[Translated]

‘2021 WIN Awards’ Top 10 Companies for Gender Equality… selected by Female Leaders

DATE: 2021.09.09

Segye (www.segye.com) / Kim Hyun Joo

WIN (Women in Innovation), a corporate body fostering female leaders, announced on September 9 that it has selected the top 10 companies for the ‘2021 WIN Awards’ for Gender Equality.

WIN held ‘the 4th WIN Forum' at the IGM (Institute of Global Management) on September 9 and selected the following companies as the top 10 companies with the highest scores in Gender Equality Index: Green Cross Corporation, Daesang Corporation, Samsung SDS Co., Ltd., Amorepacific Corp., Youngone Corporation, Standard Chartered Bank Korea, Citybank Korea, Hanmi Pharm. Co., Ltd., Hansae Co., Ltd., CJ Cheiljedang Corp. (in Korean alphabetical order) This result was based on evaluating indices of Korea's top 500 companies last year.

The WIN Forum took its first step in 2018 to suggest plans to expand diversity within a company and to support the growth of women. The WIN Forum started selecting the winners for WIN Awards since 2020 through five stages of strictly impartial evaluation processes reflecting the previous year's Gender Equality Index.

There are 6 different gender equality evaluation indices for a total of 100 points: ▲ Gender Ratio in Employment (20 points) ▲ Length of Employment (20 points) ▲ Pay Discrepancies (20 points) ▲ Executives (20 points) ▲ Board Members (10 points) ▲ Title & Position (10 points). WIN uses both quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods. For quantitative evaluations, WIN measures the female employment ratio compared to male, the length of female employment, pay discrepancies between female and male employees, the ratio of female executives compared to male executives, the ratio of female Board members. For qualitative evaluation, WIN measures whether a company has the following: Education programs for female employees, Women committees, Diversity councils or ESG committees with a participation of female executives.

Green Cross Corporation received high scores for the ratios of female executives and female executives above the senior director level. Daesang Corporation received high scores for the ratios of female employees and female executives and also got a perfect score for the ratio of female executives above the senior director level. Samsung SDS Co., Ltd. received a high score for the ratio of female executives while Amorepacific Corp. got perfect scores for the ratios of female employees and female executives. Youngone Corporation received perfect scores for the ratios of female employees, female executives, female Board members and female executives above the senior director level.

Standard Chartered Bank Korea got high scores for the ratios of female employees and female executives and got a perfect score for the ratio of female Board members. Citibank Korea received perfect scores for the ratios of female executives, female Board members and female executives above the senior director level. Hanmi Pharm. Co., Ltd. received perfect scores for the ratios of female executives and female executives above the senior director level. Hansae Co., Ltd. also received perfect scores for the ratios of female executives and female executives above the senior director level and got a high score for the ratio of female employees. CJ Cheiljedang Corp. received a perfect score for the ratio of female executives and a high score for the ratio of female executives above the senior director level.

As ESG management and the values of diversity are getting more important, the in-depth discussion about the requirements needed to expand diversity in the workplace was made at the WIN Forum.

The speaker Lim Hee Jeong, a professor at Hanyang Cyber ​​University, said “In an era of expanding digital economy and accelerating ESG management, diversity is becoming more important than ever.” In addition, she said “Even though the women’s economic participation rate in Korea is continuously increasing, the ratios of female managers and female executives are still low as it is difficult for female employees to continue their careers due to childbirth and childcare.” She also emphasized that “In order to secure gender diversity and strengthen competitiveness, a company should strive to manage human resources considering its characteristics, educate female employees, support for work-family balance and develop the organizational culture with diversity and embracement”.

Seo Ji Hee, a Chairman of WIN, said, “Our society is gradually approaching to a society with diversity; and female employees are growing repeatedly within their companies and demonstrating their competencies as a leader by preparing for a new future”. She concluded by saying “We would give full support to create such an environment which female leaders can work and enhance their capabilities.”