In our first 18 months as a new company, we have achieved significant milestones, establishing a distinct value proposition for employees with shared values and a highly effective organizational model.
Belonging (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion)
We are committed to bringing progress to life through decisive action on our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) ambitions. With the launch of our DE&I policy, we embedded DE&I into our ways of working and empowered colleagues to take a stand on key issues, reinforcing our position as a Category of One.
Our dedication to creating a safe, fair, and inclusive environment aims to ensure every individual feels valued and empowered. We aim to achieve gender balance across all levels. Currently, 10,242 women work at dsm-firmenich. Within the Board of Directors – which itself comprises 11 members representing eight nationalities – 36% are women. Also, three out of nine Executive Committee members are women. We also actively focus on gender and ethnic diversity, with targets embedded in our Long-Term Incentive plan.
In 2024, we also launched the ‘Rise Together’ program to accelerate women’s growth through a supportive ecosystem involving sponsors, managers, and allies. Our five global Employee Resource Groups (generations, gender, ethnicity, diverse abilities, and LGBTIQ+ communities) foster an inclusive work environment through various global initiatives.
In 2024, we organized eight events globally, engaging over 1,800 colleagues and on 18 October, we celebrated Global Menopause Day with new practices to support women’s health and well-being, including educational resources, training, wellness rooms, desk fans, free sanitary products, and flexible work options.
We also partnered with The Colors, an ecosystem dedicated to multicultural cosmetics and perfumery, to promote an inclusive beauty offering. We believe that diversity fuels innovation, and together, we aim to build a community of experts in multicultural beauty, foster a thriving network of entrepreneurs, and enhance the international influence of diverse beauty brands.
In our Consumer Insights & Sensory teams, we have integrated visually impaired panelists into our Sensory teams in six different affiliates across five different countries for nearly a decade, contributing to our teams in Perfumery & Beauty (P&B), Taste, Texture & Health (TTH) and Science & Research (S&R). The sensory abilities of our 44 visually impaired panelists bring invaluable insights that enrich our consumer research, demonstrating that diversity is a competitive advantage and that inclusivity fuels excellence. We also received a prestigious award for Diversity & Inclusion this year – the Procter & Gamble 2024 Supplier Impact Award.
Together, in our second year of the merger, we further transformed and integrated our company on a path of innovation and growth, which is a testament to our determination and unwavering commitment to progress.
Employee engagement
At dsm-firmenich, we prioritize our people and continuously engage with them through our listening strategy. Our annual Employee Engagement Survey has been the cornerstone of this strategy, providing insights into topics such as work engagement, inclusion, and people’s perceptions of our integration.
In 2024, we conducted two Employee Engagement Surveys, one in January and the other in November, to connect more frequently with our people during the integration process. The main results are presented in the figure above. The results were shared across all layers, from the global level to the team level, and resulted in follow-up actions. For example, at the global level, we increased the frequency of our communication and transparently discussed our company’s challenges in town halls. Feedback on topics like culture, inclusion and learning and development were considered in our new policies and practices.
At the local level, workshops on trust and unity were organized, and more people managers engaged in development conversations following the feedback. The actions were communicated globally and locally, and each people manager was encouraged to engage in a meaningful dialogue with their team. To assess how effective our actions were, we compared the results of our surveys. While our communication efforts, for example, led to a 6% increase in our information score, we saw a slight decline of 1% for inclusion, indicating further actions are needed.
Building on our Employee Engagement Survey, we introduced several new surveys in 2024 to capture people’s feedback in the context of moments that matter to them, for example:
- During recruitment: we listen to new hires and our hiring managers
- During onboarding: we listen to people who have been in their new job for between 30 and 180 days
- On work anniversaries: we ask people to reflect on the year and to look ahead
- When people decide to leave: we inquire about their reasons for leaving
By tapping into key moments that matter to our people, we learn from them and take action to improve our employee experience, work engagement levels, employee retention, and many other factors.
