Proceso de panificación

In the participating organizations, as well as in organizations in general, gender equality work is often not seen as strategic. Equality is usually seen as a question of justice, fairness, and well-being, and unrelated to the financial bottom line. At the same time, however, studies have shown that societal equality tends to improve well-being (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009), that would include well-being at work, and that well- being, in turn, is likely to increase productivity. In addition, gender equality has been recognized to contribute to a company's financial viability (Catalyst 2007), as well as the economic success of society as a whole (Global Gender Gap Report 2014).

The fact that gender equality work is not perceived as strategic or strategic enough creates a set of different challenges for people working with gender equality issues. The findings of the NaisUrat project suggest that gender equality professionals need to continuously legitimize their work. The legitimization of equality work is not only needed at the start, but may also still be needed after the work has received the support of top management. As the organizations involved in the project can be considered to represent either pioneers of gender equality promotion or at least more interested in gender equality issues than the average workplace, it is likely that the need for legitimization is even greater in many other organizations. From the gender equality worker's point of view, the constant need to justify one's work is likely to be frustrating, creating an extra burden and reducing motivation.

It is thus pertinent to ask from where the motivation to start working with gender equality stems in the organizations participating in the NaisUrat project. The participants of the project expressed several reasons why their organizations wanted to work with gender equality issues. One common reason was the legislation around gender equality and diversity at work. Since 2005, the Finnish Equality Act requires employing organizations with 30 employees or more to draft an equality plan, as well as revise it yearly. This in itself should be enough of a reason for organizations to prioritize

gender equality. However, it became evident during the project that a gender equality plan alone does not guarantee that organizations efficiently work towards greater gender equality in practice.

Based on this, one can conclude that if it is not possible, or desirable, to justify gender equality other than through legislation, the promotion of equality is fairly inefficient and remains separate from other activities. Gender equality is thus promoted only because it is an obligation required by the law. According to Kautto's (2008) study of human resource management professionals, all Finnish workplaces do not have gender equality plans, even though they are obligated by law (Kautto and Lämsä 2009). However, all the organizations in the NaisUrat project, that were obligated to have a gender equality plan, had one.

What motivated the participating organizations to do gender equality work? In some organizations equality work started as a response to a concrete problem identified in the organization, for example alarming results in a survey of employee well-being, or the difficulty to keep young women on the payroll. For example, one organization found that female employees often failed to return from their maternity leaves as they felt combining their work and parenting responsibilities was simply too difficult. Practical challenges like these helped identify problem areas and thus legitimized the gender equality work. A positive corporate image, or attracting and retaining talented individuals were other examples of issues that justify gender equality work. Another argument was that if a company mainly recruits men, it misses out on half of the talent pool.

The findings of the project suggest that an organization's equality work has to be justified in many different ways. Legislation provides an important and binding argument, but the law in itself is not sufficient motivation to carry out purposeful and systematic gender equality work. It can be concluded that, apart from the legislation, other arguments are needed, and other arguments are considered credible only if gender equality is considered to contribute to the organization's activities and performance. The arguments used to justify gender equality work are that it either reduces disadvantage or that it increases advantage in an organization. A similar conclusion was reached in a survey of CEOs in the Finnish industry: the primary rationale behind leaders' decision-making is related to the resulting operational benefits (Kujala et al. 2011). In the study, business-related benefits was a stronger

argument than, for example, one related to fairness or obligation (for example following the legislation).

The advantage/disadvantage argument described above may have one believe that the risk of disadvantage would lead to action. However, the advantage arguments put gender equality in a more positive light, which encourages a more proactive approach. This entails target-oriented and professional leadership, and connecting gender equality work to the organization's values, as well as the human resource strategy, and that it is perceived as important in terms of performance.

In terms of future gender equality projects, this means that if promotion of equality remains unconnected to the company's performance, the project's chances of success decrease – or the results easily remain isolated without involving a deeper cultural change. Based on the findings of the project, one might conclude that combining equality with issues such as well-being, knowledge, or responsibility, will lead to successful results. However, as long as gender equality is not considered part of the business, the role of external actors – for example gender equality projects – remains crucial. Therefore, gender equality legislation and projects such as NaisUrat play an important role in helping put gender equality on the agenda.