Call for Pilot projects: Caring Workspaces

Open Call Guidelines (.pdf)

Call for projects: Caring Workspaces

The COVID-19 pandemic has redefined the way people work: more teleworking, blurred boundaries between the spheres of paid and unpaid, private work, more pressure on working parents. It has also created an opportunity to reconsider the meaning of essential work and skills, and the central role of emotional labour, emotional intelligence, and skills such as flexibility, empathy and resilience.

These shifts have highlighted a need for more caring workspaces that value the diverse skills of the workforce and provide for an inclusive environment for its employees.

This pilot action is about co-creating the “better story” of a caring gender+ workspace to promote inclusiveness, diversity, safety and care for employees at all levels, also responding to the new challenges posed by the pandemic and the increase in teleworking. 

“There is always a better story than the better story.”
 Dina Georgis, 2013

What sort of projects are we looking for?

The pilot project will aim at:   

• Re-imagining organisational culture and the working environment as inclusive, diverse, safe and caring, where everyone’s unique contribution and creativity is recognised and rewarded from a gender+ perspective;  
• Supporting the creation of a greater sense of community, connection, belonging, collegiality, and solidarity among members of an organisation;  
• Developing organisational schemes for better work-life balance;     
• Encouraging employers to recognise versatile skill-sets, developing modalities for emotional labour to be recognised as a skill in the workspace;  
• Promoting organisational schemes that responds to the physical and mental health needs of all employees;
• Mitigating old/new psycho-social risks and contribute to organisational and work safety (less lost workdays due to psycho-somatic or psycho-social risks)   

what do we hope to achieve by funding this project?

The outcomes of the project should be:

• A checklist for a caring workspace is co-created with participants from different sectors and disciplines (including NGOs, trade unions, universities, public institutions, municipalities, and corporations),
• At least two organisations have implemented a checklist or a chart for an inclusive, diverse, safe and caring workspace; feedback from employers at all levels is collected, 
• An award to select the “Better stories of caring workspace” is advertised extensively and assigned,
• A chart including the basic principles of a caring workspace is co-created with the involved participants from different sectors and disciplines, based on the results of checklist implementation and the general experience of the project.
• A dissemination campaign on the features of inclusive, diverse, safe and caring workspaces and better stories is launched and maintained, through in-person presentations and social media.

Timeframe and funding

The pilot project should run from March 2022 until November 2022.

We are expecting proposals with a budget of around 40,000 €.

Who can apply?

Funding is available to legal entities established in EU Member States, as well as in the UK, Serbia, Iceland, and Turkey.

Eligible applicants are non-governmental organisations, private corporations, schools and universities (public or private), Trade Union Organisations, independent trainers, facilitators.

Ideally, in addition to the main applicant, several actors are expected to take part in the pilot project as partner organisations.   

Do you have a question?