The monthly focus of this 29^th issue is dedicated to gender equality at workplace and more particularly the progress to adress the gaps that still exist. As usual, we present you the last trends in several countries on this theme and the inspiring ways in which they are implementing them.
Beyond the news, you will get acquainted with the employee experience of younger members of staff at Air Liquide and the guidelines for using social media by Australian public service employees.

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Have a good reading. Take good care of you and others!

The vision RH editorial team

In 2015, OECD Member countries adopted a Recommendation of the Council on Gender Equality in Public Life. To provide governments with more practical assistance, in early 2020, the organisation set up a Toolkit. It sets out effective measures to increase female participation and contains self-assessment tools so that institutions are able to systematically monitor their policies.   

But what is the actual state of play today? What gaps still remain and what initiatives have been introduced to try to address them?

Although wages should be equal as they must be based solely on qualifications, rank or the position held, when taken as a whole, they are still one of the root causes of gender inequality in the public sector.

In this respect, in 2017, Iceland became the first country in the world to adopt a Law on Equal Pay Certification in an amendment to the Gender Equality Act which applies to all employers and which must enter into force by 2022 at the latest. The legislation provides that the way in which qualifications, experience, responsibilities or job performance are evaluated and included in wage systems must be documented. This requirement is verified by means of audits followed by reports sent to employees and the unions. In addition, the legislation allows civil servants in a situation of proven discrimination to apply for compensation.

Equality in the workplace is gauged by comparing identical profiles at a given time, but it is actually the result of a number of components, that punctuate the career path and provide leverage to enable all women
- irrespective of their position in the hierarchy - to have the same opportunities as their male colleagues.

Although it has an employment-based civil service, Estonia has elected to factor in time devoted to parenting. Taking the line followed by innovative private businesses, the government decided that all periods of leave taken to raise a child will count towards career advancement in the same manner as periods of activity. In Australia, the city of Sydney pays superannuation during the unpaid parental leave period (34 weeks out of 52).

In Slovenia, breaking the glass ceiling preventing access to managerial roles has been an imperative over the last decade. With 56.1% of women in senior positions in the public sector, the country is now the European leader (the European average is 41.9%). This demonstrates that it is possible to maintain a balanced distribution - even by abandoning its initial quota rule - by proposing appropriate mechanisms for work-life balance. In Canada, which already has a very impressive global ranking, a more transparent selection process has helped bolster female representation. Since July 2019, women have accounted for 53% of appointments. As regards support measures, there are the Women in Leadership and Cross-Mentoring mentoring programmes in Ireland and Austria respectively. These programmes buttress career development by helping participants come up with a personal plan or strategy to take up leadership positions. 

Despite the plethora of regulations banning discrimination, in reality, high levels of female representation in professions often go hand-in-hand with less favourable conditions.  To address this, Switzerland, which received the United Nations Public Service Award in the “Promoting gender responsive public services to achieve the SDGs” category in 2018, began a process for the reassessment of responsibilities with professions that count more than 50% of women having been accorded more value by the improved recognition of psychosocial skillsets.

As a central part of its recovery plan, the government is planning a reform of the General State Administration (GSA). Its principal components are gender equality, promoting diversity and inclusion for greater social responsibility, upgrading HRM systems with, inter alia, the recognition of horizontal career paths (mobility across positions at the same hierarchical level) and performance appraisals at all echelons.

The Swedish Agency for Government Employers has set out its new strategy for HR policy in the coming years. Under the banner “Tomorrow’s Employer – government skills helping society to develop”, it revolves around three goals: appeal, leadership and innovation. Each goal contains suggestions for action plans which the departments are encouraged to roll out on the basis of their activity or specific features.

Having been awarded a first prize in the “human resources” category by Territoria (French Public Innovation Monitoring Centre), the approach, which has been tailored to the local authority context, earmarks resources for the region’s civil servants who decide to commit to becoming “intrapreneurs” and solve the problems that they have flagged up. A hackathon led to six projects being chosen and an in-house incubator provides support to the candidates.

A survey commissioned by the Federal Ministry of the Interior was conducted with several thousand students to better understand their expectations and priorities. Whilst they highlighted job security and progress in respect of work-life balance (more important than pay), the respondents mentioned the lack of opportunities for individualised career paths and a closed and non-innovative work culture.

The Government Recruitment Information Database (GRID) is used to produce insights that improve Civil Service recruitment. To make the GRID easier to use for HR departments, its designers have developed Golden Thread, an analysis resource for obtaining - and displaying in the most user-friendly formats - secure online dashboards which can be accessed on-demand.

The aim of the new onboarding module in the Federal human resources information system is to monitor post-selection activities online. It provides new hires with customised information on their tasks and workflows, their departments’ work and organisation, the training offering and dynamic questionnaires for collecting their feedback.

