Gamesa and its employees’ union representatives signed second edition of the Equality Plan reinforcing its commitment to diversity and equal opportunities for the men and women

• A special-purpose taskforce has identified seven areas for improvement on which the parties will work during the next three years in order to ensure the firm’s goal of zero discrimination and improve employees’ work-life balance

Biscay, Spain, 15-9-2014 — /EuropaWire/ — Gamesa and its employees’ union representatives have signed the second edition of the Equality Plan, reinforcing its commitment to diversity and equal opportunities for the men and women working at the company.

In drafting this document, which was unanimously approved by the Equality Committee on 22 July, the taskforce set up for this purpose based its work on a diagnostic analysis designed to detect areas for improvement in aspects such as recruiting, training, career development and internal promotions. Thanks to this analysis, the company will launch new measures and fine-tune existing ones with the goal of fostering equal opportunities between men and women and facilitating work-life balance.

The seven areas for improvement so identified are as follows:

• Culture and communication;
• Recruitment;
• Training and career development;
• Remuneration;
• Work-life balance and shared responsibilities;
• Prevention of workplace harassment;
• Measures in support of victims of domestic violence.

What’s new in the second Equality Plan?
Remuneration has been introduced as a new line of initiative with respect to the outgoing 2010 Equality Plan in order to ensure the prevention of gender-based pay discrimination. In addition, the work-life balance line of action has been extended to include shared responsibilities, with a view to raising awareness of the need for equality in household duties and a balanced division of home-related tasks. With this aim in mind, the Equality Committee agreed last May to add new leaves and improve the terms of leaves of absence for the purposes of taking care of family members.

Communication is another of the areas which has been shored up in this new edition of the programme. Each workplace will be asked to designate two representatives, one representing the employees and the other a member of the HR team, in order to facilitate communication between employees and the Equality Committee and to ensure that all employees are aware of their protected rights and obligations under the Plan.

This new edition of the Plan will remain in effect until 31 December 2017. Throughout this period, execution of the planned actions will be monitored and an annual report prepared detailing the progress made; this report will then be analysed by the Equality Committee.

Other commitments assumed by Gamesa

In addition to the Plan, Gamesa has a protocol stipulating how to prevent harassment in the workplace with the aim of preventing the occurrence of sexual, gender-based and/or psychological harassment. This protocol pinpoints inappropriate conduct and the available whistle-blowing channels, which are designed to ensure that the identities of the people affected and other parties intervening in the process remain confidential.

Gamesa also works with the ONCE Foundation’s program for promoting the insertion of the disabled into the workplace and the rollout of other initiatives which, on the corporate social responsibility front, help improve these people’s living standards and wellbeing.

###