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Opening up to diversity
Last update: April 2009
::Danone believes that welcoming and encouraging diversity is a way of ensuring that the group remains dynamic and forms part of its values of openness. The group is committed to enabling all skills and talents to develop and speeding up innovation through the interplay of different ways of doing things and through the diversity of teams (genders, different social, national and ethnic origins, generation mix, etc.).
This conviction has led the group to sign several international agreements concerning the question of diversity with the International Union of Food Workers (IUF), with a worldwide agreement on diversity signed on June 8, 2007. Concretely, this means that the group is committed to “refus[ing] any form of discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality or age and encourag[ing] diversity by providing equal employment opportunities, equal remuneration and equal opportunities for promotion to positions of responsibility.”
Since then, the group’s diversity indicators have all risen, and there have been more and more good practices and training programmes seeking to combat discrimination. Examples include the following:
- The integration rate for people with disabilities in the group’s French companies stands at 4.17%, compared with 3.1% the previous year. Danone was the first company listed on the CAC 40 to make its consumer call centre available to the deaf and those with hearing impairments.
- The percentage of women holding senior executive posts rose to 26% in 2008 from 23% in 2007.
In 2008, the group held a highly-focused working session to formulate a new form of leadership combining female and male leaders. The 80 female managers plus male and female senior executives who attended the Danone Women’s Leadership Lab networked, took part in workshops and listened to presentations by outside specialists. As a result, three initiatives were implemented to develop female leadership: introduction of a mentoring system, personalised career plans and dedicated training programmes.
- In sourcing, Danone signed up to France’s “Espoir Banlieues” plan in 2008, aiming to substantially raise the percentage of young people from underprivileged inner-city backgrounds who are hired in junior positions and are on intern programmes.
- For some years, Danone Germany has practised a simulation-based recruitment method which enables it to spot people’s aptitudes and not select job applicants on the basis of academic qualifications.
- Danone Spain signed a diversity agreement with union representatives in 2008 and an equal opportunities commission was set up.
A new post of Director of Diversity was created in the group’s Human Resources department in 2008.
