DIVERSITY, EQUITY 

AND INCLUSION

Our initiatives 

To reach our ambition, we are further accelerating our programs and measures along the whole employee lifecycle – from recruitment to development and retention. This includes gender inclusive recruitment and talent attraction, a thoroughly monitored promotion and succession plan, intensive internal upskilling on diversity, unconscious bias trainings and inclusion programs, as well as expanding new working formats.

• We believe having a career and a family should be possible for everyone. We support our employees by offering flexible working models. These models include mobile working, part-time and flexible working hours. Another way we help families balance work and family life is by offering childcare and social services. At the Düsseldorf site, there are 240 childcare places in three company daycare center. Also in other countries, we offer or facilitate childcare and other services to support our employees.
  
  
• We offer a gender-neutral parental leave standard for all our employees worldwide and offer parents up to eight weeks of fully paid parental leave, based on the caregiver role, rather than their gender or biological parent status. This demonstrates a firm commitment to equity, promoting equal parenting and childcare for all parents, including adoptive, foster, surrogacy, and LGBTQ+ parents.
  
  
• We outline a new concept of Smart Work. We acknowledge our employee’s need for flexibility and a more symbiotic work-life balance. By combing mobile and office work and by offering high flexibility for individual needs, we lay the foundation for the productive work environment of the future – for men and women alike. While some roles will always require working on-site, and others don’t require a physical presence in the office, many positions at Henkel are hybrid. We believe that mobile work should be possible for up to 40% of the work time for hybrid roles. It could also be one week per month. This flexibility contributes to easier integration of work and private life.
  
  
• We encourage women to connect. We have several career networks in our business units and regions around the world. Some examples are the internal RISE network for gender balanced leadership or the program Women in Science & Engineering, sponsored by our Adhesives Business, with the aim to recruit, promote and to connect women within Adhesives worldwide.

Our initiatives 

• We encourages international transfers in our “Triple Two Philosophy.” Triple Two means that in the course of their career, managers are offered the opportunity to gain experience in at least two functions, countries and business units. In a global organization, it is important that we have employees who are business and culture savvy, adapting quickly to new environments, that are open minded, culturally sensitive, and great communicators. Our program is structured around two countries, two business units, and two areas of responsibility.
  
  
• We fight bias related to cultures or ethnicities. We offer intercultural training, workshops and trainings on ethnicity bias, to build our skills of collaborating internationally across nationalities and ethnicities.
  
  
• In North America, we have expanded our Scholarship and Internship Programs for Black, Hispanic and Indigenous Students. For the past 40 years, Henkel North America has been proud to provide students who have excelled in their studies and proven to be leaders in their communities with support to pursue their educational goals. Recognizing the need for systemic change to address barriers that make it difficult for low-income students of color to pursue higher education, Henkel recently expanded its Scholarship and Internship program for Black, Hispanic and Indigenous students in North America, an over $1 million initiative to support dozens of students with financial support and internship opportunities. In partnership with UNCF (United Negro College Fund), the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, Pathways to Education Canada and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, this initiative is designed so that students from underrepresented communities have an equal chance to succeed.

Our initiatives 

• We drive LGBTQ+ Inclusion in Partnership with Out Leadership. Resources and dedicated career programs are available for our LGBTQ+ employees and their allies.
  
  
• We encourage our employees to unite and exchange. There are several Henkel LGBTQ+ employee resource groups available that organize a range of events and activities and partner with the Henkel diversity network on strategic initiatives for LGBTQ+ inclusion.
  
  
• We speak up. In 2025, Henkel participated in 17 Pride Parades worldwide with more than 1500 employees attending. Additionally, we joined several local activities and event.
  
  
• We are supporters of the UN Standards of Conduct for Business tackling discrimination against lesbian, gay, bi, trans and intersex people. 

Our initiatives 

• We raise awareness on the topic of disabilities among all employees. In 2021, we marked the International Day of Persons with Disabilities by launching a specially developed toolkit that provided important information and practical recommendations on disability inclusion.
  
  
• We have regional disability inclusion programs. Through targeted programs, we strive to offer everybody the same opportunities while always focusing on a person's individual strengths rather than their limitations. One representative example of this approach is an integration program at our Global Business Solutions Center in Manila, Philippines, which takes a holistic approach to integrating people with disabilities into the world of work.
  
  
• We connect for change. We partner with the NGO Disability:In to further accelerate our journey of disability inclusion globally as well locally in the different regions.

Our initiatives 

• We encourage life-long learning. We conduct appropriate training measures across all generations. Specifically, we use mentoring and employee networks in different business units and countries to promote knowledge transfer and an exchange of perspectives between experienced and less experienced employees.
  
  
• We offer a wide range of programs for maintaining physical and mental health. Our social services also help to provide support to employees of all generations facing challenges at different stages of their lives such as when they take on responsibility for relatives in need of care.