Empowering women

Empowering women is a key part of our approach.

Our goal is to ensure women feel supported, valued and respected. We have been working to balance the gender makeup of our workforce and create a gender-balanced leadership. As a result, the proportion of women in managerial positions is increasing, including in our most senior executive posts.

Our Gender Balance Acceleration Plan aims to increase the proportion of women in our top 200+ senior executive posts. We carefully monitor our succession planning to maintain the right pipeline for our most critical business roles. We also provide career support and guidance through our Senior Leader Development Roadmap (Corporate Mentoring Program, Senior Leaders Development Assessment Center and Senior Executive Program).

We look to the next generation by partnering with nonprofits, funding scholarships designed to harness business skills and hosting competitions and offering mentorships for young female entrepreneurs. These are in addition to our wider youth advocacy, apprenticeship, mentorship and traineeship opportunities.

In the agricultural communities that cultivate and process our raw materials, we are also working to improve the economic, social and cultural outlook for women through a host of different programs. These programs aim to teach the skills required to increase farms’ productivity, build better businesses and improve livelihoods.

Empowering people in our business and value chain

We are proud of the progress we have made to empower women, particularly within our own workforce. We are determined to maintain the pace of change. To help achieve this goal, we also look to other companies, working in partnership to hold up a mirror to ourselves and ensuring that we can collectively progress. However, we know there is more to be done, particularly within our supply chains. Stressing the importance of remaining in education, supporting women’s incomes and running tailored agricultural training programs are all part of our efforts to help women, their families and wider communities. For example, thousands of women in Pakistan have been trained in our dairy supply chain since 2015. We are committed to furthering the prospects of women as key agents of change towards a regenerative food system.

Addressing sensitive issues

We constantly review our policies and guidance documents to ensure they reflect the latest thinking on sensitive issues. Examples include our Policy Against Discrimination, Violence and Harassment at Work, and ongoing training on unconscious bias.

We have also put in place Global Guidance for Providing Support to Employee Victims of Domestic Violence or Abuse.

Creating an inclusive culture for new parents

We support new parents. All primary caregivers in the company have the right to a minimum of 18 weeks of paid leave to care for new children. Secondary caregivers also receive four weeks’ minimum leave.

The Nestlé Global Parental Support Policy (pdf, 3Mb) is gender neutral and applies to biological or adopted children. We encourage colleagues in different countries to go beyond these minimum standards and create a forward-thinking policy that is right for their market.

Being transparent in advancing women's issues

We believe in being open and honest when it comes to reviewing our progress against the goals we create for ourselves. By opening ourselves up for criticism, it ensures we remain accountable.

We are proud that the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index recognized Nestlé for our transparency in gender reporting and advancing women’s equality in the workplace for the fifth consecutive year. We are also delighted to feature in the European Round Table for Industry’s Diversity & Inclusion Toolkit of best practices.