To make best practice examples visible, Henkel’s employee newspaper “Henkel Life” meets successful women working in the Asia Pacific region on a quarterly basis. As part of the interviews successful women are asked to give insights into their secrets of success and to give advice to other female employees.

“I really consider gender diversity and inclusion as one of our key competitive advantages and as a tremendous asset for our company. For me it’s a personal priority to foster it, and I am happy and dedicated to see and support women to successfully combine business and private life. Today we have already a number of female colleagues in leading positions in our region,” says Patrick Kaminski, President of Henkel Asia-Pacific.

In Europe the high youth unemployment rate is a serious problem, too. In October 2011 more than five million people under 25 years didn’t have a job. Especially in the highly indebted countries the rates are worse, e.g. Spain (45.7 percent in 2011) or Greece (38.5 percent). By looking at todays well-trained, highly motivated, studied young adults applying for Hartz IV the Chinese way seems to be quite attractive. But this should not be an alternative.

Self-determination in the choice of education is an essential asset of a free society. Some might think that a too exotic choice of the study course could be the reason for unemployment. But it is the opinionated structure in the society and the organization that avert freethinker. A better integration of the creative potential of our youth into the labor process must be aimed. Our society and organizations are in need of a colorful togetherness. One of Europe greatest strength is its variety of cultural and intellectual developments. Nowadays, Diversity Management is the buzz word – this means using the social variety constructive. Many organizations have already realized the importance of an effective Diversity Management. What we need is more flexibility on both sides – employees and organizations. A trend already exists of managers being more open for social scientist or humanists. Thus, the boundaries have already been blurred. Universities should not be degraded to pure vicarious agents of Treasury.

Looking at China’s eliminating factors, the announced strategy would mean for the country a cancellation of e.g. theoretical physics and history. But isn’t theoretical physics an essential key to understand our world, and history to understand our presence?

January will see the first Mentoring Masterclass, an opportunity for Mentors to exchange, learn form each other and hone their skills.

The purpose of the Women Mentoring Program is to strengthen and diversify the region’s human capital through assisting female leaders to succeed and proceed in their careers for senior leadership responsibilities.

The pilot program was launched in September starting from China. Thirty female managers were selected to participate in the program as mentees. This first group of mentees is mainly composed of local Chinese employees. They are either of high potential or managers assuming a critical position in our organization.

At the same time, we have 11 senior leaders to mentor the selected female managers. Mentors should generally be two levels above the mentees. The mentors for the Women Mentoring Program are mainly HAP Excom members. The matching principle is mainly to reflect diversity of cross functional and cross business units.

The women mentoring program will last for 6-18 months depending upon the aggreement between the mentor and the mentee.

An initial introduction session was organized with each mentor-mentee group to equip both sides with the required documents and methodologies to kick off the program.

Some follow up actions will also be taken from HR side along the mentoring journey to ensure the end success of the program. e.g. periodical evaluation, mentee sharing session and mentor sharing session etc.

The Women Mentoring Program will be rolled out to a wider audience once the first batch of the program is well established and well received.

At this time the area was Greek, whereas today it is on the southern coast of Turkey. His wealthy parents raised him to be a devout Christian. After they died during an epidemic Nicholas, who was still quite young, followed Jesus’ words:” Sell what you own and give the money to the poor.” According to the legends about him, he used his whole heritage to help the poor, needy, and sick. With the age of 19 he was announced by his uncle to be the Bishop of Myra and was ordained a priest. During the persecution of Christians in 310, he was allegedly arrested and tortured. 

In the case of Nicholas many legends have grown up. Today he is one of the most popular saints of the Eastern and Western Church. His feast day is December 6, which is told to be his official day of death. Due to the many miracles attributed to his beneficence, he is also known as Nicholas the Wonderworker. He had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him.

The traditions at St. Nicholas are regionally very different. This becomes quite obvious by looking at the characters who accompany him on his gift-giving rounds. The roots of the diverse customs are mostly dated back to the Middle Ages. During this time a strong fascination with the tension between good and evil was widely shared. St. Nicholas in his role as a benevolent patron represents the good. In some cultures he is accompanied by a kind of assistant who often symbolizes the evil.

In the Netherlands, St. Nicholas is called “Sinterklaas” and arrives on a large white horse, often called Schimmel or Amerigo. In contrast to this the French, Belgian, Luxembourgish, and Swiss Nicholas leads a donkey packed with baskets full of treats and toys for children. In some legends angles are the saint’s little helpers e.g. Belgium, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Austria. Their task is to keep the record of the children’s behavior in a large book owned by Nicholas.

Czechs and Slovaks believe in a furry devil with horns, a tail, and a long red tongue to come along with the saint. He carries a root with him to punish bad children. But usually he is chained and an angle is accompanying the two to protect the children.

In Germany mostly known as the saint’s helper is Ruprecht or Knecht Ruprecht. His face is sooty from climbing down the chimneys bringing children’s treats. For good children he carries a sack full of present, for the disobedient ones he has a root to punish them. A still commonly used expression in Germany is: “Just wait until Ruprecht comes”.

