Munters supports UN's gender equality initiative

By 2025, we aim to have 30% women in management positions and the workplace as a whole. To achieve our goal, we have endorsed the UN Women's Empowerment Principles and launched several company-wide initiatives with women in mind.

The UN principles, of which there are seven, are intended to help companies decide what to focus on to promote and empower women in the workplace. Companies will also need to report their progress to the UN. This is intended to encourage all of us who have signed up to the principles to work purposefully on this issue.

Some of the activities we will focus on in the coming years are:

• train more managers about the importance of gender balance recruitment
• have at least one qualified female in the final interview process
• have a mix of women and men in the interview panel
• develop a formal internal program to bring in employees from diverse backgrounds
• support working parents programs
• develop a leadership program focusing on women’s work issues
• ensure female employees have a development plan and access to leadership training
• set up employee resource groups that address female topics
• provide a flexible workplace that offers a good balance between work and leisure
• report and review progress on gender equality to increase transparency.

Time to speed up our efforts

Gender equality does not only benefit companies. It benefits society as a whole. Despite this, the UN says that it will take 257 years before we close the gender gap if we continue at the current pace.

"As the father of three daughters, I can not accept that it will take more than 200 years before we have an equal workplace," says President and CEO Klas Forsström. "We must step up our efforts in this area. We are a global company and thus have a responsibility and a unique role in ensuring that change takes place faster."

The Women's Empowerment Principles initiative is part of the Target Gender Equality program. This is a year-long accelerator program for participating companies of the UN Global Compact initiative. The goal is to set ambitious corporate targets for women’s representation and leadership in the workplace.

Follow our journey towards a more gender-equal workplace.