Engaging and partnering with employees, customers, suppliers and society to drive progress

Nouryon actively engages and partners with our employees, customers, suppliers, and society to drive progress. We empower our people to successfully deliver on our Company purpose and strategy through our Values: ‘We aim high’, ‘We own it’, and ‘We do it right’. These form the backbone of our performance-driven culture.

Our people

We invest in training and development for our approximately 7,650 employees and are committed to creating a diverse, inclusive, and safe work environment. Our commitment to our employees complements our comprehensive approach to corporate responsibility, and we aim to achieve a respectful and inclusive  work environment that reflects all employees’ unique needs, perspectives, and potential.

Find out more about careers at Nouryon

 

 

Key achievements

In 2021, we established an extensive assessment process to ensure that we have accurate workforce demographic data. This will allow us to track our progress, recognize areas of improvement, identify areas of opportunity at all levels of our organization, and develop action plans. As a result, we are focusing on the following areas:

  • Greater representation of women and racially/ethnically diverse employees in middle management and senior leadership
  • Inclusive hiring and interviewing practices
  • Continuing to build a high-performing culture through inclusive leadership and I&D initiatives

We will also use this data to help review all aspects of our employee life cycle to ensure that our hiring, engagement, rewards, and promotion processes reflect the profile and needs of our diverse workforce. To hold ourselves accountable and assess diversity of all levels of our organization, we measure and track our progress through data collection and analysis.

36% gender and ethnic diversity

represented on our Board of Directors

24% of mid-level managers

and above are female in 2021

Established Global I&D Network and Mentoring Program

Four Business Resource Groups

96% of suppliers

were assessed for CSR risk using the EcoVadis Risk IQ tool4

Inclusion and Diversity

A diverse, respectful, and inclusive work environment is critical to unlocking the full potential of our global workforce, driving collaboration and innovation, and understanding the unique needs of our customers. Our commitment to inclusion and diversity is codified in our Code of Business Conduct & Ethics, which clearly states that we respect and value all employees, irrespective of age, gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation. Our employees receive trainings on our Code, how to maintain a respectful and inclusive workplace, and how to identify and report potential harassment and discrimination. 

Improving and supporting diversity in our workforce is an ongoing process. In 2020 we began analyzing the diversity of our employees, including age, gender, race, and nationality. Learn more about this in our Sustainability report

We will continue to assess the diversity of our workforce and actively monitor our progress and continually challenge ourselves to make improvements.

Measuring our internal culture and engagement

An organizational survey was rolled out in nine languages at the end of 2019. The aim was to measure and manage our organizational health with the same rigor as performance. The survey proved to be a great source of inspiration for continuous improvement for all levels of the organization. Four focus areas emerged from the survey: 1) focus and strategic clarity, 2) using insights for innovation, 3) open and trusting leadership, and 4) recognizing and rewarding employees.

As a result, we identified approximately 150 initiatives to improve our organizational health. The most concrete examples are our global “Pay for Performance” rewards approach (related to recognizing and rewarding employees) and the launch of our new values (related to focus and strategic clarity). Besides these larger initiatives, multiple bottom-up initiatives were put in place within daily operations. We also conducted pulse surveys on two focus areas (recognizing and rewarding employees and open and trusting leadership) to a random sample of 30% of our employees in May and September 2020.

Employees’ performance, development, and leadership

To sustain the performance and growth of both our employees and the company, we introduced our Continuous Performance Management process in 2020. By setting dynamic objectives, holding regular performance dialogues (check-ins), receiving feedback, and achieving objectives throughout the year, we help our employees and leaders stay engaged and deliver higher performance. So far, 95% of our population has participated in the full annual performance management cycle. We also introduced our Pay for Performance approach, in which outstanding results are rewarded.

To further sustain our performance and growth, we encourage our employees to gain new knowledge and skills which will help them perform at their best every day and contribute to our success. Our Learning and Development offerings support both short and longterm capability building and help our employees to live our values.

Leadership development

One of the key elements of our people development strategy is to continuously develop our leaders. In 2020, two new digital programs designed to help our new and experienced leaders to strengthen their leadership skills were successfully launched despite the COVID-19 pandemic. These leadership programs, called LEAP, are delivered fully digitally during an 18-week period. LEAP addresses themes that leaders need in each phase of their professional career. All topics are linked to the Nouryon values, strategy, and OHI focus areas to help our leaders apply their learnings in their daily work.

We also provide a broad range of other learning activities, such as on-the-job experiences, blended programs, online learning, (virtual) classroom training, and mandatory compliance courses. Our global digital learning environment helps employees find relevant trainings more easily and enroll for scheduled offerings and provides 24/7 access to online trainings, enabling at-home learning and offering flexibility for employees.

Case: Partnering on Smarter Futures in Africa

Smarter Futures is a partnership that provides technical support and training for flour millers, government food control staff, and other stakeholders in Africa.

Engaging with our communities

We operate factories around the world and we value our relationships with our local communities. Our approach to community engagement starts with the relations with neighboring stakeholders in our HSE Rules on Emergency Response and Community Awareness. Each site is audited on their performance to inform and involve the communities in which they operate.

While our core focus remains the safe and responsible supply of essential chemistry and maintaining a constructive dialogue with our stakeholders, these initiatives to give back help remind our people and partners of our commitment to society at large.

Cases - Engaging people, partners, and society

Learn more - Nouryon's sustainability pillars

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