In the Netherlands Sinterklaas is riding over the rooftops together with the Zwarte Piet or Black Peter. Similar to the German Ruprecht he is climbing down the chimneys, checks the children’s behavior, and delivers gifts.

But the legend of Saint Nicholas is also spread all over the world mostly by Dutch or German immigrants after the World War II. Therefore, in some parts of America and Canada the Dutch Sinterklaas is being celebrated as well e.g. Holland, Michigan; Pella and Orange City, Iowa; Fulton, Illinois. In these regions he usually comes in a parade, accompanied by Zwarte Pieten. They toss candy along the parade route. Also the German version of the saint appears in some parts of America e.g. New Ulm, Minnesota, and places in Pennsylvania.

We wish you all a happy Saint Nicholas Day!

With a series of dynamic, interactive, year-round programs the forum challenges individuals to view leadership in powerful new ways as well as enrich their own sense of possibility. Leaders are empowered to lead with passion, act as mentors to others and make a difference in their businesses, their communities and their lives.

Ten Henkel employees participated in the various workshops and seminars offered at the event. “It was a great opportunity for Henkel to connect other business professionals and benchmark diversity best practices with companies such as American Express, Honeywell and Ernst and Young,” said Angela Curley, Corporate Diversity & Inclusion Manager, Henkel of America.

We have contact the Social Foundation from La Caixa , that holds a program for people with special difficulties for insertion into the labor market called “Incorpora”. The Foundation offers the financial resources and the implementation is carried out by different associations whose objective is the employment of these kind of  groups (disabled, ex-addicts, people over 45, domestic violence  affected women and others) .

In particular, we have signed a framework agreement between La Cruz Roja and the Social Foundation from La Caixa establishing a collaboration with the women collectives affected by domestic violence  that initially is conducted also with the collaboration of Randstad to cover possible temporary  positions in our sites, that are uncovered  because of the Henkel current lack of direct hiring’s.

“The Diversity Charter is a written commitment that can be signed by any company, regardless of its size, that wishes to ban discrimination in the workplace and makes a decision to work towards creating diversity. It expresses a company’s willingness to improve the degree to which their workforce reflects the diversity of society.”

For Henkel, a company that operates in 125 countries, Diversity & Inclusion is an essential success factor. “We find lots of diversity in our own ranks. And this success, we want to develop and implement strategically,” said the CEO of Henkel, Kasper Rorsted, when he signed the “Diversity Charter” in March 2007 for Germany. 2009 Beltrán Francesc, Vice President HR of Henkel Ibérica and Latin America, followed Kasper Rorsted and signed the Spanish version of the Charter on November 4^th in Barcelona.

In France currently 3,320 major companies show their commitment to diversity and have already signed the Charter. Beginning with an auditing one year ago by IMS, a well-known French non-governmental organization that helps companies fulfilling their social responsibilities, Henkel France has started stepping up its effort concerning the topic. With the help of IMS Henkel developed a diversity action plan focusing the aspects “disability”, “generation gap”, “flexible working conditions” and “social and ethnic minorities”. Creating role models by training all managers in diversity-related topics to demonstrate an exemplary behavior was a fundamental aspect of the plan. With this approach Henkel France wants to further support the general approach of Henkel as a socially responsible company.

Their goal is to champion Diversity and Inclusiveness and promote innovative working practices that engage, inspire and enthuse Henkel employees. These include the open sharing of ideas, where honesty and frankness are prized; The aim is to encourage an inclusive culture that becomes a normal way of doing business at Henkel.

Two Diversity & Inclusion Ambassadors took the time to explain their involvement…

Mike Richardson, Global SAP Masterdata Analyst at Henkel Electronics

I heard about the Diversity & Inclusion programme from some colleagues who attended the D&I pilot training in Hemel Hempstead, and thought it sounded really interesting. I like the way Diversity & Inclusion is not just about looking to set quotas or concentrate on one aspect: it’s about getting people in the right places and using the natural diversity that this creates for the benefit of the company. One area The Ambassadors are currently looking at is ways to make working for Henkel easier for people who have special circumstances or requirements, including flexible working schemes, homeworking, flexible hours, job shares and other initiatives.  These are all the things that might help fit work around having a family and a life.

Rondi Allan, Purchasing Manager, UK and Ireland

The role of the Ambassadors is to look at how we can role out initiatives and influence the company to be more diverse and inclusive. 
I believe differences are already being made, maybe in a subtle way, but there is a change.

Since becoming an Ambassador I have learnt a lot about Henkel’s approach o D&I and it is great to talk informally to my colleagues to communicate and promote the D&I initiatives. Equally, it has been fascinating to learn about the perceptions and opinions of my colleagues. 



I believe that greater Diversity and Inclusion will result in greater innovation, market understanding and therefore better decision-making and is essential to achieving our aspiration to be a ’Winning Team’.