Leadership development
In 2024, we rolled out the first elements of our new leadership development curriculum. Over 630 people managers were nominated for Leading Progress or Leading Progress in Operations. These programs are designed to develop our People Managers to lead based on our values and behaviors: build and sustain high-performing teams; empower others; drive accountability; set the stage for collective success; and cultivate self-awareness and continuous growth in their roles as leaders. Seventy-five Directors and Senior Directors were nominated to participate in Leading Leaders. It has the following objectives:
- Lead with purpose: inspire others through your purpose, lead authentically, and foster an inclusive, unified dsm-firmenich culture
- Deliver with edge: turn strategy into action through effective prioritization, decision-making, and collaboration within Business Units/Business Partners and across the enterprise while leading teams through change
- Build our tomorrow: foster innovation to drive growth, cultivate resilience within yourself and others, and identify the next generation of leaders
Reward and recognize
In 2024, we defined a unified approach to our rewards programs, creating a global framework. The framework anchors fixed and variable pay management in a global job grading system to establish the foundations for internal pay equity and transparency. This forms the basis for consistent and aligned reward processes.
To enable all employees to share in the company’s success, our framework aims to include all employees in our variable pay programs. Non-sales employees will be eligible for our Short-Term Incentive framework, while sales employees will be eligible for a harmonized Sales Incentive Plan (SIP) as of 2025 The SIP is designed to inspire accountability and encourage the achievement of sales objectives. Implementation is subject to local legislation and works council approvals.
To foster a culture of recognition and collaboration, the Kudos Award, a peer-to-peer recognition program, was rolled out mid-2024. The award is designed to inspire employees to strive for excellence and make a positive impact. The Progress Award, meanwhile, is an all-year-round award program that rewards individuals who have made impactful contributions in their respective areas. Finally, the Dreamcatcher Award honors four outstanding individuals or teams who have made significant contributions toward our values, progress, innovation, safety, or quality. Employee benefits are also an important component of our rewards offerings and consider the local landscape. In 2024, we began planning the detailed harmonization of benefits in each country. We will continue with this harmonization process in 2025.
People development
Our new People Progress approach links performance, talent management, and learning and development in one holistic approach. We encourage employees to take ownership of their development and personal growth. At the same time, we foster an environment in which employees feel empowered to deliver sustainable impact as individuals.
At the start of the year, our employees and managers set objectives for winning together. In 2024, more than 91,000 performance objectives were set across all employees. We encourage open dialogue and feedback throughout the year. Near the end of the year, people managers and employees can formally reflect on the year’s wins and challenges.
This is an opportunity to engage in an open dialogue on what objectives were achieved, how they themselves grew throughout the year, how they demonstrated our values, and what might be their next career steps. People managers are also able to reflect on their impact as leaders, in line with our people manager fundamentals. In 2024, 88% of our employees participated in annual reviews via our global process. All other employees (such as for our recent acquisitions) received reviews via local systems.
Key activities included:
- New learning experience solution: we launched our new best-in-class learning experience solution, ‘LearnNow’, a social platform, leveraging AI and comprising 45,000 digital courses and 16,000 business books. It houses over 30 academies for our Business Units, Business Partners, and company leadership. We also reported a learning consumption of more than 160,000 learning hours in 2024
- Mentoring: we launched a mentoring program for all employees, leveraging our more senior employees as mentors. Almost 1,250 mentees and more than 550 mentors participated in this program during 2024. To strengthen our bond as a new company, 93% of mentor matches are pairings from our two legacy companies
- 360-degree feedback: we provide all employees with the opportunity to receive multi-rater (360-degree) feedback via a dedicated platform. The feedback is aligned to our company values and behaviors. For people managers, it is also linked to our people manager fundamentals. More than 1,000 employees and almost 250 managers used the platform in 2024
- Tree planting: we encourage sustainable learning. For every 10 hours of digital learning in which our employees engage, we plant a tree. Prior to 2024, we had planted over 26,000 trees. In 2024 we added more than 6,700 additional trees
