Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI)

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion represents our comprehensive approach to creating a diverse, fair, and inclusive working environment.

By diversity, we understand both the similarities and differences that exist within the OeKB Group and in our collaboration with customers and other stakeholders. We foster an open and respectful culture of dealing with diversity and view it as a valuable potential. We promote a balanced composition of our management and supervisory boards. As part of our women’s development program, we support the participation of women as project leaders. A company-wide women’s network provides space for personal exchange and professional development, strengthens collaboration, encourages mutual support, and increases the visibility of women within the organization.

Equity for us means ensuring equal opportunities for all employees. It is important that everyone is treated fairly. Regardless of their individual background, all employees should have the same chances for success and professional growth.

It goes without saying that our personnel decisions are based solely on social and professional qualifications and competencies. Our salary policy strictly ensures equal treatment of all genders. Equal pay for equal work is a matter of course for us.

We also promote transparency by publishing entry-level salaries and salary bands on our intranet as well as in job postings. We also disclose data on new hires and turnover, broken down by gender, in our sustainability report.

We are actively involved in initiatives such as the UN Global Compact’s Target Gender Equality program to continuously improve in this area. The OeKB and the OeEB are also signatories of the Women’s Empowerment Principles — a joint initiative of UN Women and the Global Compact that promotes concrete principles to strengthen women and non-binary individuals within companies.

Inclusion aims to ensure that all people in a society can live together equally and with mutual respect. Regardless of age, skin color, disability, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or origin, everyone should be fully and equally included. We strive to remove barriers that disadvantage certain groups and to create a work environment that actively promotes participation and collaboration. As part of these efforts, we regularly conduct job shadowing programs in cooperation with myAbility, giving participants insights into different work areas and helping to reduce uncertainties and barriers. In addition, our ESG strategy includes a concrete goal to promote people with disabilities.

We cultivate a corporate culture in which everyone has the right to be who they are and to be equally respected. Respect represents our firm stance against discrimination. All employees should have equal opportunities to make their individual contributions toward our corporate goals and to realize their full potential.

Within our teams and in our collaboration with stakeholders, we are committed to acceptance and tolerance. In doing so, we are guided by our core values: responsibility, passion, empathy, curiosity, and trust. 
 

Work–Life Balance

Participation in initiatives such as the “berufundfamilie” audit, as well as targeted measures to improve the compatibility of work and family life, form an essential part of our activities to promote women’s advancement.

We enable flexibility through tolerance, flexible working hours without fixed core time, educational leave, sabbaticals, and part-time arrangements for mothers and fathers. We also offer onboarding programs for employees returning from longer absences. For young parents, we provide financial support for childcare and holiday care for school-aged children.

Acknowledged promotion of women

For our impactful measures for the sustainable advancement of women within the OeKB Group, we have been awarded the quality seal equalitA by the Ministry for Economy, Energy and Tourism.