8/2020
It goes without saying that we, both as individuals and as representatives of DNV, condemn racism and unequal treatment wherever we see it. Within our DNV community, we work in solidarity with all of our colleagues. Some of us spend as much time with our DNV colleagues as we do with our families. And in difficult times, each of us must take special responsibility for actively reaching across whatever barriers may separate us from our colleagues and customers. We must make the time to talk with each other, and to listen.
What does diversity mean at DNV? Why does it matter?
DNV’s commitment to diversity and inclusion is both an ethical choice and a business decision. And truly, DNV is already a very diverse company, with employees from 116 nationalities working in 100 countries. We see diversity and inclusion within our workforce as a way of delivering excellence, and we recruit the best people regardless of their background. We seek diversity and inclusion at all levels of our company in terms of age, gender, nationality, experience and mindset. Diversity and inclusion is a source of strength for DNV. It provides the widest access to global talent and is the best basis for delivering excellence to our customers. Managed well, diverse and inclusive teams can also identify and capture more opportunities and manage more risks than homogenous teams. For DNV, not being committed to diversity and inclusion would be both ethically wrong and a grievous business error.
We come from countries in Africa, the Middle East, North and South America, Europe, Asia and the Pacific. Throughout their careers, many DNV employees spend time living and working outside the country in which they were born. Learning from our colleagues that come from different cultures and nationalities is essential to our ability to conduct our business.
We commit to treating all employees fairly and with respect. We do not tolerate any form of discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, gender, age, nationality, ethnic background, skin colour, political opinion, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, marital status, physical constitution or other personal characteristics. Our Code of Conduct expressly forbids it and has done so for many years. But beyond our Code of Conduct is a duty that each DNV employee has to live our Values – in particular, the Value that we care for each other.
What does DNV’s workforce look like today?
DNV does not track the ethnicity of employees, but we do track nationality, gender, and education. Our latest report on the diversity of DNV’s workforce comes from the end of 2019. Here’s what we know from that time.
- DNV employs permanent and time-limited employees of 116 different nationalities.
- The percentage of female permanent employees across DNV is 32.9% as of year-end 2019. This is an increase from 29.7% in 2013. For recent hires (0-5 years with DNV), the percentage of female permanent employees is substantially higher, at 40.2%.
- The percentage of female managers is 27.1%. This is an increase from 20.7% in 2013.
- 87% of our employees have completed higher education – a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D
What is DNV doing to support diversity today, and what are its ambitions for the future?
We have had diversity and inclusion as part of our strategy for years, and we can show progress in statistics from recent years when it comes to the demographics of our workforce and our leadership.
At present, to support our diversity and inclusion efforts, we run mentoring programmes, including the reverse mentoring of senior leaders by ‘next generation’ colleagues. We also hold multiple annual events that include up-and-coming talent, although this has recently been hampered by the COVID-19 crisis.
Looking to the future, we are now entering a new strategy period for DNV. As part of that, we have been working on defining what diversity and inclusion should mean for DNV in the coming years, and what our ambitions and targets should be for the long run - not only prepared as a response to the challenges of the present day. Our core ambition is to consider diversity and inclusion as part of everything we do, every day. We need the best people to remain a leader in our targeted markets.
It all starts with the recruitment process. We are exploring how to reach and attract a diverse range of candidates, looking at our approach from how we write the job advertisements to the final recruitment of the best candidate.
Equally important is inclusion, as it is so crucial to retaining our existing diversity and inclusion. Our average employee has been with us for more than a decade, and we need to do all we can to cater for training and career development opportunities.
We are always striving to improve, so we will explore initiatives such as unconscious bias training, measuring diversity and inclusion as seen by our employees through regular surveys, diversity and inclusion analysis, and other means of integrating diversity and inclusion in our HR processes. In addition, we are considering creating employee resource groups, and the addition of a standard on diversity management to our own ISO certification for DNV.
DNV is a very diverse and inclusive company today, and we know that diversity and inclusion is one of the important keys to our success, today and tomorrow. In the future, we will dare to be even more ambitious and focused in our pursuit of increased diversity and inclusion.