EQUIWORK: workplace equality
- Based on UN SDG5
- Value Proposition: To bridge the gap between workplace abuse victims and the support they need
- Solutions: HR Outsourcing
Greetings, we are Equiwork! We are a social innovation startup focused on the fifth Sustainable Development Goal as outlined by the United Nations General Assembly (UN-GA) held in 2015. The fifth sustainable goal concerns gender equality and specifically is defined as the goal to achieve gender equality and to empower all women and girls. Acknowledging the immense importance of every single one of the 17 SDGs, we (the founding members of the organisation) a few months prior and as prompted and diligently guided by the Dare to Challenge project initiative, felt compelled to act upon this promise and to dedicate ourselves and our resources to developing a concept and targeting our entrepreneurial exploits towards fighting for this cause. But why is this important?
Brief statistical insight
As highlighted by surveys published by the United Nations, women across the globe still face many unfair disadvantages and hurdles that men don’t, it’s evident as such that gender parity as of 2022 remains an unfulfilled reality. According to said surveys women are underrepresented in national parliaments with only one fourth of parliament members being women. Moreover, 1 out of 3 women have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime since the age of 15.
When it comes to the workplace, 1 out of 10 women has had a personal experience of sexual harassment in their place of employment and 1 out of 3 women knows a woman who has had a similar experience. Furthermore, less than 30% of managerial positions are occupied by women, not to mention the vast gender wage gap that saw women earn only 84% of what men earned in 2020 whilst doing the same job.
All of these (and many more) alarming statistics shed some much needed light to this perennial issue and highlight the necessity to act and ensure that the situation improves swiftly and construct a more equal and safe world.
The big idea
Taking into consideration all the facts and parameters that make up this complex issue, as well as weighing in and gauging our own capabilities and limitations we decided to focus our attention to the workplace, an integral part of people’s everyday experience, and through careful and gradual moulding of an initial concept through progressive design thinking, successive ideation and prototyping sessions, as well as quantitative and qualitative research, to come up with the blueprint to a unique service. A service tailor-made to help workplace abuse and harassment victims to get the support that they need while offering to corporations an effective and financially viable solution to human resources operations through outsourcing. That’s how Equiwork Corporate Counseling came to fruition.
Equiwork is a social entrepreneurship service that envisions a world with gender equality in the workplace. Our priority is to eliminate all forms of sexism, sexual harassment, abuse & discrimination amongst coworkers. According to recent estimates almost 4 out of 10 female employees have experienced sexual harrassment in their workplace, while 3 out of 4 of workplace sexual harassment victims don’t ever file a report.
Many reasons contribute to these disturbing statistics. By and large however it has become abundantly clear that many employees don’t trust the HR department of their place of employment! Many of them feel that HR doesn’t work for them and instead reports directly to management and often even to the abuser. Thus they fear retaliation. Another concern is that HR departments cover up abuse incidents “sweeping them under the rag” in an attempt to prevent the outside world from knowing and save the management money from potential lawsuits.
Our solution to this serious issue that leads to lack of trust and reduced productivity within companies and in some cases even obstruction of justice, as previously mentioned, is outsourcing. The need for outsourcing stems from the necessity of there existing an external HR counselling service that not only provides support and the necessary legal guidance to victims while ensuring absolute confidentiality but also takes up the important task of educating, counselling and raising awareness of the issue.That’s what we offer!
Some of the essential services that we offer include group counselling sessions, one-on-one counselling of individual employees, sensitivity training to employees and management alike, as well as access to our digital infrastructure including a digital platform and a hotline where employees can reach out and seek legal guidance, psychological support, as well as report workplace abuse incidents with the guarantee of total confidentiality. Some additional services that we offer include podcasts, webinars, content in our website and social media such as articles,interviews and academic reports aiming to raise awareness and supply with the necessary information and guidance anyone and everyone interested. Our services are valid for any place that is considered to be a place of employment. They can be present wherever people perform tasks, jobs and projects for an employer. Workplaces can also be mobile; some employees might not have a standard location. Our company is flexible and caters to the needs of all employed people of any social group and family status within the EU. It’s important to note that Equiwork does not want to exclude men or deny their own experience of harassment and abuse. Although women are more likely to be harassed according to studies, we strongly believe that gender equality is about all. It is a human fight, not just a female one!
