Gender Equality in the Workplace Series

Gender equality in the workplace has increasingly become an urgent concern for international initiatives, the Chinese government, international brands and companies. Especially in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic in 2020, globally the process of gender equality has slowed down or even reversed, which requires greater efforts to be made by all parties. Timeline supports and is committed to the development of gender equality and female leadership in companies.

Promoting gender equality in the workplace requires joint efforts from multiple parties. At present, the training and coaching related to gender equality in the workplace provided by Timeline involve different groups of people, including corporate senior management, HR/CSR personnel, mid-level managers, frontline employees, and brand auditors. The emphasis varies among the target groups.

For the senior management:

The focus is to promote their understanding of the significance of gender equality in the workplace, change their awareness and attitudes, add gender perspectives, and seek their buy-in for relevant improvements in the companies. Workshop is designed to discuss the significance of gender equality for enterprises from the perspectives of employee management trends, compliance management, and economic empowerment.

For HR/CSR personnel:

The emphasis is to enhance the gender awareness and gender sensitivity of HR/CSR professionals, urge companies to establish and improve gender equality policies and mechanisms in the workplace, and integrate gender equality into the compliance management system and daily management of the companies. There are workshops which break apart the concepts related to gender equality in the workplace, interpret relevant international conventions, laws and regulations, and brand codes of conduct, share cutting-edge data, and inspire and guide trainees to establish and implement gender equality policies and practices in the workplace.

For frontline and mid-level managers:

The training aims to improve the systemic understanding of workplace violence and harassment among frontline and mid-level managers, inspire them to think about possible compliance risks in employee management, make improvement plans and reduce the probability of related risks.

Short film series for frontline workers and frontline managers:

The purpose of this series of short films is to cover the largest group of people at the lowest cost, clearly convey the concepts related to gender equality, so that workers and managers have a more comprehensive and three-dimensional understanding of related concepts.

There are nine videos in this series, each of which conveys the core content of sexual harassment through a case, all of which are real scenes of companies. The average duration of each video is three minutes, including three parts: story, quiz, and explanation. For more details, please click on the article "Short Film Series of Creating a Gender-equal Workplace Series" on the WeChat public account of Timeline Consultancy.

"Capacity Enhancement of Sensitive Topic exploration and Analysis" Training for the brand's auditor team

The training is divided into two parts:

Ø  The first part is " How to conduct interviews on violence and harassment". From the perspective of prevention, thinking and methods of “qualitative research” are used to test and analyse the existing potential risks of violence and harassment in supply chain factories, to enable auditors with a complete concept of “violence and harassment”, and promote gender sensitivity and risk identification ability.

Ø  The second part is "How to carry out investigations into violence and harassment cases". Regarding the violence and harassment incidents that have occurred, the training enables the auditors to sharply distinguish the violence and harassment phenomenon through professional investigation methods, communicate with the involved factories, and provide professional remedies and improvement suggestions.

"Gender Equality in the Workplace" related project experience of Timeline Consultancy:

•       In 2002, provided health and safety training for female workers for BBK Group and Zhongshan Women's Federation

•       From 2002 to 2004, provided life skills training for 15 suppliers of NIKE, in which topics of gender equality and women workers’ development were included

•       In 2004, delivered a one-year training for life counselors of one large supply chain factory of NIKE, with the content of caring for women workers included

•       From 2006 to 2019, provided survey and evaluation projects for NIKE, adidas, STARBUCKS, H&M, Microsoft, New Balance, FAIRPHONE, Fast Retailing, Ann INC., Nordstrom, ALDI, Feng Tay Group, Crystal International Group, Hongfu Group and other large industrial groups (over 200 supply chain factories in total), covering the aspects of discrimination, sexual harassment, and gender equality when assessing the status of employee grievances, employee satisfaction, compliance risk factors, and CSR impact of factories, and giving suggestions on continuous improvement to the factories

•       In 2007, provided survey of life hazards for one large supplier of world-famous sporting brands in China. The survey content included discrimination and sexual harassment

•       From 2008 to 2019, respectively provided sustainable compliance counselling program including the content of anti-discrimination and sexual harassment and gender equality for the suppliers of H&M, NIKE, Nordstrom, ANN INC., Tchibo, STARBUCKS, NEWTIMES, DECKERS, Patagonia, New Era Cap and large buyers (over 200 suppliers in total)

•       From 2012 to 2015, provided Supplier Ownership Initiative Projects for more than 100 suppliers of one world-famous fashion brand, including anti-discrimination, sexual harassment, and abuse, etc. The project focused on training the factory's self-compliance management capabilities for a period of 3 years, the topics deepened year by year

•       From 2014 to 2015, provided suppliers of one world-famous fashion brand with worker development project. This project selected 10 factories dominated by women workers and young workers. Gender equality and worker empowerment were included in the project, with the aim of promoting the establishment and improvement of worker development mechanism within the factories

•       In 2015, developed a series of compliance training courses for a world-renowned electronics brand, including the topic of anti-discrimination

•       In 2016, provided one large-sized industrial group with a series of sustainable development training, including anti-discrimination and sexual harassment, gender equality, and caring for female workers. The training was carried out in batches, covering all senior, mid-level and first-line managers

•       From 2017 to 2019, delivered a series of sustainable development trainings for factories of one large-sized industrial group in China, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Projects in the Philippines and Indonesia were combined with local laws and national context; discrimination, sexual harassment, gender equality, female workers caring and other topics were fully discussed; in the Philippines, emphasis was laid on coaching on prevention of sexual harassment

•       In 2019, provided a workshop of workplace gender equality for one famous brand and its 12 suppliers, focusing on topics such as equal employment opportunities, equal opportunities for career development, equal payment, maternity protection, work-life balance, and workplace violence

•       In 2020, shared Timeline’s findings on workplace gender equality and the development of women workers at ETI’s gender webinar