How are we progressing in the challenge of ensuring a diverse and inclusive workplace at the Odebrecht Group?

Promoting a diverse and inclusive workplace is one of the Odebrecht Group’s guiding principles. Learn how Braskem, Atvos and Ocyan are conducting actions to transform their business environments into more inclusive workspaces.

The challenge of building diverse and inclusive workplaces has gained traction among leaders and team members at the Odebrecht Group, in all areas and Businesses. At Odebrecht S.A., the topic has been incorporated into the macrostrategies for the next three years, seeking to advance the agenda by fostering an inclusive workplace based on meritocracy and free of discrimination, with respect for human rights and individual differences.

In order for each team member to collaborate on this journey, they must stay alert, seek out information and work more innovatively and proactively.

We spoke with some team members directly involved in managing diversity at Braskem, Atvos and Ocyan.

See below a summary of how these Businesses are leading every day with the challenge of creating, maintaining and encouraging diversity.

1) How is diversity incorporated into the business strategy?

Camilla Ramos Braz, from Ocyan, director of Planning

Camilla Ramos (Ocyan) – At Ocyan, all team members are expected to maintain an inclusive workplace that is free of discrimination and grounded in meritocracy. This is reinforced as a key attitude in the Action Program (PA) of our Business Leader (BL). The next step is to discuss strategies for making progress in issues related to diversity.

Camila Dantas (Braskem) – Promoting diversity and inclusion strengthens the implementation of our strategy and the practice of our culture, since it reinforces our belief in valuing people, promoting a creative workplace, generating results through people and social responsibility. The program encompasses all units in Brazil, but is starting to be rolled out to other countries where we operate, such as the United States and Mexico.

Monica Alcântara (Atvos) – Diversity is a key value at Atvos. We believe in the wealth of different backgrounds and ways of thinking free of pre-conceived notions to foster more creative, inclusive and productive workplace. Since we became a signatory to the UN Global Compact, in 2016, we have reinforced our internal dialogue through workshops to promote reflection on diversity. Diversity has been incorporated into the dialogue with team members, especially leaders and young professionals, with a view to adopting initiatives adapted to our workplace and to the situation in local communities.

2) Which initiatives demonstrate the progress being made in the topic?

Camilla Ramos (Ocyan) – One of the strengths of our workforce is the vast diversity of cultures. Today our team has professionals from 32 countries, which means a broad mix of backgrounds, languages and lifestyles to enrich our daily activities. And, if we take a step back, we can see that the challenges and journey is filled with opportunities. When we talk about gender diversity, for example, we can see that that the oil and gas industry worldwide has historically been dominated by men. At Ocyan, today we have two women heading up the Offshore Production and Drilling Small Firms and 21% of leadership positions are held by women.

Camila Dantas, from Braskem, director of P&O Organizational Development

Camila Dantas (Braskem) – We have actions that are developed transversally, in other words, that address the topic of diversity holistically, as well as actions divided into five fronts: Gender Equality, Race & Ethnicity, LGBTQIA+, Persons with Disabilities and Social & Economic (socially vulnerable populations). These include training programs for leaders and team members, the Braskem Diversity Forum, Braskem Diversity Week, the creation of Working Groups formed by 90 team members, the free dress code, which enables our team members to dress in a way with which they identify, restructuring workplace facilities for women (restrooms, dressing rooms, uniforms, lounges for nursing mothers, etc.). In 2017, we also forged a partnership with Empregue Afro, which led to a 15% increase in the number of black interns. On the LGBTQIA+ front, Braskem became the first major Brazilian company to become signatory to the LGBT Companies and Rights Forum, which represents a commitment to respecting and promoting the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Mônica Alcântara and Guilherme Espíndola, from Atvos, directors of Sustainability and P&O People Development, respectively

Monica (Atvos) – Based on the guidelines of the People and Sustainability Policies of Atvos, The Strategic Indicators monitored by the BL have addressed the topic under “Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities” since 2016 and, more recently, under the topic “Gender Equality,” which was incorporated into the PA book for the 2018/19 crop year.

Guilherme Espíndola (Atvos) – Our focus is to go beyond the workplace, to look beyond the walls of our company. One such example is the project Believe in Diversity, which works to develop and train professionals with disabilities in the local community.  The project was developed at the Conquista do Pontal Unit in São Paulo, and was expanded to the communities surrounding Atvos’ four agroindustrial units, which benefitted 80 people in 2016. The sum of these actions and the effective monitoring of their results at the SP Complex led Atvos to receive the global recognition of Best Companies Award for Employees with Disabilities, in December 2016, during the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

3) How have team members been involved in promoting engagement in the topic of diversity?

Camilla Ramos (Ocyan) – At Ocyan, we continue to think more broadly and are paying close attention to advance this agenda and other related topics. Our next step is to detail strategies with senior leader to support, in the future, structured actions that really make a difference in our workplace.

Camila Dantas (Braskem) – Seeking to democratize the program and explore its potential through collaboration, we created the Diversity & Inclusion Working Groups, which have 90 team members participating in three different working groups: Race & Ethnicity, Gender and LGBTQIA. The criteria for selecting the team members of the groups included: location, field of work, industrial or non-industrial, gender, age, race and position, seeking to ensure diversity and representation. The groups work to support the creation of actions under the diversity and inclusion program and also act as multipliers. We also regularly carry out communication campaigns as well as training programs and events on the topic.

Guilherme (Atvos) – We identified opportunities, such as structured dialogues with leaders, actions to break paradigms in local communities and communication actions to promote engagement. We also launched the Sustainable Challenge for our Atvos Young Professionals (second year of the Young Partner Program), aiming to promote projects to foster change in mindsets and to encourage diversity. In 2016, the topic was fostering the inclusion of Persons with Disabilities and, in 2017, gender equality. The provocations already have led to positive actions to raise awareness, which are being implemented at the small firms.