Posts Tagged ‘inclusion’

Women in Business

Victress Awards für starke Frauen/ Victress Awards for powerful women

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 by Astrid Bosten

Each year, the German Victress Initiative awards power- and successful female role models. Last week four outstanding role models were honored in the course of a gala show in Berlin. Tina Müller, Senior Vice President and responsible for our global Hair Cosmetics, Skin Care and Oral Care businesses was part of the top-class jury. Under the patronage of Germans Federal Minister of Economics, Rainer Brüderle, winner Nelly Kostadinova, President of Lingua-World GmbH gain the Victress Role Models Award, Christiane Stenger (Memory World Champion) got the Future Victress Award, the Victress Health Award was given to Prof. Dr. Maria Ryan and the Victress Glassbreaker Award – which Tina Müller gained last year – was dedicated to Dr. Angelika Damman, CEO of the SAP AG.

The Victress Initiative claims diversity in leadership positions for a sustainable German business location. The motto of this initiative is: “Excellence knows no gender”. For Tina Müller it is one of the most important and enjoyable self commitments to be an active role model in improving the conditions and numbers of leading women in business. [DE]

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Best Practices

Internship at Henkel/Praktikum bei Henkel

Monday, August 23rd, 2010 by Astrid Bosten

A day in intern lives: brewing coffee, going on errands and if you are lucky you may have the chance to have a glance at the jobs that are done in the department. This could be normal life for many interns in other enterprises. At Henkel reality looks totally different. Our interns are part of the team, actually before they arrive. The “intern-introductions” and “intern hand-outs” summarize the first practical tips and are sent to our interns before they have their first day.

Additionally there are lots of meeting points and interaction for and with our interns. Twice a week they have the opportunity to have lunch together, every week there is one intern table at different locations in Düsseldorf and once a month one Henkel youngster presents his department and job to our interns.

On our intranet platform “InterNactive” they have the chance for interaction and the exchange of real life questions: Where is the best event location in Düsseldorf? Is there a flat or a flat share? What ever…

The Double-In-Day again gives the opportunity to change roles and intern jobs for one day. Thereby our interns get the chance to get a broader perspective of different Business Units and departments.

By the way: We – the Global Diversity & Inclusion team – offer an intern job, too: https://recruitment.henkel.com/jpapps/henkel_internship/jobs/jobview.jsp?requestno=RQ00011441&printview=true

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International Ambassadors

International Experiences / Internationale Erfahrungen

Monday, August 9th, 2010 by Astrid Bosten

For many Germans it’s a dream to work abroad. Additionally, international experiences can help to build a career. The recent issue of “Women at Work” examines the advantages, disadvantages and requirements of a stay abroad. Each year, about 150.000 Germans leave their country to work in another country. Most of them are planning to come back after a certain time. At first, the advantages seem to prevail: exciting experiences, meeting new people, incentives and a career advancement. However, reality sometimes looks different. First of all, a stay abroad has to be well-organized. At best, the company takes care of the residence and work permit. For example, Henkel offers its employees to take part in the Triple-Two-Program that allows employees to gain experience in 2 divisions, 2 functions and in at least 2 countries. To prepare the so called expatriates an intense language and intercultural training program is offered. Additionally a mentoring program helps the expats to stay in contact with the basis and help to harmonize the return.

 

For those who are not leaving the country in person virtual global teams offer a lot of intercultural experiences and of course our corporate language is English. [DE]

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Diversity & Inclusion

Diversity-to-Go: Mediaplanet Special “Diversity Management”

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 by Astrid Bosten

Diversity-to-Go: This is what the new Mediaplanet publication “Diversity Management” offers. There might be enough good reasons for a strategic diversity approach – practical tips with focus on the diversity dimensions gender, disability and cultural diversity is what you get packed on 15 pages in that newspaper.

Gender diversity:

Starting with Monika Schulz-Strelow foreword, who is president of the FidAR initiative (women for the board), to the dialogue between Wilhelm von Haller, CEO Sal.Oppenheimer Private Bank and Ana-Cristina Grohnert, Partner at Ernst & Young and an article about a father during his parental leave – there are lots of arguments and information about gender diversity, the need for a balanced workforce and the increase of women in leadership positions.

Disability:

95 percent of all disabled people are getting disabled within their professional lives. To save recruitment costs and to get highly motivated and loyal colleagues, Ford AG introduced for the first time a disability manager in Europe, who is responsible for the integration of disabled people at the working place. That saves money and increases productivity.

Cultural Diversity:

The mother dimension of diversity. But nowadays as important as in the past is the intercultural harmonization at the working place. Within this article you get some practical advices to take care of to gain economic advantages out of the cultural diversity a company has in place.

All in all the publication is as readable as informative to get an insight in the reasons why and the benefits of diversity management. 

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International Ambassadors

The EDI Conference in Vienna/ Die EDI Conference in Wien

Monday, July 19th, 2010 by Astrid Bosten

From the 14th to 16th July the third Equality, Diversity, Inclusion (EDI) Conference took place in Vienna. This year’s theme was „Leadership for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Work”. The conference addresses academics, policy makers and practitioners and offers an international platform for explorations and discussions of leadership for equality, diversity and inclusion at work.

