Nestlé has been recognized by “Bloomberg” in its 2021 Gender Equality Index for the commitment to enhance gender balance in the workforce and advance women's equality in the workplace. In Nestlé Baltics women today make up for 88% of the management level employees. Worldwide, gender equality diversity and inclusion are the core values the company stands for and continuously implements.
The yearly Bloomberg Gender Equality Index measures gender equality across five pillars: female leadership and talent pipeline, equal pay and gender pay parity, inclusive culture, sexual harassment policies, and pro-women brand. Nestlé was included in this year's index for scoring at or above a global threshold established by Bloomberg. Specifically, the index recognized Nestlé’s significant progress in fostering an inclusive culture at the company and advancing gender pay and equal pay parity, and pro-woman brand.
Nestlé on global and regional levels has numerous programs that are targeted to create diversity and inclusion to everyone. This is achieved and integrated in all the Human Resources practices, starting with hiring, employment benefit programs, organizational culture, leveraging people analytics to narrow the gender pay gap continuing with mentorship, sponsorship as well as the overall strategy, which emphasizes diversity and inclusion as two of the main company values.
Nestlé has made distinctive progress in recent years increasing the number of women in managerial positions worldwide. In 2019 the company laid out an action plan (Gender Balance Acceleration Plan) to increase the number of women in senior executive positions globally. Today, 43% of these roles are held by women. Now Nestlé is concentrated on increasing the proportion of women in the group’s top 200 senior executive positions from around 20% currently to 30% by 2022.
The Gender Balance Acceleration Plan also focuses on bold leadership, empowering culture and enabling practices, which means that every single goal must be measurable and actively sought by all the levels of the organization. In 2019, Nestlé also published a new gender-neutral Global Parental Support Policy, which states that parental roles are not solely defined by gender. In 2020 Nestlé signed the International Labour Organization (ILO) Global Business and Disability Network Charter to ensure the inclusion of people with disabilities in our workplace. Recently the company joined the World Economic Forum 'Partnering for Racial Justice in Business' initiative as a founding member to lend Nestlé's voice and drive changes that root institutional racism in business and society. The company has been practicing this for some time – it continuously trains employees to get rid of unconscious bias and has embedded gender balance in all its Human Resources practices.
“Nestlé” has always strived to change the face of its workforce by enabling women with talent management practices, enhancing mentoring and sponsorship programs. Such a continuous effort bears fruit in the growing number of women in leadership, management, and professional positions across the globe.
Nestlé Baltics also participates in the global Nestlé initiatives, for example it took part in the unconscious bias training.
“Diversity and gender equality are universal values that make companies stronger, give them a competitive advantage, unite employees and humans overall on a higher level”, - says Ade Merilai, Country Manager for the Baltic States.
She herself joined Nestlé Baltics as Sales Manager Estonia in 2013 and recently was announced as the Country Manager for the Baltic States.
The data provided by Mercer Consulting shows, that the three Baltic state countries are making significant progress towards gender parity as well as in closing the pay gap. For example, women make up for 41 % of professionals in Lithuania, 46 % of professionals in Latvia, and 52 % of professionals in Estonia. At the management level, there are 41 % women in Lithuania, 39 % women in Latvia, and 38 % women in Estonia. Among the three Baltic states, the percentage of women in the executive level is highest in Estonia (36 %) and lowest in Lithuania (21%) with Latvia staying in the middle (32 %).
According to Mercer Consulting, executive-level women in Estonia still earn 0,5% less than men. In Latvia, the gap is a bit wider, with men in executive positions being paid 8% more than women of the same caliber. However, in Lithuania executive-level women already earn 10% more than men. Nestlé is monitoring gender pay and equal pay across the whole group and beyond local legislation to make sure all gaps are identified and addressed.