Social Sustainability through focus on Diversity & Inclusion and Employee Engagement

In addition to ensuring both our own operations and our customers’ businesses are profitable in the long-term, DeLaval has two key areas of priority under the Social & Economic part of our sustainability strategy. They are Diversity and Inclusion and Employee Engagement & Wellbeing. During the autumn the HR team has hosted two webinars for our employees to cover what we are working on in relation to these topics. 

At DeLaval we are striving for an engaging workplace culture where employee’s health and wellbeing are a priority. 

During the first webinar our colleagues listened to a panel discussion that covered our Employee Engagement Survey, our Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) efforts as well as the Well-being Boost Camps DeLaval has been running during the year.  
 
“We safeguard our employees, implementing and promoting OHS and wellbeing best practices, as we work towards our ultimate goal of zero accidents and work-related ill health.” says Ben Condon OHS Director. 
 
During the second webinar focusing on our efforts in Diversity & Inclusion we heard from three employee resource groups in DeLaval; Women in Blue in the US, the DAWN network in Sweden and the One DeLaval Employee Club in China.  These groups are working to support equal opportunities and room to grow with a focus on female employees. 

 
Our goal is to have 25% female employees by 2025 and 30% by 2030. Our gender distribution remains imbalanced and we need to improve significantly. The female managers ratio is improving gradually year on year. 

Following on from our diversity inclusion strategy, we have initiated several activities such as flexible working policy review in key countries, a training program on unconscious bias and an updated recruitment policy to help eliminate unconscious bias. The policy includes a guideline stating that when short-listing, an equal number of male and female candidates are on the shortlist. Through our collaboration with non-profit organisation Catalyst, we also have the opportunity to get their input on individual job ads to ensure a balanced language and attractiveness to the full talent pool. 

“Becoming a more modern and attractive employer to attract and retain the talent we need to achieve our strategic ambitions is key. To that end, we are promoting learning and development and are driving actions to ensure a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture, where all employees can thrive,” says Helen Hu, HR Vice President Asia & Pacific and part of the Sustainability Group at DeLaval.