Four years after France implemented the Pénicaud Index to promote gender equality in the workplace, the digital companies we studied are still struggling to develop a concrete action plan. These legal measures are seen as a constraint and a certain fatigue is starting to set among employees.
Without her, mankind would not have walked on the moon… or at least not until much later. Her name was Margaret Hamilton and it is her computer code that enabled the Apollo 11 mission to leave its masculine mark on a celestial body long associated with femininity. Like her, many other women – pioneers and innovators – have made it possible for digital technology to make giant progress. In the 1950s, women made up 30% to 50% of the workforce in the digital sector… compared to just 33% today. What explains this decline in a fast-growing sector that is chronically understaffed?
Yet, now more than ever, companies are claiming that gender equality in the workplace is one of their top concerns. Every week, there are new scientific publications on the subject and organisations are using all kinds of strategies to increase the number of women on their boards: the latest one being to expand them!
Equality by law
This desire for greater equality has even been institutionalised: in 2018, the Professional Equality Index, also known as the “Pénicaud Index”, was introduced by the French government as part of the so-called “Professional Future” law. Since then, employers have been required to report annually on the number of women in their companies. But four years on, has this tool really lived up to expectations?
Companies with 50 or more employees are required to achieve a minimum score based on the criteria set by this index, or risk facing financial penalties of up to 1% of their payroll. The companies in question are required to measure pay gaps, pay raise and promotion differences betwen men and women. As well as to respect salary increases after maternity leave and to measure gender parity among the ten highest paid employees. In 2021, this law was supplemented by the Rixain Law, which imposes new obligations on companies with 1,000 or more employees. These companies are required to publicly report their gender representation gaps among senior executives and members of governing bodies. An initial target of 30% women has been set for 2026 and 40% for 2029.
The Index under scrutiny
However, initial results have been disappointing. We spoke to a disillusioned female employee of a food processing company who told us: “I haven’t seen any real improvement and I don’t think it’s ever going to change”. Is it a sign of impatience or is there a structural problem with the Pénicaud Index?
The five indicators are distributed as follows:
Companies must achieve a cumulative score of 75/100 each year, or ensure they are compliant within three years. On paper, the framework is clear and sufficiently restrictive. However, while companies are required to disclose their scores on each criterion, they are not required to reveal calculation details or the methodology used. Some unions and HR departments have criticised this initial lack of clarity, which may be one of the reasons explaining the low number of warnings issued so far. Since 2018, only 504 formal warnings have been sent – mainly for failure to disclose – and barely 32 fines have been issued.
Other weaknesses have been identified. The indicator does not take part-time workers into account when calculating the index and some companies do not have enough employees to make up the reference group of three men and three women in a personnel category, therefore unable to publish the index. Furthermore, the obligation does not apply to companies with fewer than 50 employees, even though they represent the vast majority of French organisations.
In addition, a note from the Institut des Politiques Publiques (IPP – the French Institute for Public Policy) points out that the index does not calculate the size of the pay increases granted to men and women, so there is no way of knowing whether the men received larger increases than the women.
However, that is not all. On one hand, there is no standardised method for calculating pay gaps and the calculation includes several controversial exclusions or adjustments. On the other hand, the index allows for a correction mechanism of 5 percentage points. Smaller differences are therefore deemed irrelevant, and there is thus, no incentive for companies to correct them. This opens the door for certain manipulations designed to give companies a more favourable classification.
To make matters worse, very different situations are given the same number of points. The methodological choices to calculate the indicators should therefore be reconsidered to offer a fairer reflection of inequalities.
“It’s a complex administrative obligation”
In the digital sector, the focus of our study, gender diversity brings many benefits to companies: societal benefits (maintaining public visibility), recruitment benefits (access to a larger talent pool), improved company image, social legitimacy (reflecting society) and well-being at work. According to sociologist Jacqueline Laufer, gender equality in the workplace can actually contribute to growth and performance rather than hinder it.
To understand how companies in the digital sector have seized the Professional Equality Index, and what reactions the introduction of this measure has triggered, we interviewed around twenty HR managers and women working in the digital sector within those companies, to compare their perspectives. And what they had to say was not encouraging.
“It’s a complex administrative obligation,” said the HR manager of a digital services company. She went on to complain about the lack of support, training or assistance from the government. The tool is often poorly understood – “we’re comparing apples and oranges” – or the cause of “hours of complicated discussions with our social partners”. When “you have pay gaps that have grown over the course of careers spanning 30 years, it’s very complicated to close them all at once”.
In fact, it is so complex, that some companies are outsourcing the management of their index to external firms with an obligation of results.
“Gender fatigue”
In order to adapt, the most frequently chosen criterion is equal pay, which gives the highest number of points. Other companies are making half-hearted efforts to meet the quotas set. “Since we have no choice but to go along with this index, we have to work and look at things a little differently,” we were told with a resigned tone. “We had to set a quota for men and women: the measures taken mean that women are favoured,” said someone from another HR department. One of her colleagues went on to explain that, “in certain sectors, if two candidates apply, we have to choose the woman”.
Read also: How the Covid-19 crisis is exacerbating inequalities between male and female researchers
Small measures are then taken to achieve the required minimum score. “There are some very simple things. Indicator 4, which covers the return to work after maternity leave, is easy to implement.” But actions remain ad hoc, with no real vision or desire to go further on the issue. “We chose to take targeted action, as it’s impossible to tackle all the issues at once.” Often, companies adapt as best they can, but no long-term strategy is put in place.
This stagnation has created a certain “fatigue” among some actors in the field of professional equality, as well as among the general public. The concept of “gender fatigue” has been identified as a form of resignation and discouragement due to the very limited progress that has been made despite the many legislative measures in place. Some of the employees interviewed expressed this directly: “I’d say we’re not there yet, we’re still a long way off and we may never get there,” sighed one bank employee. Another, who works for a digital services company, is even completely resigned: “I’m not interested anymore.”
