Equal Opportunities Plan
1. PURPOSE OF THE EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES PLAN
Public bodies, research organizations or higher education establishments, wheth-er public or private, in EU Member States or Associated Countries must meet the condition of the existing Gender Equality Plan for participation in the Horizon Eu-rope programme from 2022 onwards. This condition applies to all calls with a dead-line of 2022 or later at the time the Grant Agreement is signed. The Technology Centre Prague fully supports the policy of equal opportunities for all its employees, and therefore on this occasion developed the TC Prague Plan of Equal Opportunities for the years 2022–2024 (hereinafter, the "Plan"), based on an in-depth audit of the working environment which took place in the fall of 2021.
The work environment audit took two forms: (1) a payroll audit across the entire Technology Centre and (2) a questionnaire survey open to all employees. Most em-ployees took part in the questionnaire survey; between 7 and 24 September, 65 of them (out of 79) answered a total of 33 prepared questions. These questions were divided into four categories – work and remuneration, gender and work-life balance, parental leave and the team constitution. This Plan is based on the results of the entire work environment audit.
The audit identified the following areas of challenges for the years 2022–2024: guidelines of the Technology Centre Prague, remuneration transparency, employee re-cruitment and career growth, job flexibility, maternity and parental leave manage-ment, work -life balance management and teambuilding/team constitution of the Technology Centre Prague (for more detail, see chapter 5 Overview of implementation solutions).
2. MONITORING AND DATA COLLECTION
The current Plan of Equal Opportunities of the TC Prague has been prepared for 3 years, i.e., until the end of 2024.
The collection of data on TC Prague employees will take place once a year. An audit will follow in the second half of 2024, which defines whether (a) all planned actions have taken place and (b) all foreseen documents have been prepared. This audit will therefore take place in the third year of implementation of the Plan, with the proviso that it should result in an update of the Plan itself.
The necessary work capacities and sufficient financial resources will be allocated for the successful implementation of the Plan. Individual implementation solutions al-ways have an assigned person who is responsible for fulfilling the given tasks. Rep-resentatives of the Economic and Administration Department are responsible for the overall implementation of the Plan in cooperation with the NICER department, i.e., the audit in 2024 and the update of the Plan will be carried out by representa-tives of the NICER and the Economic and Administration Department.
3. INTRODUCTION TO THE TECHNOLOGY CENTRE PRAGUE
The Technology Centre Prague, z.s.p.o., abbreviated TC Prague, is an Interest association of legal entities (https://www.tc.cz/en/about-us). The Centre supports Czech Republic's involvement in the European Research Area, prepares analytical and conceptual studies for research and innovation, undertakes international technology transfer and supports the establishment and development of innovative companies.
The supreme body of the TC Prague is the TC Prague Council, the statutory representative and the CEO is the director. The TC Prague is divided into five departments, each de-partment is headed by a department head.
As of 31 December 2021, TC Prague had a total of 79 employees, of which 5 were on maternity leave. 52 employees worked full time (not counting maternity leave), 22 employees worked part time (5 to 80%, 2 to 75%, 1 to 70%, 1 to 62.5%, 4 to 60%, 2 to 50%, 3 to 40%, 1 to 37.5%; 1 to 30%, 1 to 25%, 1 to 20%).
4. LABOUR CODE ADOPTED AT THE TECHNOLOGY CENTRE PRAGUE
The Labour Code describes the system of work and the basic principles of remuneration at the TC Prague in order to transparently present working conditions for all employees. The Code also sets out the basic conditions for the recruitment of new employees and presents the basic possibilities for balancing personal and professional life.
4.1 Remuneration principles
The remuneration principles are governed by the internal directive “Remuneration practices”, which is available to all, together with other valid directives and internal regulations, in the Internal Information System of the TC Prague (Istec).
The TC Prague applies a system of fixed salary and variable salary components (semi -an-nual bonuses, remuneration from the manager's fund, target remuneration). The amount of the fixed salary component is based on the job category in which the employee is assigned in accordance with the concluded employment contract, i.e., what position he / she holds. Within the job category and in accordance with the set requirements (qualifications, language skills, length of experience), the person is assigned a tariff level.
The variable component of the salary is given based on a comprehensive evalua-tion of the employee and his / her work performance for the monitored period. This evaluation always takes place in June and November. The goal of the variable salary component is to motivate quality work results. During the evaluation, the depart-ment heads propose performance supplements and semi-annual bonuses, to be ap-proved by the TC Prague director.
The amount of the performance bonus, which is expressed as a percentage of the fixed monthly salary component and is paid monthly, is determined based on the evaluation of the given employee's work performance and his / her share (contribu-tion) in the department's work results for the evaluated period, also taking into ac-count the expected work tasks in the next period to be evaluated. Its amount is de-termined for the next half of the year and is part of the salary.
Half-year bonuses are paid retrospectively as part of the June and November sal-ary payments, i.e., according to the actual work results achieved by the employee for the past evaluated period. These half-year bonuses are paid depending on the financial results of the TC Prague and the performance of the individuals concerned. Those who have worked only part of the working days in a given year, e.g., due to having arrived later during the period, to maternity / parental leave, sick leave, un-paid leave or retirement, are paid an aliquot part of the half-yearly remuneration.
4.2 Recruitment of new employees
TC Prague applies a policy of non-discriminatory recruitment, fully respecting the ap-plicable national legislation. The basic idea of the recruitment process is to find the most suitable person for the given open position.
The request for a job is processed by the head of the department concerned where the job is to be filled and this request is approved by the TC Prague director. The re-quirement to fill a job is the basis for placing an advertisement.
In the section "What we offer", all advertisements offering positions in TC Praguecon-tain the following phrase: "The Technology Centre of the Prague is doing its utmost to create a positive work environment for its employees, male and female, regard-less of their nationality, gender, age, ethnicity, religion or disability." The advertise-ments are construed in a gender-sensitive language.
The members of the evaluation committee are acquainted with the legislation on the recruitment of new employees (with regard to issues of a discriminatory nature, see the Labour Code).
4.3 Balanced professional and personal life
The TC Prague allows the use of part-time work and work from home on the basis of in-dividual agreements so that employees can balance their professional and personal life in the performance of all work tasks.
Internal meetings, consultations and working group meetings should ideally be scheduled between 9.30 am and 2.00 pm so that all employees can easily attend with regard to possible part-time or adjusted working hours. Where possible, meet-ings are also held in a hybrid format.
Employees have the opportunity to use their child's placement in one of the chil-dren's groups of the CAS (similar to a kindergarten).
The entire document with graphs and an overview of implementation solutions is available for download here.