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Author: Peter Kerekgyarto<\/strong>, the General Director of Shell Retail Ukraine and Country Chair of Shell Ukraine.<\/em><\/p>\n The Gender Profile of Ukraine, developed by United Nations Development Program, shows that the percentage of women in management positions stands at 23%, business owners at 46%, and their overall employment rate at 47%. In addition, women\u2019s rate of salaries is on average 23% less than men\u2019s remuneration.<\/p>\n Despite visible progress over the decade, the issue of gender inequality at the workplace remains an open issue disproportionately affecting women around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has further amplified existing shifts in equality of women\u2019s and men\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n How can companies be best fit to address this problem?<\/p>\n Shell\u2019s experience shows that gender quality should permeate the company\u2019s operations. Only a longstanding policy of women\u2019s empowerment implemented by companies may have positive social effects. Moreover, businesses benefit from such policies as well.<\/p>\n A recent McKinsey & Company report shows that in the oil and gas sector only one-third of the total number of employees are women. In STEM industries (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) this percentage is higher \u2014 41%, and in the business sector the percentage of employed women is about 48%.<\/p>\n The Women in Business Report, conducted by audit and consulting company Grant Thornton, shows that in 2019, the share of women in senior management of business companies worldwide was at an all-time high, but still at 29 percent. In 2020 this number has not changed. Ukraine only reflects the general trend in this issue. The Gender Profile of Ukraine, developed by the United Nations Development Program, shows that the percentage of women in management positions stands at 23%, business owners at 46%, and their overall employment rate at 47%. In addition, women\u2019s rate of salaries is on average 23% less than men\u2019s remuneration.<\/p>\n In the energy sector, according to the survey \u201cWomen and Men in the Energy Sector of Ukraine,\u201d the share of women among all employees in the energy sector of the country remains quite low (at 23\u201327% in 2013\u20132017), despite slightly positive dynamics. The structure of employment is also asymmetric \u2014 positions still tend to be divided into \u201cfemale\u201d (specialists, service workers) and \u201cmale\u201d (mostly managerial positions). The disparity is also noticeable in the context of wages: women receive lower wages than men on the same positions.<\/p>\n The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened these trends. Thus, according to European Commission\u2019s 2021 report on gender equality in the European Union, the pandemic has hit women particularly hard. Their overrepresentation in lower-paid\u00a0sectors and occupations, such as for instance hospitality, retail, or personal services, make them particularly vulnerable in the labor markets struck by the COVID-19 crisis.<\/p>\n Preliminary data on labor market trends show that the impact of the pandemic\u2019s first wave on the labor market was more significant for women than for men, the survey reads.<\/p>\n Business also has its role to play in protecting women\u2019s rights and in empowering women\u2019s leadership. This is what Shell is, in particular, working on.<\/p>\n Our experience confirms that maintaining cultural diversity and gender balance favorably contributes to competitive advantages. Thus, in Shell Retail in Ukraine, 50% of women hold senior positions, far above the global average of 26%. Such high performance has been achieved through the company\u2019s carefully thought-out policy aimed at building a gender-balanced organization that helps attract more women to management positions.<\/p>\n Shell signed the Declaration of the World Economic Forum on gender equality in the oil and gas sector and already feel the effectiveness of this decision in terms of financial performance and the general atmosphere in the company. One of the principles of the Declaration determines \u201cthe establishment of gender diversity and inclusion as a strategic business imperative at all levels of an organization.\u201d<\/p>\n The document also encourages the creation of an open inclusive corporate culture and the promotion of equal opportunities for women and men, which promotes the career growth of both sexes.<\/p>\n Shell in Ukraine is proud to have become a member of the United Nations Global Compact. This new chapter in the history of our company confirms our intentions of becoming a responsible and sustainable business in various aspects from running a safe, efficient, responsible, and profitable business to contributing to positive changes in communities where Shell operates. The UNGC supports companies to do business responsibly by adhering to 10 principles that cover, in particular, human rights and labor. We are happy of being listed among those businesses aimed at contributing to global social changes which begin from the gradual progress of individual companies.<\/p>\n We are continuously working on achieving, particularly, the United Nations Sustainability Development Goal No. 5 \u201cGender Equality.\u201d This topic is of crucial importance now, in pandemic times, when women are facing even more difficulties in a \u201cnew reality.\u201d According to the UN\u2019s findings, women\u2019s unpaid care work has increased significantly as a result of school closures and the increased needs of older people.<\/p>\n Moreover, women are harder hit by the economic impacts of COVID-19, as they disproportionately work in insecure labor markets. We bear responsibility for taking care of women employed by Shell not only in difficult times, but always. This is our religion; this is Shell\u2019s policy which also leads us to sign the UN Women\u2019s Empowerment Principles in near future.<\/p>\n Empowering women in business should move from declarations to practical steps which will allow changing a still popular mindset in Ukraine that a woman cannot combine career growth and family care.\u00a0 They also lay the foundation for security for women and testify to the company as a responsible and caring employer.<\/p>\n Source: Kyiv Post<\/a>, download in pdf<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Author: Peter Kerekgyarto, the General Director of Shell Retail Ukraine and Country Chair of Shell Ukraine. The Gender Profile of Ukraine, developed by United Nations Development Program, shows that the percentage of women in management positions stands at 23%, business owners at 46%, and their overall employment rate at 47%. In addition, women\u2019s rate of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4489,"featured_media":331240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15576,15575],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-775332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-articles-en","category-news-and-articles-from-companies-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4489"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.eba.com.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}World & Ukrainian trends<\/h3>\n
Gender equity promotion<\/h3>\n