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Nestlé recognized in the 2021 Bloomberg Gender Equality Index

Nestlé recognized in the 2021 Bloomberg Gender Equality Index

Nestlé has been commended for its efforts to improve gender balance among employees and promote equality for women in the workplace in the 2021 Bloomberg Gender Equality Index. Currently, 88% of nestlé Baltics' management-level employees are made up of women. Gender equality, diversity and inclusiveness are core values that the company defends and continually implements around the world.

The annual Bloomberg Gender Equality Index measures gender equality in five main directions: female leadership and talent driven, equal pay and gender pay parity, inclusive culture, sexual harassment prevention policies, and the women's support brand. Nestlé is included in this year's index with a rating equal to or above the international threshold set by Bloomberg, i.e. the index recognises Nestlé's remarkable success in building an inclusive culture within the company and in developing gender pay and equal pay parity, as well as a brand of support for women.

At both international and regional level, Nestlé implements many programmes aimed at ensuring diversity and inclusiveness for all. This has been achieved and integrated into all hr management practices, from recruitment, employment benefit programmes, the use of organisational culture and people analysis data to reduce the gender pay gap, to work-promotion, sponsorship, as well as a general strategy that recognises diversity and inclusion as two key values for the company.

In recent years, Nestlé has significantly increased the number of women in management positions worldwide. In 2019, the company developed an action plan (Gender Acceleration Plan) to increase the number of women in senior management positions worldwide. Currently, 43% of these posts are held by women. Nestlé is now focusing on increasing the proportion of women in the group's top 200 senior management positions from the current roughly 20% to 30% by 2022.

The gender imbalance acceleration plan also pays great attention to bold leadership, a culture of empowerment and stimulating practices, which means that every goal must be measurable and actively enforceable at all levels of the organisation. In 2019, Nestlé also published a new, gender-neutral International Parental Support Policy, which states that parental roles are not determined solely by gender. In 2020 Nestlé signed the International Labour Organisation (ILO) International Network for Business and Disability Charter to ensure the inclusion of disabled people in our workplace. Recently, the company joined the World Economic Forum's Partnership for Racial Justice in Business initiative as a founding member to express Nestlé's position and drive changes that prevent institutional racism in business and society. The company has been practicing this for quite some time: it constantly teaches employees to get rid of unconscious bias and has put gender balance into all hr management practices.

Nestlé has always tried to change the face of its workforce, empowering talented women and improving its work and sponsorship programmes. The fruits of such continuous efforts are the increase in the number of women in management, management and specialist positions around the world.

Nestlé Baltics also participates in Nestlé's international initiatives, for example by participating in training on unconscious bias.

"Diversity and gender equality are universal values that strengthen companies, give them a competitive advantage, bring together employees and people at a higher level in general," says Ade Merilai, ceo of Nestlé Baltics.

In 2013, she started working for Nestlé Baltics as a sales manager in Estonia and was recently appointed head of nestlé Baltics.

Data provided by Mercer Consulting show that all three Baltic states are making significant progress in terms of gender parity as well as in addressing the pay gap. For example, 41% of specialists in Lithuania, 46% in Latvia and 52% in Estonia are women. At the administrative level there are 41% of women in Lithuania, 39% in Latvia and 38% in Estonia. Among the three Baltic states, estonia (36%) has the highest share of women at management level, while Lithuania (21%) has the lowest share, and Latvia is in the middle (32%).

According to Mercer Consulting, women in Estonia still receive 0.5% less than men at management level. In Latvia, the gap is slightly larger – men in managerial positions are paid 8% more than women of the same level. In Lithuania, women already earn 10% more than men at management level. Nestlé tracks gender pay and equal pay across the group and beyond the requirements of local law to ensure that any inequality is noticed and eliminated.