Employees
Diversity
We see diversity as a key to corporate success. Diversity means fostering creativity, trying out new things, and better understanding the needs of our customers.
Evonik does business in many markets worldwide. Diversity is therefore normal in our business activities. Employees with different backgrounds and personalities enrich our teams and our company. They enhance our creativity, innovative capability, and proximity to customers. Therefore, we raise employees’ awareness
of the importance of diversity in our daily work through our corporate media and various campaigns.
Our diversity strategy is derived from our corporate strategy. Diversity is a firm element in our corporate values, our working principles, and, since 2020, in the Evonik competency model. The parameters we use to manage diversity often exceed the legal requirements. We inform all employees about the present situation in an annual diversity report, and the executive board receives quarterly information on the development of key
diversity indicators.
The Evonik Diversity Council ensures that diversity is a success factor that is deeply embedded in our organization and drives it forward through cross-business criteria. It comprises the members of the executive board, the heads of the divisions, and representatives of the regions and functions. Since May 2020, group-wide implementation of the measures adopted by the diversity council has been supported by three diversity panels for processes, regions, and communication. Through its Diversity & Inclusion department, the HR Talent Management function supports the establishment of diversity and inclusion throughout the Evonik Group. In addition, we train our executives and talents to deal with both conscious and unconscious bias.
Through its North America region, Evonik has been a member of CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion™ since 2020. More than 900 CEOs have already joined this network.
Our open and respectful corporate culture is designed to create a working environment that fosters all aspects of diversity. To achieve this, we have set ambitious targets for diversity management.
We foster cross-generational collaboration in our teams and place special importance on maintaining mental and physical health. Examples are the Fit for Life program and support for employees who care for relatives.
Other offerings include LILY (Learning and Individualized Library), an online learning platform for lifelong learning. Moreover, reverse monitoring offers different generations an opportunity to learn from one another and actively advance diversity at Evonik.
In line with our corporate purpose, Leading beyond chemistry, we support interdisciplinary collaboration and networking of competencies and perspectives. Diversity and opportunities to use various learning formats are presented to new employees in the onboarding phase. Other offerings include learning journeys, reverse mentoring, and diversity BarCamps.
We aim to increase the proportion of women in our company worldwide and at all levels.
We take equality of opportunity very seriously in the recruitment of new employees. As a guide, we use the proportion of women studying the disciplines that are relevant for us. Our objective is for women to make up around 40 percent of new management employees.
An extensive range of measures supports the attainment of our gender diversity targets. They include offers to help employees combine working and family life, such as childcare, vacation programs for kids, and a regular get-together for parents. We also offer our employees networks such as GroW, an internal network for female employees, and our newly introduced job-sharing platform.
In addition to our targets for executives and senior management, we keep an eye on equality of opportunity in the nomination of international talents. For example, an explicit reason now has to be given if no female employees are nominated for inclusion in the international talent management program. In addition, our employees and managers are offered team training in human rights and inclusive leadership.
Evonik currently employs people of 106 different nationalities at 206 sites in more than 54 countries.
The employment and inclusion of people with disabilities is another way in which we embrace diversity. We focus on providing a working environment where every individual can use their personal strengths optimally for the development of themselves and the company. In the reporting period, employees with disabilities accounted for 8.6 percent of Evonik’s workforce in Germany.
In December 2020, Evonik and the joint works council signed a policy on occupational inclusion in the chemical industry. The policy is an important commitment and a signal for the implementation of the social partner agreement 'Industrial participation and inclusion in the chemical industry' concluded between BAVC (employer association) and IG BCE (union).