International Women’s Day : Our commitments in support of women’s rights
At Korian, more than 83% of our employees are women. We are committed to gender equality and women’s rights, and ensure that women are recognised at all levels. As we celebrate International Women’s Day on 8 March, find out more about a number of initiatives taking place within the Group around gender equality in the workplace, quality of life at work, and the fight against violence towards women.
Promoting and ensuring gender equality in the workplace
Gender equality in the workplace is a subject we take very seriously at Korian.
Korian is committed to the United Nations Global Compact and ONU Women France to ensure that women can be fully recognised for their contributions and talents at work and in society. That is why, in November 2020, we signed the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEP) which support women’s rights, in total consistency with our social approach at the European level.
Our commitments are based on three key areas of focus: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; training and promoting career opportunities; and evaluating equality policies.
Korian has set itself the ambition of having 50% women in senior management by 2023. In 2020, we reached 47% parity in our leadership teams. This is an important milestone and we will continue to make progress.
Improving quality of life at work
It is essential to us that we support our teams to promote well-being at work and work/life balance.
We offer a range of social measures aimed at improving working conditions for women. In France, for example, as part of the agreement on quality of life at work, we offer our teams – which consist primarily of women – an emergency or planned daycare facility in more than 220 nurseries of the Babilou for children from 4 months to 3 years of age.
At the same time, we have set up an anonymous, confidential telephone helpline, available 24/7, for any of our employees in France who want to talk to someone, be supported and reflect on a difficult situation they are experiencing or witnessing.
Combating violence against women
Our Group is engaged in a very concrete way in combating violence against women.
Because the fight for professional equality is inextricably linked to combating violence against women, we’re both renewing and expanding the actions undertaken in this area since 2018 with the European network of companies OneInThreeWomen, co-founded by the FACE Foundation (the Fondation Agir Contre l’Exclusion), to improve support and assistance for women who are victims of violence. Our Group is engaged in a very concrete way in combating violence against women. The actions undertaken in 2020 include our participation in the launch of the first “One In Three Women” podcast, to highlight the company’s key role in dealing with domestic violence, alongside signatory companies such as the Kering Foundation, Carrefour, L’Oréal and BNPParibas. Our Group is engaged in a very concrete way in combating violence against women.
We also supported the campaign calling for both donations and reporting to the helpline number 3919 “Les violences conjugales ne sont pas privées de sortie” ("Domestic violence is not in lockdown") launched by the Fédération nationale Solidarité Femmes (the national federation for women’s solidarity) to help female victims of violence in the face of an increase in the number of incidents during lockdown.
In 2021, we will continue to support this cause with renewed vigour. Following this year’s International Women’s Day, we are signing a manifesto in France alongside the OneInThreeWomen network in favour of rehousing female employees who are victims of domestic violence, in line with the actions of the network and its “housing” working group.
• Part of Korian’s Covid Solidarity Fund is allocated to combating violence against women. In this context, we are working with the “Maison des Femmes” women’s centre in Saint-Denis. This association is a place of refuge that welcomes women who are vulnerable or victims of violence, and provides a multidisciplinary team and service to female patients (doctors, nurses, social workers, lawyers, police officers, etc.).
•In addition, we’re making it possible for any of our female employees who wish to do so to seek advice from a network of lawyers willing to advise women on legal matters through the Lawyers4Women association.
• We have put e-learning modules in place for training and awareness-raising about domestic violence and sexism. et de sensibilisation contre les violences conjugales et sexisme.
In line with our commitment to the WEPs, in 2021 we will organise a training seminar for the members of the European committee dedicated to women's rights, with a focus on domestic violence and sexist abuse towards women in the workplace.
We are also mobilising in Spain, to make apartments available in one of our homes to women who are victims of abuse.
In Italy, we are putting in place a process of reintegration and training for female victims.