Gender Equality Plan for Center Denmark

This Gender Equality Plan covers Center Denmark’s efforts to promote gender equality within its own organization. Center Denmark is committed to promoting gender equality and ensuring that there is no direct or indirect discrimination against employees or applicants for open positions, regardless of gender, race, skin color, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, or sexual orientation.

Background

 

Center Denmark is an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 2019, with 23 full-time employees. Its annual revenue is DKK 6.8 million.

The purpose of Center Denmark is to accelerate the green transition by collecting and linking detailed energy data that can be made available for research and commercial innovation. Center Denmark is characterized by operating in a highly complex field, as the vast majority of its job roles require highly specialized knowledge within the energy sector, software development, and data science.

Center Denmark’s primary areas of work are all characterized by a clear predominance of men, both nationally and internationally. Center Denmark aspires to have a diverse workforce based on the principle that talent, skill, and cultural fit are independent of gender, race, skin color, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, or sexuality. At the same time, no two job descriptions at Center Denmark are exactly alike, as most overlap with other job descriptions within the organization. This makes it difficult to compare salary levels among the company’s employees.

Compared to larger organizations such as universities, municipalities, and large companies, it is difficult to conduct statistical analyses of salary levels and gender distribution, as the margin of error would be relatively high. The amount of resources allocated to working on the gender equality plan is likewise correspondingly smaller. However, this should not prevent Center Denmark from actively working on gender equality. Therefore, at Center Denmark, we have chosen to have a few overarching goals for our gender equality efforts that we believe are appropriate for the situation Center Denmark is currently in.

New objectives may be identified during the annual review. The following objectives have been established for Center Denmark:

1. Center Denmark actively works to eliminate bias from job postings and application processes.

2. Center Denmark strives to achieve a gender distribution where the proportion of women at least matches the proportion of women in the workforce in the sectors where Center Denmark operates.

 

 

Objective 1: Eliminate bias from job postings and job application processes

Center Denmark is actively working to eliminate bias from job postings and job application processes and has implemented the following measures:

 

• All of Center Denmark’s job postings encourage everyone to apply, regardless of gender or background.
• Qualified candidates of both genders are invited to apply for open positions to reduce underrepresentation in the gender distribution.
• Management with hiring responsibilities in each team must consider whether a lack of gender equality is an issue within their teams and to what extent new hires can help address this issue.
• Management receives guidance from an external HR partner to avoid hidden biases in job postings and
hiring processes.

This is measured by compiling statistics on the gender distribution of applicants applying for jobs at Center Denmark.

Table 1: Gender distribution among applicants

Position (hires)

Women (percent)

Men (percent)

Senior Project Developer (1)

34%

66%

 

Software Developer (2)

8%

92%

Data Engineer (1)

16%

84%

Business Developer (1)

45%

55%

Total

21%

79%

Objective 2: Gender distribution in the sectors where Center Denmark operates

Center Denmark strives to achieve a gender distribution where the proportion of women at least matches the proportion of women in the workforce in the sectors where Center Denmark operates.

According to The Danish ICT Industry Association (IT-Branchen), only about 1 in 5 IT specialists are women[1]. There is no readily available data on the gender distribution in the energy sector in Denmark. There is a clear predominance of men among admitted students in higher education programmes within the IT field, ranging from an approximate 60/40 ratio in some programmes to 85/15 in others. This means, there is a clear predominance of men among potential candidates for most job roles at Center Denmark. The table 2 shows Center Denmark’s current gender distribution, where women are underrepresented throughout the company. 

[1] https://itb.dk/maerkesager/digitale-kompetencer/kun-hver-5-it-specialist-er-kvinde-og-fremtiden-ser-ikke-lysere-ud/

Center Denmark has talented and qualified employees whom we wish to retain. Therefore, a change in gender distribution must primarily be achieved through new hires. Initiatives in this area have already been mentioned under Objective 1. Furthermore, Center Denmark recognizes that diversity should be understood more broadly than a narrow focus on gender. In many other areas, Center Denmark has greater diversity, such as in age and background.

No time-bound targets are set for the development of gender distribution, as the company’s continued development depends on whether sufficient revenue can be generated to support continued growth in the workforce.

Progress is measured by compiling statistics on the gender distribution among employees at Center Denmark, as shown in Table 1.

 

 

 

 

 

Table 2: Center Denmark’s employees by gender (full-time) 

Types of employees

Women / Men (%)

Total at Center Denmark

17.75% / 82.25%

Senior management

0% / 100%

Team leaders

0% / 100%

Other employees

8.3% / 91.6%

Mandatory requirements for the gender equality plan

This gender equality plan complies with the EU’s requirements for Gender Equality Plans in the Horizon Europe programme, which are:

    • The Gender Equality Plan is available on Center Denmark’s website.
    • Resources have been allocated for the follow-up and development of the Gender Equality Plan.
    • Gender data forms the basis of the Gender Equality Plan.
    • It has been approved by Søren Skov Jakobsen, CEO of Center Denmark.
    • It is distributed via email and is available on Center Denmark’s intranet.
    • It is updated annually.

Resources

Center Denmark has allocated resources from management to implement this Equality Plan and follow up on it. For future focus areas, a decision must be made on whether to allocate additional resources. The objectives are actively applied in Center Denmark’s relevant activities.

Timeline

The objectives are reviewed once a year.