Great Place To Work (GPTW) is present in more than 60 countries worldwide. The experiences are different in each of the locations where they work and this is reflected in their ranking that lists the best places to work.
On the occasion of its latest list: “The best places to work for women in Uruguay”, the director of the firm at the regional level, Cecilia Riva, -one of the main promoters of the ranking for women of the firm- spoke with Coffee & Business about the particularities of the region and the challenges that companies will face in the near future.
Although the current report specifically evaluates gender, Riva maintained that the challenges for companies also cover other issues in terms of equity: “When leaving the Southern Cone, other indicators that make the issue of equity such as ethnic or cultural differences”, he maintained and added that in Uruguay these issues are not part of the agenda as gender issues are.
Lead by example
Good practices are contagious. For Riva, carrying out the ranking makes companies begin to ask themselves what recipe they should use to enter the competition. “Those who look at the ranking from the outside can see issues to follow to improve from their own company,” she said.
According to Great Place To Work indicators, once organizations begin to work in equality, the levels of employee commitment to their companies improve markedly. “There is 4% more commitment in a company with high levels of equity than in one that is an excellent place to work, but does not have a focus on equity,” he assured, noting that this is no coincidence.
In this line, the CEO of GPTW for Uruguay, Fedra Feola, pointed out that More and more companies integrate equity into their organizational culture and she exemplified: “Three or five years ago we talked about this with the directors of the companies and they told us ´you are going to bring a feminist movement to the company´”. Meanwhile, Riva highlighted that when one works with diversity it is a “win-win” for employees and employers.
In turn, in companies that are among the best, the common denominator for improvement is equity. “Equity results are the hardest to improve,” he said.
The regional director asserted that this is because it is breaking with years and years of work in which equity was not the focus. “Historically, we dragged that equity was not sought in labor relations, only the result and reducing costs. In today’s culture, the person is central”, she emphasized and indicated that the future of the company depends on the importance of people at the center of organizations.
The breakdown of the pandemic
Globally, the number of women who resigned from their jobs in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic was much higher than that of men.
According to the regional director of GPTW, the best companies to work for opted to give a space (and greater freedom) to all employees, “even men benefited”said.
Asked about how the pandemic affects the role that women occupy in companies, Riva indicated that it is still quite uncertain and that there is a long way to go. “It is a chapter that companies look at in detail to understand how far it goes,” she pointed out. However, she identified the great challenge in this context: getting people back to work. “They are all measuring how flexible they should be, if the return is hybrid or face-to-face, and how much the workload will be.”
The equity challenges
The first challenge of the best companies to work for in terms of equality lies in the development of their employees“not only of the individual person, but also of having opportunities within the organization”, Riva clarified.
In this sense, he stressed that “it is not just about reducing the wage gap -which definitely exists-, but about offering greater opportunities regardless of who is on the other side”.
The director pointed out that, in order to offer these opportunities without bias, In large organizations, those interested in a job can already apply without being able to identify their gender or other characteristics that could tip the balance for or against them.
As a second challenge for the best companies, Riva established visibility. “It is essential that minorities be given a voice in the directories so that they speak for those who are not there,” he said.
The third issue to focus on is care. “When we take care of women we make that replicate throughout the organization,” Riva said. In this regard, she emphasized that caring for women should not necessarily be associated with motherhood. “To those who want to be mothers and those who don’t, and in every way,” she reaffirmed.