Several academic and doctoral sessions as well as sessions and workshops were held during these three days. For example, Stella Nkomo, Professor for Human Resource Management at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, held one of the keynote speeches, which highlighted the importance of leadership for equality, Diversity and Inclusion in South Africa. On the same day, Lize Booysen, Professor for Organizational Behavior and Leadership at the Antioch University, USA, held another keynote about diversity perspectives in leadership. Overall, the conference offered 17 streams and several workshops. Some of the topics discussed were: Sexual Orientation, Diversity and Equality in Organizations; Promoting diversity and ensuring equality at work: the role of the state, Relational Managing and Leading: The Role of Gender and Women, Work and Globalization in Developing and Transitional Societies. The next EDI Conference will take place on the February 7th and 8th in Auckland, New Zealand. [DE]

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Diversity & Inclusion

Early Birds and Night Owls / Frühe Vögel und Nachteulen

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 by Astrid Bosten

Which chronotype are you? Are you a morning- or an evening-person? Chronotypes are our natural preference for a certain time of the day. They are mostly determined by our genes. Both types have their strengths and for a balance, we need to coordinate them. However, morning people are often perceived as more active and successful than evening people who tend to be seen as lazy and loafing. This is, of course, a prejudice, because both sides have their qualities. Evening people are said to be more creative, intelligent and humorous, while morning people tend to be more optimistic, proactive and conscientious. Nevertheless, new research concludes that morning people are more likely to succeed in their careers. Entrepreneur Christopher Coleridge agrees that morning is the best time to make decisions. On the other hand: creativity is the basically need of advertising agencies and the best ideas often were born late at night. The preference for mornings or evenings also depends on the phase of life and age. Young people prefer to work in the evening. People with families want to leave their office on time. People over 50 are more morning-types. But thanks to diversity – all early-bird-singers and late-at-night-creatives are welcome at Henkel to get the best out of it. [DE]

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Diversity & Inclusion, Women in Business

The Super-Mom Trap / Die Super-Mom Falle

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 by Astrid Bosten

A new study, published in the March 2010 issue of Personality Research, highlights a seeming contradiction about the way mothers view father involvement in infant care.

The study might give an answer to the question if modern women really want to hand over her responsibilities for childcare to their husband. The finding of the study is, that mothers who rate their partner as a competent and caring father, tend to rate their own competence lower than mothers whose partners were less competent in infant care.

What means: If mom’s going to work and leave the children at home with a really competent care giving father, then she feels bad and less competent in her job. But if mom’s going to work and leave the children at home with a less care giving father, then – guess what – she also feels bad!

So, all in all is the solution: Stay at home, moms?

The authors of the study, Takayuki Sasaki und Nancy L. Hazen, describe this fact as the super mom trap and ask the provocative question „ Do involved dads erode moms’ self-competence?“. They think that mothers need to become more comfortable with the idea of sharing the responsibility for childcare in the end to get more self-confidence.

What do you think? Do mothers need to learn to give up the child caring territory? [DE]

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Best Practices

The potential of exit-interviews / Das Potenzial von Exit-Interviews

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 by Astrid Bosten

Exit-Interviews – In Germany a rather new tool. They are conducted with employees who resigned from their job. Althoug it’s a pretty new tool, about two third of German companies already use exit-interviews. They are a good source of information about the every day work life in enterprises. Furthermore, the company signalizes its employees: we are listening to you! The evaluated interviews can help to improve working conditions and retain employees.

However, a Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper article describes some simple rules for a successful exit-interview. Both parties should remain objective. To secure objectivity, exit-interviews are generally conducted by third parties, for example human resources staff and not by the (former) line-manager.

To guarantee the comparability of exit-interviews, they should be standardized for example by questionnaires.

An exit-interview should take place close to the employees last day. In this way he or she doesn’t have to worry about making negative statements that might affect their reference. Keeping these few rules in mind, an exit-interview can be a good finalization of a professional relationship.

For Henkel exit-interviews are also a good way to identify areas of weakness and improvement. They are part of an open feedback and an inclusion culture within Henkel. [DE]

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Best Practices

Diversity in Apprenticeship offers / Vielfalt in der Ausbildung

Friday, June 18th, 2010 by Astrid Bosten

One of the major aspects in doing a diversity management is to reflect our markets in our workforce. That means not to have the appropriate number of men and women, the right cultural mix, but also to have a profile of society in terms of education.

Therefore Henkel has a project in Place “Hauptschüler welcome” that invites pupils who attend a lower secondary school, to participate in workshops which help them to identify their educational goals.

There are other companies in Düsseldorf who offer similar programs. The newspaper Rheinische Post just published three good examples. Beside Henkel the retail chain Real, a Metro Group division, offered selected apprentices to attend the annual shareholders’ meeting.

But not only big multinational companies offer activities for their apprentices. A small café in Düsseldorf-Kaisersweth organized an exchange with France.

The different examples show: seeing the big picture keeps the apprenticeship exciting and opens new horizons for the kids. [DE]

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Diversity & Inclusion

Wertschätzung zahlt sich aus / The RoNI factor of diversity & inclusion

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 by Astrid Bosten

Or: not being inclusive can become really expensive! These days Diversity Management in German companies might be described as a “nice-to-have”. But this attitude will change rapidly when taking into account what terrible financial outcomes an affirmative action lawsuit can have.

Today’s media example is Novartis: thirteen former female employees sued Novartis because they felt elided in terms of promotions, unequal payment and discrimination during pregnancy. The result: Novartis has to pay indemnities of 3,37 Mio Dollar.

The moral of the story: There is a RoNI factor for companies of not investing in a diversity management that can save money! [DE]

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