Equal pay for equal work: Hirslanden awarded the equal pay attestation

“Gender equality and equal opportunities form an integral part of our life at Hirslanden” stated Markus Bechtiger, Chief Human Resources Officer of the Hirslanden Group, and added: “We are delighted at the favourable outcome of the analysis. The attestation confirms our long-term and continuous efforts to embed gender equality and equal opportunities at Hirslanden”.

Equal pay is just one component of the Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Programme of the Hirslanden Group and its parent group, Mediclinic International. The objective of the programme is the creation and maintenance of truly equal opportunities. “Equal opportunities are a matter of course in many areas. At the same time, we consider it important to assess current processes and practices and to have these reviewed by external organisations. That creates certainty and confidence” said Bechtiger.

Promoting a flexible career model

Increasing the flexibility of work and career models is at the core of the D&I programme alongside equal pay. In this connection, Hirslanden has created a variety of co-management positions to enable job-sharing at management level. “For example, two women are in charge of Klinik Permanence in Bern. And the proportion of women on hospital boards is generally high” according to Bechtiger. As a matter of principle, Hirslanden specifies management positions as full time or 80% positions and when making appointments normally looks for a balanced proportion of men and women in the team. Hirslanden has also modernised its home working rules to keep pace with the new requirements.

The equal pay analysis

The 2020 revision of the Swiss Federal Gender Equality Act is intended to guarantee the constitutional entitlement to equal pay for equal work. During the internal analysis, Hirslanden, working alongside the Willis Towers Watson consultancy, verified that the procedure and methodology met both their own stringent quality standards and the legal requirements. After completion of the analysis using Logib, the Confederation’s standard analysis tool, an independent auditor authorised for this type of work, verified the results of the equal pay analysis. In March 2021, the auditor confirmed the excellent quality of the data and the successful conclusion of the equal pay analysis in line with the requirements of the Confederation. 

About Hirslanden

The Hirslanden Group operates 17 hospitals in 10 cantons, many of which have an emergency department. It also operates 4 outpatient surgical units, 17 radiology institutes and 5 radiotherapy institutes. Together with public and private cooperation partners, Hirslanden focuses on the continuum of care and promoting high-quality, responsible, personalised and efficiently integrated healthcare – this explicitly includes, especially in the current situation, prevention in addition to acute treatment in hospitals. The Hirslanden Group has 2 506 partner doctors and 10 417 employees, 498 of whom are permanently employed doctors. Hirslanden is the largest medical network in Switzerland. In the 2019/20 financial year, the Group generated turnover of CHF 1 804 million. As at 31.3.2020, the Group had treated 107 491 patients, amounting to a total of 471 717 inpatient days. In insurance terms, the patient mix consists of 49.2% basic, 29.3% semi-private, and 21.5% private insured patients.

Hirslanden is synonymous with first-class medical care provided by highly qualified medical specialists with many years of experience. As a system provider, the Group stands out from the rest of the market: interdisciplinary medical centres of expertise and specialised institutes enable it to offer the best possible individualised treatment, even in highly complex cases. The Hirslanden Group was formed in 1990 through the merger of several hospitals. Since 2007, it has been part of the international hospital group Mediclinic International plc, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange.