Printing inks and coatings company Siegwerk has joined the Cologne-based alliance Mit Frauen in Fuhrung (With Women in Leadership) and has set itself the goal of doubling the proportion of women at management level by 2025.
"Diversity, equality and inclusion are the drivers of successful and satisfied teams. Colourfully mixed teams bring together the most diverse perspectives, enabling disruptive thinking and breaking out of old patterns," said Dr. Nicolas Wiedmann, Siegwerk CEO. "Expertise knows no gender, background or personal orientation. And as a company in a classically male-dominated industry, I can only say we need more diversity and urgently more women, at all levels."
Wiedmann added: “We are pleased to be part of this unique initiative and to exchange ideas with other companies on gender-oriented management and measures for the systematic advancement of women. For me, diversity is a clear leadership issue and for this reason I have also made it my personal mission to sensitise managers to the relevance of diversity and to consistently raise awareness within the company.”
Siegwerk wants to reposition itself in the medium term in order to further increase its attractiveness as an employer, especially for female specialists and managers, and to make greater use of the potential of diverse teams. To achieve this, Siegwerk is focusing on education within the company to create awareness of everyone's collective responsibility. This includes reviewing current promotion and hiring processes, conducting training on unconscious bias, or defining new personnel-related key figures and reporting them transparently. In this regard, managers in particular are called upon to personally contribute to making the organisation a diverse and inclusive workplace.