The International Women’s Day, a date for reflection

This 8M, International Women’s Day, is a day of reflection and recognition in our thirteen offices. Today they are filled with purple post-its for the Zabala Innovation team to write down what they consider to be gender equality and co-responsibility in the company.

Since the UN chose March 8 in 1975 to celebrate International Women’s Day, there have been many analyses, policies, decisions, objectives… aimed at achieving gender equality through initiatives that are gradually deconstructing and reconstructing the path.

At Zabala Innovation we are making progress, with everyday gestures, to enjoy this equality: our staff is made up of 56.6% women, and 42% of the company’s management positions are held by women. This component leaves its mark in all our offices, with a special numerical presence in Mutilva, Madrid, Bilbao and Barcelona.

8M and our ‘Equality Plan’

And on this path in pursuit of equality, the compass is our ‘Equality Plan‘, a strategy that reminds us that 8M is really a reflection of the 364 days that remain of the year.
“In 2017 we made a commitment to work on equality between men and women with the development of the ‘Equality Plan’ and since then we have carried out multiple actions, such as the development of a dictionary with inclusive language, a harassment prevention protocol, flexibility actions to promote work-life balance, etc.”, details Paula Ansorena, head of the Talent department at Zabala Innovation.

This commitment has been endorsed in the II ‘Equality Plan’ launched in 2022, which establishes 27 measures to integrate the principle of equality in the company. Some of these include incorporating the gender perspective in the mentoring and coaching sessions organised by the company; maintaining the policy of, under equal conditions, prioritising the recruitment of the least represented gender in departments where one gender predominates over the other; or maintaining a systematised salary register to periodically find out the average pay actually received by women and men according to professional groups and jobs of equal value.

Innovation for gender equality

In addition, at Zabala Innovation we work every day to make innovation a tool for gender equality. The slogan for this 8th March is ‘For an inclusive digital world: innovation and technology for gender equality’. We believe that technology and innovation open doors for the empowerment of women and girls, and we want to contribute to making the digital world a safe, inclusive and equitable place. That is why, in addition to our daily commitment, we carry out awareness-raising actions for the entire workforce and at all levels.

“We believe in fine rain, and in addition to showing equality within the company on a daily basis, we carry out awareness-raising actions for all staff and at all levels. I think that continuous training and awareness-raising is what can contribute the most to change habits or bad practices. We work, from the inside, to help reduce the gender gap and prevent technology from exacerbating existing inequalities. We have updated our ‘Harassment Prevention Protocol’ and with our second ‘Equality Plan’ we not only comply with the law, but we go a little further”, concludes Ainhoa Zabala, CEO of the company.

A meeting point for reflection

Within the framework of the actions that are being implemented around the International Women’s Day in our society, at Zabala Innovation we wanted to take a position of active listening both internally (to the team) and externally (to organisations, administrations, technology centres and client companies).

Internally, the 450 people who work in any of the 13 offices have reflected on these questions:

• What is gender equality for you?
• What does gender equality bring to the work environment?
• How do you think gender equality is reflected in the company?
• How do you contribute or want to contribute to gender equality?
• Share any resources or references (films, books, articles) that you think could provide an interesting insight into gender equality.

We held the sharing with a meeting in the book crossing corners of each venue, which for the event had displayed bunches of mimosa flowers, the symbol of 8M, a tradition that not everyone knows about and which was born in Italy in 1946, after the 2nd World War. The mimosa (Acacia dealbata) was chosen as the symbol of Working Women because they are strong flowers that come out at the end of winter in adverse weather conditions. They are resilient: they survive on their own in fields and forests and are a symbol of strength and renewal.

And in this space we invited people from our teams to express ideas, perceptions, words, phrases or whatever inspires them and what they would like to share.

Today, 8 March, we want to invite you to think. Do you want to share your ideas? We are listening to you on our social networks, thank you for joining us!