary of bilateral results
Bilateral cooperation with Norway:• Benchmarking activity jointly with the international partner, KUN Center for Equality and Diversity, which took place in Kristiansand, in the south of Norway, which included visits to several companies and public entities in the south of Norway with good practices in GI;• Promotion, by the Director of KUN – Karin Hovde – of a Workshop on sexual harassment in higher education institutions, held in Porto;• Intervention by KUN at the Closing Conference of the bridGEs Project, held in Viana do Castelo.