What drives us
Be Part of Diversity
Evonik embodies diversity with a workforce exceeding 33,000 individuals across 100 countries, reflecting a spectrum of ages, educational backgrounds, nationalities, races, disabilities, cultures, beliefs, sexual orientations, and genders. This diversity fortifies us, enhancing our strength and value across Evonik.
Diversity is more than a social and political obligation rooted in genuine conviction. Diversity is one of the essential keys to our economic success. We also see workforce diversity and inclusion as a driver of sustainability. The green transformation begins in the hearts and minds of our employees.
We stand up for each other and respect being different
We create a workplace where everyone feels valued, respected and free to be themselves. This leads to higher motivation, better results, employee attraction, and retention.
Embracing differences unlocks innovation
Diversity means bringing together different ways of thinking. Considering as many perspectives enables us to provide creative and innovative answers to an even more colorful and quickly changing world.
Diversity brings us closer to customers
Operating in every global market, we aim to provide solutions to our customers, leveraging our diverse workforce to comprehend their needs universally and identify emerging trends.
"Diversity exists - by its very nature - whenever people come together. We don't see it as a game of arithmetic, but as a cultural dynamic that should be experienced positively by everyone. To successfully utilize all dimensions of diversity, our goal at Evonik is to promote an open-minded attitude and appreciative behaviors."
"I support the implementation of our diversity strategy through bundling our initiatives under one roof and trying to give diversity relevant topics a stage on our Diversity council."
"In my opinion diversity is essential to business as well as being a social necessity."
"I act as a role model for our diversity culture by using my international experience to identify international talents and help to get them networked in the global organization."
"I saw the strength of cultural diversity during my time in Singapore. Diversity will give Evonik an economic advantage – above average profitability – and better employee attraction and retention."
"Working with different people from different cultures, gender and background creates an open mindset which is essential for driving innovation. I will actively support the internationalization of the innovation organization by strengthening our core RD&I sites in the regions. I will also encourage short-erm transfers between regions to gain new insights and allow our employees a change of perspective."
"Being a woman, mother and wife and still having a career in an international environment never had anything to do with diversity for me. However, in taking on leadership responsibility for more and more people, I realized how much effort it takes to build an inclusive culture."
"In my professional career before and at Evonik, I had the chance to collaborate with colleagues of different professional backgrounds, from various places around the world and in different stages of their career developments. The advantages of such diverse working environments included a boosted team performance, strengthened team spirit and lots of enjoyment of working together."
"Diversity is the multiplicity of opinions and perspectives in the hunt for the best solution. Diversity also thrives on contradiction. Controversial debates are not an unpleasant side effect, but, in my view, precisely the point. In my experience, diversity – when accompanied by tolerance and respect – promotes personal development and thus creativity."
We measure Diversity
We can only manage what we can measure. “Trust facts rather than your gut feeling” is one of our key mottos.
Unmeasurable Diversity Counts
Equally important for us are the different ways of thinking and perspectives that result from factors such as different religions and ways of life. We cannot and do not want to measure these, but we know that they enrich us.
Our INITIATIVES
Femtec
The Femtec network connects companies, universities and female STEM students with a Career-Building program to develop their skillset, professional network and future career. Evonik partners with Femtec to access female STEM talent as early as possible and support them in their careers, leading to increased female representation and a more gender-diverse workforce.
Reverse Monitoring
Reverse Mentoring is a program that organizes inverted types of mentoring relationships in which junior or less experienced employees mentor the senior more experienced employees to help them acquire new learnings and different perspectives.
Pairfect - Job Sharing
PAIRfect brings together people and opportunities by matching Evonik colleagues, interested in a new kind of collaboration. Using the internal platform, employess can look for job-sharing partners, mentors or mentees, experts, lunch partners and even short-time assignments. Through this initiative, employees can actively shape digitization and the paths of "new work" within Evonik.
The Diversity Journey
With the Diversity Journey, we help employees explore and expand on diversity and inclusion in the workplace through six developmental steps and two phases, MOVE and IMPROVE, to continuously improve their environment to achieve leveraged and meaningful diversity in an inclusive workplace.
Employee networks
Networking, meeting colleagues and getting to know like-minded people. Networks offer all this. Evonik has several networks in which colleagues can exchange ideas on a wide range of topics. And at Evonik, these corporate networks play a critical role in promoting diversity and inclusion within the organization. They provide a safe space for employees to share their personal challenges and experiences. They bring employees together, raise awareness of the issues they face and promote a culture of mutual respect and understanding. Evonik has several network groups. And everyone is welcome to join
Grow
groW is a women's network at Evonik—women have been sharing their experiences, knowledge and visions for several years now. Teams at different Evonik locations get involved across borders, offer collegial advice, organize networking days and events, create a platform for common topics, and actively participate in projects and committees to groW together.
Equals
Evonik Queer Alliance for Learning and Support is a community of employees who identify as LGBTQ+ or who are interested in supporting and uplifting their LGBTQ+ colleagues. We are committed to providing opportunities to connect, learn, and advocate for LGBTQ+ inclusion and acceptance within Evonik.
Build
BUILD is dedicated to engaging and supporting all Black employees in Evonik’s expanding global network. Through recruitment, advocacy, and career development, we strive to foster equity and representation for Black employees at all levels of leadership. We believe our united voice will drive sustainable advancement for all Black employees.
Aspire
ASPIRE stands together with our drive to create an inclusive work environment. We wish to create avenues for the important exchange of information and knowledge within the ERG, collaborating with other ERGs and external community groups, as well as Evonik’s leadership.
Early Career Professionals
The Early Career Professionals @ Evonik will be a place for young professionals to come together for guidance, support, build self-esteem/ confidence, and accelerate networking. By having a network of young professionals at Evonik, this ERG will help retain and onboard more young professionals to the company. As an ERG, are paving a path of success for young professionals.
E-Vet
The mission of the Evonik Veterans Employee Resource Team is to embrace our proud community of employee veterans who support and encourage each other through shared experiences, veteran recruitment, career development, veteran inclusion, professional growth, community outreach, and retention. Bringing together our unique background of military service, we seek to harness these strengths to better serve Evonik
