Initiative

Include.All – Guidelines for the Equality Promotion, conference Women Originality and two awards

Summary of the initiative

The Managers' Association of Slovenia is the preeminent managers' association in Slovenia. It aims to protect the professional interests of members, to establish management as a profession, to facilitate the association of managerial staff, and to foster conditions conducive to successful work.

In March 2012 the Section of Women Managers prepared and presented a document called Include.All - Guidelines for the Equality Promotion. The purpose of the section was to draw attention to the importance of balanced leadership teams.

The document is focused on concrete solutions. It presents various reasons for better gender-balanced teams:

• Education: more than 62% of tertiary education graduates in Slovenia are women;
• Consumer: research in the USA has shown that more than 80% of purchase decisions are made by women;
• Demographic trends: the importance of activating both genders in the work force because of the population ageing and for diminishing the immigration;
• Mindsets: changing society values more work-life balance and free time;
• Different organisational cultures and better business results: according to studies, there is a positive correlation between company performance and gender-balanced teams.

The document also presents six measures to increase share of women in decision-making positions:

i)               Identification of the targeted share of women in top management;

ii)              Educational programmes tailored for women;

iii)            Career mentoring for women

iv)             Sponsorship

v)              Recruitment – one out of three suitable candidates should be a woman

vi)             Performance management.

Alongside documents, the Section of Women Managers has also organised events and conferences. In particular two awards for Women Managers in Slovenia were promoted: Artemida and Women Originality. Artemida is given to women managers who have in the previous year for the first time taken a manager position in a company that has more than 50 employees. It has been held since 2005 and the winners receive it at the conference

“Women Originality”.  Women Managers Friendly Company – is an award given to companies that have more than one third of women managers in their board positions, have more than 40 employees and have good financial results in the last three years. It has been held since 2003.