Equality certification, an opportunity for companies

Why do the Certification of Equality

The Gender Equality Certification is a measure aimed at any company, regardless of its size, but without any prescriptive value: no company, large or small, is required to undertake the process of Gender Equality Certification, except for own independent choice and initiative. Therefore, there is no reason to want to limit its scope as a function of a proclaimed reduction of bureaucratic constraints in favor of companies: companies that want to be certified will be able to do so and companies that don’t want it will be equally free not to do so; however, the former will be compulsorily assigned a reward score appropriate to the value that this certification represents in terms of inclusion and social equality.

Moreover, there is no reason for the perplexities and resistances of those who fear that the Gender Equality Certification could facilitate large companies in public tenders, which have more economic means and resources at their disposal to allocate to this measure, to the detriment of the more small. This fear – however unfounded, given the criterion of proportionality envisaged in the application of the KPIs of the Guidelines based on employment size and the sector to which the company belongs – was further averted by the recent agreement signed between Unioncamere and the Department for Equal opportunities which specifically provides for actions in favor of SMEs (between 10 and 49 employees) and of micro-enterprises (with less than 9 employees).

On the one hand, there is the formation of a list of accredited certification bodies that adhere to the facilitation measures for the certification of SMEs envisaged by the PNRR, in relation to which a notice was published on 14 February; on the other hand, the PNRR has provided for this measure one total financial envelope of 10 million eurosof which 5.5 million for certification costs, for a maximum of 12,500 euros per company and another 2.5 million for technical assistance and support services, for a maximum of 2,500 euros per company.

An opportunity not a constraint

Given, therefore, that the Gender Equality Certification represents only an opportunity and not a constraint, the measure most opposed remains the one which provides, in the event of the award of the contract, the obligation to reserve a quota equal to at least the 30% when hiring young people (36 years of age) and women for the execution of the contract or the performance of related activities (art. 47, paragraph 4, of the so-called Simplification Decree).

It should be noted that, also in this case, it is not an absolute obligation: the quota can in any case be derogated from by the contracting station through express and specific reasons. Consider, for example, the case of contracts in sectors with low gender diversity – e.g. construction – or in the presence of social clauses of employment reabsorption, which provide for obligations in favor of workers already engaged in the execution of the service with the outgoing manager; or again, as regards youth employment, in the case in which the contract requires the hiring of individuals with significant previous work experience.