Inclusion & Diversity
Our vision is to create the technology to connect the world. This vision supports inclusion by working to create a more connected and better world for everyone, not just for some. This aspiration is carried through our strategy, right down to the contribution of every person at Nokia. We do not allow for any type of discrimination or discriminating biases, which is reflected in our employment practices and our guiding corporate values.
Our inclusiveness is what makes us win. We act inclusively and respect the uniqueness of people. Nokia culture welcomes people as their true selves.
Gender Diversity
We believe that a diverse workforce is our platform for greater innovation, superior organizational performance, and delivering excellent service to our customers. Our ambition is to have a workplace where both men and women have equal opportunities to succeed in every function and at every level. As part of a related program we have implemented several initiatives to drive for gender balance.
Gender equality recognition
Bloomberg shows Nokia is breaking the glass ceiling. Bloomberg has given Nokia a strong score in its Gender Equality Index (GEI) for 2020 – the second time in a row that we are included in this index.
We achieved this position through changes in our processes and through education and awareness building, but we also made a significant decision to achieve pay equity by closing the ‘unexplained pay gap’ in 2019. That required a meaningful financial commitment, but it was simply the right thing to do. As a result, we scored a perfect 100% in the ‘equal pay / gender pay parity’ category of the index – well ahead of the average, which was 50.12%.
For details see Barry French’s Blog: Bloomberg shows Nokia is breaking the glass ceiling.
Gender equality networks
We have two strong networks focusing on gender equality related topics: Greenhouse and StrongHer.
While Greenhouse initiated by Nokia is a network of female leaders that spans across many companies, StrongHer is an employee network aiming at a company where women have the same opportunities as men and are well represented in all business domains and functions. To achieve real change in the nomination dynamics, and visible increase in gender statistics, StrongHer defined a common Theme for 2019 - Engaging managers for an inclusive workplace. StrongHer builds and deploys emblematic worldwide programs through its global network of 40+ chapters across five continents. Its focus in 2019 was on the deployment of the StrongHer Charter for Managers to enable Nokia line managers to explicitly walk the talk on gender balance, to publicly commit to take gender inclusive actions, and to become certified champions of the StrongHer values. In 2019, StrongHer organized 105 local events around the globe together with other companies and networks, attended by over 7400 employees.
For more information visit StrongHer
Greenlight for girls
We continued our work with greenlight for girls. In 2019, we enabled 1290 girls to experience a day of science together with international NGO, greenlight for girls. 255 Nokia employees volunteered and supported these events that took place in seven cities around the world.
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“We only see those in movies, that’s so cool,” exclaimed one girl as she leaned in to touch the plasma ball with her fingertips, watching with amazement as the filaments gathered together to meet her fingers. She was just one among the 100 girls that were welcomed to Nokia facilities in Cairo.
In 2019, our collaboration with greenlight for girls (g4g) continued on a multi-year journey now reaching a total of 4964 girls around the world. This year, five global locations were selected to host a Nokia-g4g day: Bangalore in India, Ottawa in Canada, Cairo in Egypt, Nanjing in China and Antwerp in Belgium. Four were brand new country launches. In addition, our team took part in g4g events in Krakow in Poland and in Brussels in Belgium, which is g4g’s largest event of the year involving all of their global partners, reaching even more girls to encourage their STEM studies and share the work of Nokia.
The g4g days are all about showing girls that anything is possible. The girls are invited over to our premises, and the g4g professionals provide them a fun and educational day around STEM topics through interactive workshops. Employee volunteers join the events as STEM professionals, mentoring and inspiring the girls in the world of science.
"Part of the mission of our g4g-Nokia partnership is to introduce STEM concepts and technology that the girls may not have ever seen before but that may be found in their everyday life – and to show and experience Nokia’s innovations. In doing so, we have the opportunity to remind them that the impossible is indeed possible – and they can design their future career in any way they dream with STEM. Just believing that anything is possible is the necessary mindset for invention and innovation to begin!”
