People are precious to us

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) is essential to our identity and culture. We actively encourage different perspectives, put together diverse teams, provide equal opportunity, and insist on real cultural change toward a truly inclusive work environment.

Table of Contents

Targets and Key Figures

We believe that diversity makes us better—better at understanding our markets and customers, at generating business opportunities, and at being innovative. Consequently, we have made DE&I a top strategic issue.

Diversity is part of our six core values at Heraeus Precious Metals. All dimensions of Diversity are important to us. But we are focusing in particular on promoting gender and international balance. Therefore, we have set ourselves ambitious targets to be reached by 2025:

  • Gender Diversity: We fill at least 40% of all global management positions with women.
  • Cultural Diversity: We increase the international Diversity in our global management team to at least 50%.
  • We develop and train our leaders as they play an important role in creating an inclusive culture.
  • We promote equal opportunities to ensure fair access and opportunities for all employees at Heraeus Precious Metals.

Where We Stand

At year-end 2023, women accounted for 39% and non-Germans for 44% of our Global Management Team. Our company’s age structure, including for executives and managers, is well balanced across all age groups. At year-end 2023, our average employee was 42 years old.

While making progress toward quantifiable targets is important, diversity also has a qualitative aspect that cannot be measured by KPIs—atmosphere and culture. We therefore address the topic from different angles.

Share of Woman within the Global Management Team

share of woman

Employees by Gender

by gender

Share of non-German employees within Global Management Team

non german employees

Age Distribution of Employees at Heraeus Precious Metals

age distribution

Hiring for diversity

Diverse recruitment and promotion form the basis of our successful workforce. We use gender-neutral language in job advertisements, are working to enhance our brand as a diverse employer, and place less emphasis on the ability to speak the local language fluently. We require search firms to provide us with at least 50% female candidates. Our trainee and talent programs include at least 50% women and 50% non-Germans. Ultimately, we hire or promote the best candidate for a particular position.

Reducing biases

We provide training to minimize unconscious bias and foster inclusive leadership. In 2022, we conducted training sessions with our Global Management Team. We extended these training sessions to part of our workforce as well as to our Global Talent Program in 2023. Furthermore, we made inclusive leadership and psychological safety key topics at our 2023 Annual Management Meeting to further foster a diverse and successful organization.

Balancing family and career

Enabling job sharing and parental leave is essential for improving gender diversity. We support parental leave options for all genders at the majority of our sites. In addition, we also enable part-time leadership and job-sharing.

Gender pay gap analysis

We are strongly committed to the principles of equality and transparency in our compensation policy. Our ambition is to significantly undercut the gender pay gap limit required by the EU for 2027. To meet these requirements, we are already conducting gender pay gap analyses at a global level and regularly review and adapt individual cases during our yearly merit increase process.

For 2023 our gender pay gap analysis globally revealed no significant gender-specific pay differences. In Germany, our largest location, the unadjusted gender pay gap of less than 5% lay well below the German average of 18%.

Deniz Serifsoy, Executive Vice President HR & Communications at Heraeus Precious Metals

“Diversity is a cornerstone of our culture. Therefore we have set ourselves ambitious targets. We are very well on track to reach our goals of 40% women and 50% international employees in our Global Management Team by 2025.”

Deniz Serifsoy
Executive Vice President HR & Communications at Heraeus Precious Metals

What Our Employees Worldwide Think about Diversity

"What does Diversity mean to you?"

We have asked our employees worldwide and here is what they said.

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News and Stories about Diversity

Creating an environment of equality, respect and inclusion

Creating an environment of equality, respect and inclusion

For International Women’s Day 2023, five female employees at Heraeus Precious Metals in China shared their opinion on diversity.

Watch the video now!
Kayla Ge, Production Engineer at Heraeus Precious Metals Technology in Nanjing/China

“I am very lucky to be in such an inclusive and open team”

Kayla Ge, Production Engineer at Heraeus Precious Metals Technology in Nanjing/China

Read the full story!
Blackbull International interviews Deniz Serifsoy, Executive Vice President HR & Communications at Heraeus Precious Metals

How Diversity and Inclusive Leadership Drive Organizational Success

Blackbull International interviews Deniz Serifsoy, Executive Vice President HR & Communications at Heraeus Precious Metals

Read here the complete interview!

Career

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