Diversity and Inclusion

It will take some time to see the full results of our programs, but we have already seen some improvement in our key priority for 2025: increasing the percentage of women at all management levels. The percentage of women in experienced management roles has increased from 16% to 18% and in senior management roles from 12% to 13% compared to 2018. However, the corresponding figure at executive management level remains at 9%. I 103-3 I

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Women in management I 405-1 I SDG 5.5

	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
(1) Job grade 15 to 16. (2) Job grade 17 to 18. (3) Job grade 19 and above.
Women in experienced management(1) (%)	15%	16%	16%	16%	18%
Women in senior management(2) (%)	11%	11%	12%	12%	13%
Women in executive management(3) (%)	8%	9%	9%	9%	9%
Number of women on the Board	3	3	3	3	4

Striving for a diverse workforce

Our ambition is to recruit and retain a diverse workforce, particularly in terms of gender, age and disability.

Increasing the number of women

At the end of 2019, we employed 15,663 women – representing 34% of our global workforce and 23% of exempts.

During the year, 24% of the people we hired at management levels were women, four points above our target of 20%. For 2020, we have increased the target to 30% of women across all exempt jobs.

Of course, we recognize that to recruit more women we need to go beyond our own operations and address the shortage of women studying technical subjects in colleges and universities. In line with this ambition, we expanded our STEM program to include a focus on encouraging girls to choose technical studies at an early stage of their education (see Education and Volunteering).

Attracting and retaining young talent

In 2019, our objective was to recruit more than 50% of new non-manufacturing employees with under five years’ experience. We achieved 47%, slightly down from 56% in 2018, as we hired a greater number of experts.

With a low staff turnover, particularly for our exempt population (4%), we have a very skilled and experienced workforce. If we want to ensure our long-term business success, however, we also need to recruit young talent.

We developed new employer branding in 2019 as part of our initiative to reinforce ST’s external image and better attract younger candidates. We also improved our induction process by standardizing best practices to offer a great onboarding experience to newcomers.

Enhancing hiring and inclusion of disabled people

We increased our employment of disabled people by 1.6% in 2019, reaching 1.8% worldwide.

In France, thanks to longstanding, innovative and dynamic disability inclusion programs, the percentage of disabled workers increased from 1.2% in 2006 to 5.7% in 2019, which is one point above the average in French companies (see Focus).

In Italy, the figure increased from 2.5% in 2018 to 2.7% in 2019 thanks to initiatives such as ‘Isola Formativa’ (see Energy and Climate Change). This is an initiative at our Agrate site (Italy) to employ people with disabilities and train them in professional bicycle maintenance techniques, equipping them with knowledge and skills to help them enter the world of work. Our target is to host five disabled trainees per year for at least five years, rotating people every year.

Moving forward, ST Italy is implementing actions such as increasing awareness among ST employees, redesigning roles to create hiring opportunities and working with suppliers that employ people with disabilities.

ST France disability policy

FOCUS

‘Difference is not a handicap, but the driver of our excellence’

This is the disability slogan of ST France, whose disability inclusion program, formalized in a four-year collective agreement, has already brought numerous benefits in terms of employee engagement and motivation, as well as better use of tax and business possibilities.

Launched in 2006, the program creates value from differences, boosting collective performance and business opportunities. One of the flagship actions is FIAM, a multi-enterprise professional education program created in 2017. FIAM trains disabled people to align their level of education with the needs of the electronics industry.

At the same time, there are many initiatives to increase awareness among managers and employees to eliminate bias and change employee perceptions. For example, the ‘DuoDay’ event held in May 2019 and supported by the French government, enabled 58 ST employees at different sites to showcase their jobs to 46 disabled employees.

Sheila D’Annunzio

Director, Corporate Social Responsibility and Diversity & Inclusion

People must be respected and valued whoever they are. Every employee must be able to give their best contribution by being their authentic self.
We know much remains to be done, but we are expanding our programs to build and develop diverse teams and create a collaborative workplace free of bias and stereotypes. And it makes business sense. With an inclusive culture we can harness an abundance of new ideas and perspectives to nurture innovation, create value and secure our long-term business success.”

Supporting career development

Recruiting a diverse workforce is not enough. We must also ensure that the workplace is supportive and that everyone has the same career opportunities.

Women in Leadership

Our ‘Women in Leadership’ (WIL) program, targeted at junior and middle management, aims to prepare the next generation of female leaders. It has been running for five years and has already trained over 250 women. However, as our figures show, the progression of women in management has been very slow. For this reason, we have extended the WIL program into a full career path, including coaching, mentoring and co-development sessions for women, with quotas for women candidates in all promotion committees. We have also put in place a network for women on the WIL career path, with local events, webcasts and a blog to share experiences.

In 2020, we are taking our WIL career path a step further by adding an advanced module for senior managers and directors to help them increase their self-confidence and become more visible and recognized.

Gender Equality Index

In 2019, the French government introduced a new regulation obliging French companies with more than 50 employees to assess themselves each year against a Gender Equality Index. The index consists of five indicators, calculated on a total of 100 points.
The five indicators are:

• pay gaps
• promotion rates
• salary increases
• percentage of women receiving a salary increase in the year of their maternity leave
• percentage of women in the top-ten remunerated positions

ST France scored 87/100 in the 2019 index, well above the threshold of 75 points, where a company is obliged to define and implement corrective measures within three years.

Although the legal obligation is limited to our French operations, we have decided to roll out the program to our worldwide operations by the end of 2020, starting with our other European sites.

Developing an inclusive culture

We revised our Diversity and Inclusion awareness training in 2019. Our objective is to widely promote the added value of a diverse and inclusive workforce and fight against stereotypes. The program includes:

• mandatory Diversity and Inclusion e-learning for more than 8,000 human resources staff and managers
• unconscious bias workshops to sensitize mindsets

We are also working on policies to foster a work-life balance that supports a diverse workforce. These include our ‘Teleworking’ program, which was extended to our French sites in 2019. In addition, we plan to develop a parental leave policy in 2020 to ensure that our employees, wherever in the world they are based, are guaranteed an appropriate period of leave to welcome and care for their new arrival.

Contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals

Our commitments and programs as described above contribute to:

SDG target 5.5 – Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life.

SDG target 10.2 – By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status.