Diversity and equal opportunity

It is important for Ocab to capitalise on the experience and approaches of all employees and the differences between them. We actively promote gender equality in the workplace.

Diversity and equal opportunity are fundamental to us at Ocab for several reasons, not least because they help employees feel valued, respected and included. This has an impact on productivity and employee well-being.

A developed diversity programme entails opportunities to attract new skills and experience. Not prioritising diversity would lead to the opposite outcome. The focus in 2024 is therefore to highlight the structures that may hinder gender equality and diversity within our organisation.

In 2023, we took initiative to bring more women to the company, for example by using more inclusive language in job listings. These efforts led to 71% more candidates, a 3% increase in the conversion of available positions and higher qualifications among applicants.

The number of women grew from 419 to 476, and from 46 to 49 in management positions. At Ocab, we have a solid tradition of working with succession for retaining skilled employees. The focus in 2024 is therefore to highlight the structures that may hinder gender equality and diversity within our organisation. 

Targets

A gender-equal workplace

In our gender equality policy, we state that the Group actively promotes gender-equal workplaces with equal conditions for women and men.

Within the Group, we strive for gender balance and value ethnic and cultural diversity. As an employer, we want to offer a workplace in which everyone can thrive and feel good.

Our systematic health and safety management ensures that we comply with legislation on occupational health and safety and other laws and requirements that we must comply with in order to offer an equal workplace.

A workplace free of discrimination

At Ocab, we have zero tolerance for discrimination.

We take discrimination, including victimisation, harassment and sexual harassment very seriously and address them to promote a good work environment and prevent ill health among employees.

Discrimination creates problems for the individual and therefore for the company. This is why we regularly analyse, remedy, monitor and evaluate our health and safety promotion and prevention efforts.

We regularly update our policies and our approach to anti-discrimination. For more detailed information on how we manage policy documents and whistleblowing cases, see the ‘Information, communication’ section of Ocab’s Corporate Governance Report.

Being a parent at Ocab

All employees at Ocab, regardless of gender, have the same opportunity to reconcile parenthood with work and take parental leave.

We encourage this and want to promote equal access to parental leave, but do not currently have any statistics. The mapping and comparison of the use of parental leave between genders will be carried out in 2024.

We also plan to carry out local analyses of the organisational conditions for reconciling parenthood and working life.

A better understanding of the parameters that influence the taking of parental leave facilitates the support of all parents in the organisation.

Diversity and Equality Initiatives

  • Anonymised recruitment

    To prevent unconscious bias from affecting recruitment processes, we use anonymised recruitment. This means that candidates are anonymous at the first stage of the process. The aim is to select employees entirely based on their skills, regardless of gender or name, for example, and to make applicants feel safe during the process. This has shown positive results so far.

    At the end of the recruitment period, candidates are asked to evaluate the recruitment process and indicate whether they experienced any form of discrimination. This is so that we can improve our recruitment process and prevent discrimination.

  • Inclusive job advertisements

    To reach a broader target group when recruiting and to attract more women to our operation, we use inclusive job advertisements. Skills requirements are worded so as to allow more women to identify with the descriptions. We also have an advertising platform with photographs that reflect the workforce and portray women in different roles within the organisation.

    In major recruitment campaigns, we use videos of women describing their jobs in the sanitation industry to demonstrate representation. By formulating job advertisements in a more inclusive manner, we have increased our inflow of candidates by 71% and conversion of vacancies by 3%, and find that applicants have higher qualifications.

  • Gender equality policy

    In our gender equality policy, we state that the Group actively promotes gender-equal workplaces with equal conditions for men and women. Managers must always take signs of victimisation, harassment and sexual harassment very seriously.

    Within the Group, we strive for gender balance and value ethnic and cultural diversity. As an employer, we want to offer a workplace in which everyone can thrive and feel good.

  • Annual salary survey

    Every year we carry out a salary survey to ensure that there are no undue and discriminatory differences between women and men. We do not accept differences in pay and benefits that cannot be explained by position or length of service. If a case is detected, an action plan is drawn up to address the deviation.

  • Anti-discrimination policy

    Ocab has clear guidelines against all forms of discrimination and all employees are responsible for behaving respectfully towards each other, in accordance with our guidelines and with legislation.

  • Further action

    We work proactively to draw attention to the culture that creates an obstacle to equality and diversity in the industry. In 2024, we plan to develop a diversity and equal opportunity policy.

Monitoring

Gender equality

We analyse the impact of our gender equality efforts by measuring how the proportion of women increases in the recruitment process, production and senior executive positions. We also carry out index measurements regarding safety and employee perceptions of Ocab as a safe employer.

Discrimination

To monitor our efforts for a discrimination-free workplace, we measure the number of reported cases of discrimination and any experiences among candidates of possible discrimination in the recruitment process, and conduct employee surveys on whether the employer has clarified anti-discrimination guidelines.

Employee survey

The November 2022 employee survey showed that 93% of respondents felt that their employer had made it clear that it is not acceptable to use sexist or offensive language.

Read more about what we do in each area