Cooperation with companies
At DFPA, we have extensive experience in strengthening equality and health in private workplaces in East Africa and Southeast Asia. We do this in close cooperation with a strong network of local health and sister organisations, employer organizations and investors.
Watch the video here and get a quick insight into why your workplace should invest in equality and health:
Our ambition is to create healthy and inclusive workplaces both in the global south and in Denmark, where employees are treated equally and thrive. This benefits the innovative power and competitiveness of the company. Therefore, we assist the management layers in your company, who work within HR, responsibility and sustainability to integrate processes in the business that protect employees' rights.
When it comes to violations of human rights, women and minorities are particularly vulnerable. Therefore, we work with companies to recognize when business processes and initiatives can create unequal conditions for employees according to their gender, and how you can develop your business and value chain to create healthier conditions for employees.
Our business cooperation in East Africa and Southeast Asia includes, among other things, the textile, agricultural and restaurant industries, which are traditionally female-heavy industries.
Cases
What can DFPA offer your company?
We support companies in how to integrate the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights into their core business to strengthen due diligence.
We identify risks, solutions and ways to collect data and document progress in collaboration with key employees.
It can be in the form of:
- Advice on the link between health, gender equality and responsible business conduct.
- Development of tools and indicators that enable your company to integrate health and equality, including documenting the results of the investments.
- Feedback on your company's health and equality strategies and policies
- Investigative Lab sessions focusing on innovative product development that strengthens equality and improves health and well-being.
- Product and awareness campaigns on health and equality to create visibility and ownership of workplace initiatives.
For use in our work to strengthen equality and health in companies, we have developed these practical guidelines:
Your company benefits from investing in health and equality
Did you know that 4 out of 5 companies have employees who are unhappy at work?
Dissatisfaction at work is often due to poor development opportunities and a poor working environment. Especially for women and sexual minorities, lack of equality and gender stereotypes are barriers to health, economic independence and sustainable development. Not only employees fall short. Globally, poor working conditions result in $7 trillion in lost profits annually.
Inequality and dissatisfaction damage health and make it difficult for employees to fulfill their full potential. Investments in health and equality in the workplace result in:
- Fewer sick days and employee dropouts
- Increased well-being and motivation among employees
- Increased diversity and innovative power
- Increased productivity, product quality and earnings
- Stronger reputation and brand
- Larger and stronger pool of talent when recruiting new employees
- Fewer labor disputes and less risk of legal offenses and legal repercussions
By investing in health and equality, your company contributes to the global goals
The global goals are our common target. When your company invests in health and equality, it contributes to:
- SDG #3 Health and Well-Being
- SDG #5 Gender equality
- SDG #8 Decent Jobs and Economic Growth
Better health and well-being in the labor market enable women to engage fully in paid work. This results in increased equality in the workplace and in society. Progress in gender equality increases women's economic independence.
As women typically invest in their families and communities, corporate investments in health and equality often have a strong impact on the rest of the world's goals. Concretely, equality in the global labor market is estimated to be able to add 12-28 trillion dollars to the global annual GDP in 2025, if the major socio-economic benefits are counted.
Read more about how your company can contribute to the world goals by investing in equality and health.
You can start with due diligence
Due diligence is a method for companies to prevent and manage risks. You can use due diligence to ensure equality and health in the workplace. Here you can read more about how companies can carry out due diligence. Sex & Samfund can help your company through one or all of the steps.
Prepare a policy on gender equality and health
Make sure to commit your company to ensuring equality and health in the business and value chain by writing it down in a policy. You can either integrate it into your human rights policy or create a separate equality policy. When your company formulates the policy, it is important to include employees and experts. The policy should be adopted by the company's management, and it should be agreed who is responsible for implementing it.
Identify whether practices affect employees differently
When your company identifies risks, it is important to find out why and how practices disproportionately affect women and sexual and identity minorities. You do this by collecting data in collaboration with experts and stakeholders, which are divided by gender.
Remember that you can use complaint mechanisms to collect data. Complaint mechanisms can also be used if some groups experience barriers to participating in data collection. Assess which risks are most significant to the company before proceeding to step three. Read more about which indicators you can use to identify risks.
Prevent and reduce negative impact on equality and health
Consider how your company can ensure equal opportunities at and during employment. In some cases, this will mean that employees must be treated differently to ensure their equal opportunities. It is important that your company makes clear who is responsible and allocates the necessary resources to design and implement initiatives to prevent and mitigate risks.
Be aware of including the people your company risks influencing when you develop and implement the initiatives. Then you increase the probability that your initiatives will have the effect you want. Read more about which initiatives your company can implement to manage risks.
Follow up on your company's efforts
When you follow the effectiveness of the company's efforts, you will find out if your company should initiate something else to avoid a negative impact on equality and health. Remember also to involve women and sexual and gender minorities in the follow-up. Read more about which indicators you can use to measure the effect of your company's efforts.
Communicate about your company's efforts
The work of ensuring a healthy company is a process, and very few people become world champions from the start. Therefore, make sure to share internally and externally which challenges the company has identified and how they are being worked on. It can also contribute to employees' security knowing that the company takes equality and health seriously. Remember to take into account barriers to target groups receiving or understanding the communication, e.g. language barriers.
Access to remedy
Be sure to set up a grievance mechanism so that employees have the opportunity to voice their concerns or point out breaches of theirs. It gives your company a chance to take care of the situation and repair the damage. If your company has caused or is directly linked to a negative impact on people, your company can, for example, offer compensation in the form of:
- re-establishment of the right from before the infringement
- symbolic compensation, e.g. for lost items or therapy
- compensation
- cooperation with the legal system or courts.
It is not an exhaustive list, but is intended to give an idea of the framework for redress.
Please note that the complaint mechanisms are available to everyone. Here again, it may be necessary to involve all potentially affected parties to ensure that they have confidence in the complaint mechanism.
By going through the six steps, your company has come a long way. Each step requires careful work with attention for how practices affect employees differently.
Do you want to know more?
If you want to know more about how your company increases health and equality in the workplace, do not hesitate to contact us.
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