It is about taking a stand, working actively for the same existence, and highlighting shortcomings and opportunities for improvement.
In 2008 Knightec focused on this issue by setting concrete goals for the share of employees who would be women and the proportion of foreign-born. Something many saw as newly created, in the eyes of others, something controversial. But, breaking ingrained patterns and norms in a traditionally male-dominated industry was an active action driven by forward-thinking and visions for the future.
The active gender equality work has shaped the corporate culture, and today a third of the employees are women, and just over a fifth are foreign-born at the company.
Knightec has also focused on the fact that manager recruitment must always have a female and a final male candidate, which has led to the company having about 40% women in various leading positions today. Two of them are Chief Human Resources Officer, Mari Schäder, and Group Manager Technology, Anna Grönros.
“For me, inclusion and everyone’s equal value is super essential and central. I am proud to work actively with diversity and gender equality at Knightec. To make a change, active action is required, so we set concrete goals on how we wanted to see the development in gender equality in 2008. We knew what we can measure, we focus on, says Mari Schäder. During her almost 15 years at Knightec she has been able to follow the company’s development from a gender equality perspective.
It is known that equal companies perform better and are more profitable. This has been proven in research. And Knightec works actively on several fronts to show that the tech industry is attractive to women and men.
“Knightec engages in school collaborations around Sweden to learn more about diversity and at the same time inspire young people in technology,” says Anna. Together with Scania and Granitor, we will in 2022 expand these collaborations to reach out and inspire even more young people to choose a technically oriented profession.”
Anna is part of a mentoring program where several female employees at Knightec work as mentors for female students in their final year of high school, precisely to inspire, guide, and support them in their future career choices.
“Here, we have the chance to show what breadth there is in the engineering profession and perhaps break the image many have of what an engineer works with,” says Anna.
The corporate culture has long been important and vital at Knightec and something many employees are happy to return to. It permeates everything that is done. Norms and values in the business are essential, and you live by what you communicate.
“Female leadership is not about what gender you are. For me, it’s more about acting relationship-oriented instead of fact-oriented. I believe in a listening and transparent way of communicating and being. Knightec’s driving force is our employees. We together create success and a place we want to be and operate, says Anna.
Being seen and heard increases security and well-being, and an equal workplace also increases the dynamics of a group.
“Our gender equality work has developed how we work, set up teams, recruit, include and highlight role models, regardless of whether it is about women, foreign-born, sexual orientation, functional variations or other. We are inspired by seeing others succeed, Mari concludes.