Enabling sustainable and inclusive workplaces of the future

Posted: July 1, 2021

Members of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) team discuss what AVEVA is doing to formalize and accelerate our own DEI program, the importance of allyship in unlocking the power of diversity, and share their views on why they are so excited about our collective role in helping to shape sustainable and inclusive workplaces of the future.

What are some of the highlights of AVEVA’s formal DEI Program?

(Lena Milosevic MBE, AVEVA Director of Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing)

Whilst we are just beginning our journey, we are making solid progress formalizing and accelerating our DEI program. We began by enhancing our policies and governance, introduced company-wide training programs and have established global DEI employee networks to ensure we continue to capture the voice of our people. We have also recently developed formal DEI targets and are focusing our efforts to include particular considerations for gender, ethnicity and culture, religion and belief, disability and sexual orientation.

In March 2021, we shared our first Global Diversity and Inclusion policy, with all employees required to undertake training to support their understanding of bias and discrimination and what they can do to help create a more inclusive culture. We continue to make progress on pay equity, and during FY20 reduced our global gender pay gap by more than 4%, to 20.4% overall. This was achieved by taking several steps including job levelling that provides transparency in career ladders and helps management make equitable hiring and promotion decisions. We recognize that we still have more to do in this area and progress is not always linear but are committed to staying focused on advancing equity across the organization.

Recognizing and leveraging the differences in us not only helps fuel innovation, it also helps our people and those we interact with have a clear sense of belonging and purpose, ensuring they feel comfortable and supported to bring their whole selves to work. Besides which, evidence is unequivocal: valuing difference supports profitability and performance. We are committed to ensuring that all policies, strategies, processes and behaviors reflect this and help promote diversity and inclusion while contributing to our vision of a holistic inclusive company culture. Looking ahead to our immediate 12-month plans, we are focusing on supporting our leaders through dedicated DEI coaching and co-mentoring programmes. We have also made recent investments in understanding our ethnicity pay gap so that we can expand our efforts in this area, as well as looking at disability considerations to ensure we can be an accessible and inclusive company for colleagues with a range of abilities.

How important is allyship and the voice of employees in helping unlock the power of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion?

 Kim Weaver,
AVEVA Global Diversity Equity & Inclusion Lead

Allyship is defined as ‘the state or condition of being an ally: supportive association with another person or group’. In helping ensure all our employees feel supported, regardless of gender, ethnicity, orientation, background and beliefs, at AVEVA we are increasingly encouraging and educating our people on the value of allyship. During our first month-long schedule of employee activities in recognition of Pride month during June, we held a number of employee engagement sessions. We also engaged award-winning marketing professional, DEI media advocate and author of the New York Times bestseller, “The Black Friend” - Fredrick Joseph who ran a dedicated employee session on the dynamics of power and privilege, how they play out in society and at work, and what we can do to be a better ally and activist.

Our employee networks are instrumental to this allyship and play a vital role in raising awareness, facilitating dialogue, providing feedback and fostering connections so that all employees of AVEVA have a clear sense of belonging and purpose. These networks continue to grow in number and momentum with AVEVA currently having active employee networks for Wellbeing, BLACK Voices, Pride, Salute (recognizing former service personnel) and Women. The candid conversations around DEI that our employee networks are helping us initiate, are essential to our continued progress on creating a workplace that is truly equitable.

Hear from members of AVEVA’s various DEI global networks on what excites them most about AVEVA’s role in helping to shape inclusive workplaces of the future:

• Learn more about AVEVA’s DEI approach here.