Diversity, equity and inclusion

At our company, diversity drives progress. It strengthens our ability to innovate and contributes to our success in science and technology. We encourage employees, patients and customers to be their individual, curious and unique selves. The more diverse our people, the better we can succeed in business while making a difference in people’s lives.

In 2021, we strengthened and expanded our commitment to diversity. While we have always been a diverse organization – today spanning 66 countries, with more than 60,000 employees – we recognize that the success of our organization depends on our ability to foster an environment that promotes equity and cultivates inclusion.

Together, we are building one culture in which we care about one another and are solidifying a sense of belonging for all so that our different voices are heard to drive better business outcomes. Ultimately, we are creating opportunity and enabling advancement for employees around the globe.

To reflect our expanded DE&I commitment, we are focused on three critical priority areas:

Gender

We are aiming for gender parity in leadership positions by 2030. In 2021, we increased the share of women in leadership roles to 36% (2020: 35%) and maintained a stable 43% proportion of women in the global workforce.

Culture and ethnicity

By 2030, we plan to increase the proportion of colleagues who are members of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in our United States leadership teams from 21% to 30%. We continue to pursue self-identification efforts to help us further understand our organizational structure in regard to culture and ethnic representation.

With 23% of our employees based in the United States, it is crucial that we become an employer of choice among racial and ethnic minorities in this market. We continually listen and learn from our colleagues in the market to ensure our workforce reflects the talent currently available in the marketplace.

Additionally, due to our current performance and future growth in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa (MEA), accounting for 40% of our Group sales, we aim to increase the global share of nationals from Asia, Latin America, and MEA in leadership positions from 16% to 30% by 2030.

Inclusion

For us, inclusion means creating a culture and environment where everyone can reach their full potential and is able to add value. Our leaders are key to achieving this. In 2021, we began rolling out a Group-wide program to help leaders reflect on how they can lead more inclusively. All leaders, including new ones, are required to actively participate. In the reporting period, 37% of our leaders participated in this inclusion training. We also monitor progress using our Employee Engagement Survey inclusion score. Additionally, countries and sectors can focus on further diversity dimensions such as LGBTQI+, different abilities, age diversity, or veteran/military status.

A cornerstone of our DE&I strategy is to foster an inclusive culture in partnership with over 40 employee resource groups (ERGs) across the globe. With nearly 4,500 employees involved in one or more ERGs, we are able to build awareness of matters impacting our diverse workforce through programs and open dialogue. Our ERGs range from Women in Leadership to our Black Leaders Network and our Leaders of Ethnicity Allies and Faith.

Roles and responsibilities

Our Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer is responsible for our global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) strategy and steering related activities. In this role, she reports directly to the Chair of the Executive Board, whose responsibilities include Group Human Resources.

We have a centralized Diversity Council that consists of high-ranking executives from all our business sectors and select Group functions. In addition, all business sectors and major Group functions have various working groups at management level that implement the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategy in their area of responsibility.

Our commitment: Industry-wide initiatives and regulations

Our Social and Labor Standards Policy spells out that we do not tolerate any form of discrimination, physical or verbal harassment, or intolerance. To underscore our commitment to equality, fairness, inclusion, and tolerance in the workplace, we also participate in industry-wide initiatives

Meeting statutory requirements

The German Law for the Equal Participation of Women and Men in Leadership Positions in the Public and Private Sector has been in effect in Germany since 2015. Owing to our legal form as a KGaA (corporation with general partners), this law also applies in part to us.

With a 37.5% share of women (six out of 16 members), our Supervisory Board already meets the stipulations of German gender quota legislation. As a KGaA, we are not required to set targets for our Executive Board. Our Executive Board currently has a 20% share of women (1 out of 5). Detailed information can be found in the Statement on Corporate Governance.

Rooting out unconscious bias

We seek to raise awareness of unconscious bias among our managers and employees, also through Group-wide training courses on this topic. Since 2021, we have been using new technologies in the context of recruitment in order to support the use of gender-neutral language, for example when creating job advertisements. This is intended to reduce unconscious bias in the hiring process and ensures that our job advertisements are attractive to diverse talent.

Pay Equity Analysis

Our commitment to pay equity is an important aspect of our DE&I strategy. In order to create transparency on unexplained pay gaps and their underlying root causes, we conducted a pay equity analysis in 2021. In this first step, we analyzed our top ten countries covering roughly 80% of our employees. The focus of the analysis was on pay gaps based on gender. The detailed data analysis had not yet been completed at the end of 2021. Based on the initial findings, we continue to create a detailed action plan and work on business alignment to ensure fair pay for all our employees.

Taking action against discrimination

We do not tolerate any kind of discrimination at our company. This is stipulated with binding effect in our Code of Conduct and our Social and Labor Standards Policy. Should employees experience harassment or discrimination in the workplace, they can report the issue via various channels. Their first points of contact are either their supervisor or our Human Resources (HR) or Compliance teams. Alternatively, employees throughout the Group have the possibility to call our Compliance Hotline anonymously. As part of our “Group Compliance Case Committee”, HR coordinates suspected cases relating to human resources topics. In 2021, seven suspected cases of discrimination were reported via the compliance hotline and other channels. Of these reports, six incidents were confirmed.