The government is continuing the reform of civil servant appraisal which has been ongoing for two years and has announced that a team will be set up to pinpoint the factors which, by applying behavioural sciences to the administration, could improve motivation and the feeling of belonging. The results of this work should help consolidate the assessment criteria falling within the cognitive sphere.

On 1 January 2021, all local authorities must have drafted their management guidelines. For some, this may be a very complicated affair. To help them, the local civil service’s monitoring centre has created an assistant (pre-filled data, comparisons) with the aim of providing a “help” framework for the multi-annual strategy for steering human resources and promotion/leveraging career paths.

Professional exchanges using video calls have been very widely used since the start of the health crisis and they are also subject to guidelines that users should be aware of and abide by. Irish public employers have published a guide setting out to the correct uses of connections from home. A large amount of practical and technical advice helps optimise a growing means of staying in touch.

The Agreement on information and consultation rights of public employees in Europe on issues such as restructuring, which originated from negotiations between the social partners of central government administrations (TUNED/EUPAE), has not been enacted in EU law. The European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) is opposing this refusal by the Commission and has lodged an appeal with the European Court of Justice (ECJ) against the initial ruling. This represents a first in the field of labour policy.

A new work portal set up by the Joint Department for Protection and Prevention in the Workplace of the Federal Public Services (Empreva) allows staff to consult their personnel file online for monitoring health and professional risk management. Employees also have access to various documents and questionnaires, and can submit spontaneous requests for medical consultations. 

Absenteeism is often a difficult subject to broach as it has many interactive causes (employees’ health, wellbeing in the workplace, interpersonal relations) but it can be reduced if effective prevention measures are introduced. The National Union of Director Generals of Local Authorities (SNDGCT) has come up with a three-step approach enabling organisations to make correct assessments to find appropriate solutions to the situation in question.

Air Liquide, which employs 67,000 people in 80 countries, has been fully primed since the start of the health crisis and is one of the four French industrial groups in the consortium that was tasked by the government (1) with producing ventilators for hospitals.

The company has always pursued a long-term hiring strategy with the core aim of enabling staff to advance their careers in-house. This strategy puts the onus on identifying and managing talented individuals to capitalise on the potential of all employees.    

Every year, the firm takes on around 1,200 interns and apprentices. A monitoring programme has been introduced for them to turn this initial experience in the company into lasting jobs.

As the expectations and priorities of the current generation are no longer the same and as they are more likely to change employer, the HRD is looking to instil loyalty:

• An assessment and recommendation system improves visibility over profiles. This information is fed back and shared to establish a pool of young graduates.

• A number of events (monthly e-cafés, an annual forum) foster discussion with experienced members of staff who describe their career paths and professions, as well as giving HR advice.

This means that new arrivals have everything at their disposal for successful onboarding with an approach that also allows them to put forward “value proposals’” and thus make a contribution to their employer’s brand.

¹ With PSA, Schneider Electric et Valeo.

Social media has become fundamental in both private and public life. It enables everyone to express their views, and is a true channel of influence. However, certain comments or opinions unavoidably cause chain reactions.

Today, how many government departments, as employers, have not been faced with a problem caused by a message posted by one of its employees who is clearly identifiable and which oversteps his/her obligation as regards circumspection?

Obviously, and depending on the seriousness of the matter, the response will be a disciplinary procedure or even appropriate legal proceedings. By focusing on instruction and accountability, the Australian Public Service (APS) has drawn up initial guidance to govern practices relating to freedom of expression whilst protecting government institutions.

The Code of Conduct (1), which is binding on all public servants with regard to their assignments, has been amended and now includes personal behaviour on social media as a factor that could harm the image and integrity of the APS.

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Guidance was then drafted for employees, managers, and agencies to help them understand and assess the risks and strike a reasonable balance between employees’ rights as individuals and their obligations as public servants.

Special attention is paid to several points:

• Posting anonymously or using an alias does not exclude the fact that, at a given time and by cross-checking, both the identity and the nature of employment may be revealed

• Although it clarifies matters, the disclaimer on a profile (indicating that the poster’s views are his/her own), which is recommended, does not discharge the employee from his/her obligations

• Seniority and impact vis-à-vis the community are very closely intertwined. Readers will naturally give more weight to comments from senior employees and it will more difficult to differentiate those they make in a private capacity from those made on behalf of their agency or Minister.

This is supplemented by a large number of tangible examples (covering content sharing initiatives) for which the guidance offers advice on the behaviour to adopt, whilst emphasising the fact that free but reasoned and considered use of social media is still one of the best ways of maintaining public confidence.

¹ Integral part of the Public Service Act, 1999.