The pandemic has caused a certain culture change in organizations, which have started to care more about the well-being of their employees. Many now want to embark on this path over several years, a “very new” phenomenon, says a specialist.
“We have never had so many requests from organizations to help them measure what they do for the well-being of their employees,” said Marie-Claude Pelletier, president and founder of the Global-Watch network, a platform international collaborative of good practices in health and quality of life at work. “We are being asked to come up with plans for the next few years. It’s very new, ”she adds.
These questions also raise concerns on the international scene. “The World Economic Forum in Davos called on business leaders to pay attention to the health of human capital in organizations,” she said. There is a committee that has been set in motion to add health and staff representatives to the boards of directors, in order to take into account this new risk, which is much more present than before. “
We have never had so many requests from organizations to help them measure what they do for the well-being of their employees
Marie-Claude Pelletier shared these findings within the framework of a symposium organized under the theme “Feminization of leadership”, which this week brought together researchers, business people and leaders from the political, economic and social circles. . The idea behind? See how businesses can be more diverse and integrate more caring and caring leadership into organizations, traits usually associated with women.
“It’s a catalyst. We want to bring all these minds together and have a strong voice, ”says one of the organizers, Élisabeth Deschênes, from ZA Architecture firm of brands and communication.
Several organizational leaders noted the establishment, in an accelerated fashion, of a “culture of benevolence”, in which, in an emergency, employees and managers took care of each other. But preserving it will be a challenge, we believe.
Under-represented women
Much work also remains to be done in several traditionally male sectors to achieve better representation between men and women.
Last week, Josée Dufour, president and founder of Axiomatech, a company specializing in building engineering, received “inappropriate” images from a supplier, which she “would have done well without”. “My day continued, but later someone said to me: ‘Come on Josée, it was an assault,’ she says. I replied that I was so used to hearing bad talk and seeing junk. According to her, there is a great trivialization of violence in the construction industry.
It’s not just verbal or psychological abuse, she adds. “There is sexual violence, there are still rapes on construction sites,” she said.
The construction industry is made up of a meager 2.7% of women, and they are 54% to give up their trade after five years, against 40% of men. “It’s a very tough, aggressive and macho environment,” she says. It is an industry where we will favor the hiring of mainly white, French-speaking and Catholic men. “
Work also remains to be done in the video game and entertainment industry, even if there has been progress over the past five years thanks to incentives, notes Brigitte Monneau, CEO of Pôle Synthèse. “The people who design and produce these creations need to reflect society,” she says, given their major impact. The video game industry is lagging behind. “Out of 120 games, there will be 115 where the hero is male and 5 where she is a heroine,” she said.
Changing things is an ongoing job and the organizers of the symposium plan to organize a second one in September next year, which will provide an opportunity to take stock again. “It helps create awareness among all stakeholders,” says Danièle Bergeron, from the Company of Brand Leaders. She hopes there will be more male business leaders present at the next meeting. By then, a “DeclarAction” with recommendations will be written and distributed at the end of January, particularly to the various levels of government.