The Competition for the Company of the Year: Equal Opportunities
2008 Award results were announced at conference Parents Return To Work After Parental/Maternity Leave held by
Gender Studies, o.p.s. in the O2 Žluté Lázně on November 12, 2008. Many
influential Czech companies have participated in this annual competition
organized by Gender Studies in the last five years. This year
telecommunication companies and banks took the lead in equal opportunities.
Companies of the Year 2008:
1. place: T-MobileCzechRepublic, a.s.
2. place: Vodafone Czech Republic,
a.s.
3. place: Komerční banka a.s.
Special Gender Studies Award: Česká
spořitelna
Expert Jury
The winners were chosen by an expert
jury comprised of the following members:
Bára Kiliesová, media expert,
Associate Director, Fleishman-Hillard
Alena Křížková, sociologist, Head of
Gender & Sociology Dept., Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences,
Czech Republic
Dušan Martinek, HR expert, Head of
Projects and Human Resources Dept., ČMKOS
Tomáš Sedláček, economist and
ethicist, Chief Macroeconomic Strategist, ČSOB
T-Mobile was awarded for its systematic
and conceptual approach to issues of Work and Family Life Balance. The company
offers more than the "usual" flexible work arrangements (flexible
working hours, work from home, part-time contracts); T-Mobile also offers job
position sharing and the possibility to interrupt one's job performance for up
to a half a year. The standardization of such work arrangements is new this
year. It is one of the results of a project-based collaboration between
T-Mobile and the Czech Society for Human Resource Development (project
Alternativa).
2. place:Vodafone
Czech Republic, a.s.
Vodafone offers its staff a range of
ways to balance work and family life: flexible working hours, compressed work
week, part-time contracts and work from home. Working parents can take
advantage of the company’s so-called “slow start" policy after they come
back after parental or maternity leave. In the course of the leave, Vodafone
offers generous employee benefits for a whole one year ahead, even if the
employee does not come back to Vodafone at the end of it. In addition, Vodafone
holds outdoor camps for the children of staff.
3. place:Komerční
banka a.s.
The jury appreciated the company's
complex plan for the work and life balance of its employees. Even though the
bank began focusing on gender equality only recently, it has been intensely this
area and looking for its own approach. A new Action Plan for Parents on
Parental/Maternity Leave builds on an in-depth analysis of the needs of the
staff, offering a range of options how to stay in touch with the company in the
course of the leave, as well as training and re-integration seminars. Parents can take advantage of the possibility
of reduced contracts or work from home. Moreover, Komerční banka actively
supports fathers in taking parental leave.
Other flexible work arrangements are
also offered to the employees, such as flexible working hours, compressed work
week and job position sharing.
Special Gender Studies Award:Česká spořitelna
The company strives to implement
real changes and takes conceptual and well-thought-out steps in this direction.
Understanding the need for a good assessment of the existing state of affairs,
the bank monitors the position of women and men in terms of their career growth
options, remuneration practices as well as their job opportunities and
conditions. Česká spořitelna has
also carried out an opinion survey on the topic of the position of women and
men in the company. It works to establish an organizational culture in which equal
opportunities for all regardless of their gender, age, or ethnicity are a
matter-of-course. A working group has been set up to develop the concept for
the company's new diversity policy. Work and life balance and equalizing the
numbers of men and women across the company hierarchies are Česká spořitelna’s two top priorities.
Gender Studies awarded the bank
a Special Award for a Good Start to
support and motivate it to continue its equal opportunity initiatives and programs.
Company of the Year: Equal Opportunities
This award
has been awarded annually by Gender Studies since 2004 with the goal to inform
and motivate employers to implement equal rights for women and women in the job
market. The Company of the Year project seeks to compliment the best employers
and to motivate others through the best practices of the leaders. For this
reason Gender Studies publishes only the names of the top three companies, and
everyone else is offered extensive feedback and collaboration on the basis of
consultations in the program areas companies applied under.
