By Birgit Gross, Head of HR Operations – MEA at Hitachi Energy
I have maintained a firm belief in Hitachi Energy’s values since the day I joined the company, with diversity, equity and inclusion being the core of our business strategy. This week, we are celebrating Diversity 360 week where we work together to create the ideal employee experience for innovation, collaboration and employee commitment.
Hitachi Energy has never seen diversity as simply a commitment to pay extra attention to under-represented individuals in the workforce. Instead, the company’s Diversity 360 framework has shifted our conversations towards taking a more holistic perspective on diversity. This change was also nurtured by the sudden and unforeseen adaptation to new ways of working during the pandemic.
We are proud to say that in Hitachi Energy, we found a competitive advantage in creating a workplace that embraces diversity in backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. While we seized the chance over the past two years to establish a more flexible work environment where employees can work towards a common goal and are more robust supported in managing their own lives.
With our new hybrid working model, we have proactively defined a culture of work that is more purposeful, empowering, and valuable for all stakeholders while remaining an employer of choice for the future. Our aim is to provide a more inclusive workplace by addressing our employees’ various needs in their employment life cycle and giving everyone access to equal opportunities. We are keen to ensure that diversity and inclusion are considered in all aspects of our development, hiring and promotion, Human Resources policies, and workplace protocols.
Our organization has a great diversity of roles across our organization, and we continue to explore how we can offer new choices for everyone. We want to inspire people to work with a purpose and think on a global scale. We recognize that true innovation comes through collaboration with talented people from different backgrounds to bring fresh ideas and challenge the status quo. This is why we foster a culture of lifelong learning – constantly striving to create opportunities and challenges for all our talents. Among the many examples of this are our ambitious gender diversity targets and commitment to increasing our overall female representation significantly across all experience levels.
Our Diversity 360 strategy is embedded in our leadership model. We leaders are aware of their need to empower the employees working under them to reach their full potential with a suitable work environment and attention given at an individual level. We expect our leaders to connect our people to four fundamental pillars – connecting people to our purpose, people, potential, and performance.
We feel the urgency for a clean energy transition and champion innovation and collaboration to achieve it. There are many pathways toward a carbon-neutral future and to tackle this global challenge, we nurture diverse global teams bringing authentic passion and enduring ownership.
At Hitachi Energy, we live by this powerful equation. Together with customers and partners, we are advancing a sustainable energy future for all. We will only recognize this future when everyone has a seat at the table in an inclusive, collaborative culture. That’s why we created Diversity 360.
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