Building an inclusive culture
Diversity is central to the 'multi-local, multinational' nature of our business. After all, as an international organisation we have incredibly diverse consumers – how could we understand them if our own people weren't too?
The way we approach diversity is different to many organisations. We don't assess our performance in terms of 'quotas'. Physical diversity – differences like gender, nationality, race and disability – is important. But our focus is on building an inclusive culture, ensuring that everyone feels that they are valued, belong and can make a difference. We aim to make the way we work open and flexible to engage all our people. And by being inclusive in everything we say and do, we benefit from the many advantages of a richly diverse workforce.
Diversity toolkit
One of the ways we promote this is through our diversity toolkit. This enables our people to leverage and manage diversity, and gain a perspective on their own beliefs and values. The toolkit comprises training programmes, guides and e-learning packages, and supports a wide range of diversity programmes.
Of course we still monitor diversity in our business to check our approach is working. And it is: for example in the area of gender diversity, over 30% of our managers worldwide are now women and we have over 30 nationalities represented in our top 200 management positions.
As our people grow, so does our business. So we provide space for personal expression and with it, personal growth. We are committed to building a Unilever where difference is valued and where being authentic and true to ourselves is central to the way we work. This is made possible by a very strong framework of shared values and aspirations – strong enough to support all kinds of individual initiative and contribution.
And to make sure diversity happens on all these counts, we've appointed a vice-president for global diversity, who's based in the London head office.