–Melissa Rancourt, Founder and Board Chairman of greenlight for girls
Achievements in 2019:
In 2019, 255 of our employees across 7 cities on 5 continents had the opportunity to work with and inspire 1290 young women between the ages of 11 and 15. And the results speak for themselves. As demonstrated with all g4g events, 94% of the girls state that they wish to pursue their STEM studies after attending an event, particularly when it involves getting to know role-model engineers, such as the our employee volunteers
International Women’s Day
We celebrated International Women’s Day at all our locations in line with the IWD 2019 theme #balanceforbetter.
On March 8, 2019: All our initiatives to celebrate the International Women’s Day highlighted the importance of diversity of thought as reason for success in technology. In support of IWD 2019, our CEO Rajeev Suri shared his views on equality, integrity, technology.
Nokia Enterprise President and Chief Strategy Officer Kathrin Buvac blogged on the topic of Reimagining Gender Equality in the Era of Industry 4.0.
#EmbraceDifference.
We signed the Inclusion and Diversity (I&D) pledge of the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT) to show our support for embracing every aspect of diversity and for promoting inclusion in the workplace.
For further details watch Risto Siilasmaa’s video on #EmbraceDifference.
Other Inclusion & Diversity Initiatives
Our leadership is diverse and advocates for global anti-discrimination practices.
Our employees represent around 166 nationalities doing work in over 118 countries. And we are pleased to have ten of these nationalities represented on our highest-level global leadership team.
No limits to opportunity
Three Nokia employees share their stories: On the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 3 ‘Inclusion at Nokia’ puts its focus on people with health impairments. It’s important to remember what the World Health Organization has stated: Almost everyone will be at least temporarily impaired at some point in life. Disabilities range from physical impairments to psychological problems, and most of them are not visible at all. While disability correlates with disadvantage, not all people with special needs feel disadvantaged or are equally disadvantaged. Much depends on the context and environment in which they live, and whether they have equal access to health, education and employment, among others.
Black Economic Empowerment
In South Africa we are committed to good governance practices, transparency, and compliance with all Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) codes of good practice.
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Priority deliverables of the five BBBEE elements:
- We strive to comply with the minimum requirements of these priority elements)
- Ownership – We continue to maintain our effective black equity ownership with 31 percent black women ownership.
- Enterprise development – We continue to contribute to the development of smaller black businesses to help them grow, ensure their sustainability and assist with job creation. We have a committee that continuously review the impact of our interventions/support and the success of those businesses.
- Skills Development – We established a dedicated and sustainable skills transfer program aimed more importantly at developing women with potential for advancing in leadership roles within the company. We have implemented learning programs for blacks including black women and disabled learners. We have also established a bursary program through which we provide bursaries to black students attending at Higher Education Institutions to advance their Education.
- We also strive to implement a targeted procurement strategy geared to increase procurement spend from companies which have made significant progress in the area of BBBEE. Our community investment activities are managed by a dedicated committee to manage the initiatives linked to the socio-economic development ofSouth Africa’s disadvantaged communities.
We also have targets to increase the ratio of blacks in the company and we continuously measure achievement, equally importantly, women in leadership positions. As per our plan, we want to ensure we achieve our targets through our recruitment process and internal promotions. To achieve our target, we have a local Vetting Committee which evaluates and manages the appointment of new employees according to our BEE Management Control plan. We have also put in place targets for a women’s graduate program as a plan to improve our women ratio and ensure a robust women talent pipeline.
LGBT+
LGBT+ equality. We were awarded with “Best Places to Work for LGBT+ Equality” by Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2019 Corporate Equality Index with a score of 100%. The HRC Corporate Equality Index is a US national benchmarking tool on corporate policies and practices pertinent to LGBT+ employees.
EQUAL! is an educational and support group for our employees who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT+) or who have family, friends, or colleagues who are LGBT+.
Workplace Pride. We became a member of Workplace Pride so we can work on further improving LGBT+ inclusion globally at Nokia.
