ABB is building a bright future by strengthening diversity and inclusion and encouraging new talent to join the organisation. In addition to focusing on enabling a low-carbon society and preserving resources, ABB’s Sustainability Strategy incorporates driving social progress, equality and diversity to create safe, fair and inclusive working environments and support community building.
ABB has, for example, become the official global partner of the FIA Girls on Track, with its grassroots ABB Formula E Project programme aiming to inspire the next generation of women.
Encouraging women in STEM and in traditionally male-dominated environments is another key focus area within the sustainability strategy. Joining the existing agreement with the Society for Women Engineers (SWE), the world’s largest advocate and catalyst for change for women in engineering and technology, is further evidence of the diversity and inclusion commitment from ABB.
Furthermore, ABB’s Global Diversity & Inclusion Strategy 2030 plans to double the proportion of female managers worldwide over the next decade. With this initiative, ABB aims at achieving a 25% share of women in senior management positions, up from the current 12,5%.
Testament to its commitment to bring female talent into the organisation, nearly half of engineers hired by ABB’s Electrification business in South Africa from 2017 to date have been women. As Jacky Mbanga, human resources business partner for ABB Electrification in South Africa, says: “We are constantly trying to encourage more women into the programme to make sure that we have a truly diverse and reflective workforce.”
Jacky’s role is to develop the company’s talent pool so that it is in line with and responsive to the changing needs of the business. A major achievement has been significant growth in the number of women engineers in permanent positions at ABB Electrification South Africa over the last two and a half years. Since 2017, nearly half of all hired engineers are female, with 11 out of 24 graduate engineers being women.
This is in keeping with ABB’s broader diversity and inclusion policy, which states that it does not discriminate on any grounds: gender, ethnic, sexual orientation, cultural, social, religious or other.
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