In short we aim to nurture and set the standards of a positive work culture, free of sexist prejudice and harassment. We aim for resourceful cooperation with the Human Resources departments in order to organise actions and educational conversation and gather data to monitor our progress. We firmly believe that educating the administration of a company is as important as educating the employees. It is essential that company executives embrace our idea in order to secure a healthy work environment for all. It is a proven fact that actions like this reduce inappropriate behaviour and we should normalise courses like these. Last but not least we would like to provide psychological support to victims of such situations and if they so desire to offer them our platform so they can share their stories with the public to spread awareness and get rid of stigma surrounding this topic.
Our ideation process
Taking our initial idea and developing it into a functional service turned out to be quite an adventure, an intricate process of researching, surveying, designing and decision-making. At the core of it all were the personas that we developed, two fictional characters inspired by real life people that epitomised and represented our core target audience. Once we had settled on all the characteristics and unique features that make up the outline of the people that we want to help make an impact, we started coming up with ideas and designing prototypes always cross-examining them with the needs and attributes of our personas in a constant effort to reinvigorate and redefine our creative process in search of innovation. At the same time we concentrated our efforts on clearly defining and pinning down our problem statement. We wanted to be able to express exactly and with precision all the factors that constitute the issue at hand and that eventually would allow us to dismantle it, in a way reverse-engineer it and come up with the required answers. These factors included getting a crystal clear picture on who is affected by the issue, where does the issue manifest and when, what exactly is it that defines it and why does it happen in the first place. Additionally we made a conscious effort to define and lay down in writing the journey and character arc of our potential beneficiaries in an effort to delve deeper into the heart of the issue.
Then once we had moulded our core concept we conducted qualitative research interviewing a clinical psychologist, as well as a thorough quantitative survey in a study that inquired about the conditions and variables regarding sexual discrimination in the workplace that reached more than 100 participants. The outcome of our research efforts was clear and validated our conviction on the issue. More than 9 out of 10 companies don’t embrace any particularly firm policy against workplace sexual discrimination and human resources management fails to make any impact and protect the employees.Thusly our personas came to life. We came to the realisation that these personas were in fact grounded in reality and that unfortunately many people, especially women, suffer the consequences of poor management of the issue on the part of companies. It is at that point that we knew that proper and informed management of the issue of gender discrimination and abuse in the office was our number one priority and that all our efforts, whether innovative or educational, should center on this element.
Overall, with the guidance of the Dare to Challenge initiative and having at our disposal indispensable resources that led us through the design thinking approach we were able to ascertain and pursue the creative process in order to lay down the groundwork for an ambitious new social innovation venture.
Activating it all
Once we had laid the groundwork, having thought out every possible scenario, created our platforms and designed the brand identity of our organisation it was time to take the first step in order to initiate it all. Our activation plan centred around Equicon, our first initiative as a company. Equicon is an online seminar (aka webinar) focused on the subject of abuse and discrimination in the workplace. The seminar’s main task is to inform and educate corporations as well as the public at large on how incidents of workplace abuse and discrimination can be prevented and dealt with properly. Equicon will be held on the 8th of March (International Women’s Day) and will be broadcasted virtually through Facebook Live due to Covid concerns. It’s important to note that it will be open to the public free of charge in an effort to raise awareness and share crucial information and knowledge with everyone interested since the issue of gender equality and workspace safety is an issue that concerns us all. The conversations held will be led by knowledgeable speakers, certified and experienced on the subject. These will include equal rights advocates and activists, human resources specialists, legal experts, representatives of human and equal rights organisations, clinical psychologists, as well as many special guests that will offer precious insights on all facets of this complex and delicate issue.
Many subjects will be touched upon during the Equicon panels. Some of the focal points of these conversations will include urging the victims to speak up and provide the necessary information on how to ensure confidentiality, covering the legal ground and making sure victims speaking up will be able to navigate the complex legal procedures to securing justice, educating employers and human resources specialists on how to properly and fairly handle abuse incidents, pushing for better and more inclusive legislature and corporate policies as well as cultivating an overall culture of inclusivity and respect for all.
Developing Equicon has, so far, been an amazing learning opportunity and we’ve had to face a unique set of challenges. Through planning, networking and collaborating on the seminar we’ve had the amazing opportunity to realise the power and importance of forging alliances. We strongly believe that for social entrepreneurs, partnerships are particularly important because most social issues don’t exist in a vacuum, and therefore can’t be solved without the cooperation of different stakeholders. Moreover, with the growth of social entrepreneurship, there has also been a parallel increase in the level of partnership development to execute on visionary ideas.
Equiwork got inspired by the collaborative movement because we are sure that it’s the best way to generate real working solutions for social progress. As an emerging social startup pushing forth the conversation around how to best foster partnerships we’ve created a list of primary potential partners and cooperative activities that would serve our common goals.
Looking back on it all
All of our efforts and exploits building Equiwork have all been born out of our strong conviction that social change can only occur through innovation and public initiative. Furthermore our endeavour has been nurtured and conducted by the amazing Dare to Challenge project. As such we strongly believe that the only way forward is through collaboration and tutelage, giving back to the community and taking a stance for what you believe is just, focusing on sowing seeds the eventual fruits of which will be offered to others as well to enjoy.
It is important to mention that Equiwork will create a win-win situation between employees and companies. Companies are going to develop a safer, pleasant and more efficient work environment for people to grow. Harassment situations are more likely to be avoided therefore they will not be destructive for the companies. Also when the employees are happy and comfortable, they can concentrate more, show more interest in their job, earn promotions and be productive in general. Companies will immediately show a reasonable increase in their productivity and economic efficiency. Although we have come a long way towards achieving our goals, there is still a lot of work and awareness spread to be done, but we are positive that things are going to get better and better in the future.
At the end of the day making an impact can only occur through action. We look back at the United Nations General Assembly of 2015 and we discern the groundwork laid before us, a groundwork leading to a better future. Sure, it’s overwhelming being confronted with all this hardship and injustice, but as Charles Kettering famously wrote “a problem well stated is half solved”. Suddenly half the way doesn’t seem all that unsurmountable…
Our team: Vas Volanaki, Nastya Kulenchik, Christos A. Magkriotis, Νίκος Παπασυριόπουλος, Sophiaalexandropoulou
Project supervisor: Betty Tsakarestou
Our Links:
Our References:
- United Nations. (n.d.). Goal 5 | Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Un.Org. Retrieved November 10, 2021, from https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal5
- United Nations. (n.d.). Gender equality and women’s empowerment | Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Un.Org. Retrieved November 10, 2021, from https://sdgs.un.org/topics/gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment
- Barroso, A., & Brown, A. (2021, May 25). Gender pay gap in U.S. held steady in 2020. Pew Research Center. Retrieved November 10, 2021, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/25/gender-pay-gap-facts/
- Eurostat. (2021, February). Gender pay gap statistics — Statistics Explained. Eurostat Statistics Explained. Retrieved November 10, 2021, from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Gender_pay_gap_statistics
- European Comission. (2021, March 5). Press corner. Retrieved November 10, 2021, from https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_1011
- Wyatt, T. B. J. (2010). Design Thinking for Social Innovation (SSIR). SSIR. Retrieved November 18, 2021, from https://ssir.org/articles/entry/design_thinking_for_social_innovation
- United Nations. (n.d.). Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development | Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Retrieved January 23, 2022, from https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda
