People at Beiersdorf¹

Consumer

Consumer

Forward-looking human resources strategy

Our vision is to become the world’s best skin care company. With the People Strategy we formulated in 2023, we set out to modernize the work and organizational structure of HR. Our mission is to empower Beiersdorf employees in every dimension to help them realize our shared vision.

Our initiatives in the next few years will be geared to the three main aims of the People Strategy:

1. We are a valuable business partner to the departments and regions, making our company agile and fit for the future through our expertise in organizational development, culture, and change management. We are working in four key areas that we call “game changers”:
   • Future Fit & Agile Organization: We support and promote processes of organizational change with the aim of constantly developing Beiersdorf further and keeping it fit for the future in the long term.
   • World-Class Employee Experience: From initial contact to leaving the company, we support and accompany our employees in the moments that count. In this way, we strengthen commitment, a high level of employee engagement and productivity.
   • Talents for Tomorrow: We continuously develop our employees and ensure our succession planning. Diversity and inclusion play a central role in our corporate culture. Our goal: to be the employer of choice for our current and future talent.
   • Role Model Leaders: We have a common understanding of leadership skills and standards and support our managers in their areas for development.
2. To work efficiently and effectively as an Human Resources (HR) organization, we have defined roles, responsibilities, and work processes at global, regional, and local level in our own HR operating model. We see ourselves as ONE global HR team and inspire and appreciate each other in the way we work together.
3. We are modernizing and harmonizing our global digital infrastructure in HR. This will allow us to provide our organization with better-quality data, our employees with a better user experience, and our own HR departments with greater efficiency through the automation of standard processes.

We have defined actions and KPIs for each of these objectives and successfully implemented the first measures in the reporting year. These included our already launched HR modernization, which we will continue in 2024 (“Future Fit & Agile Organization”), but also the move to our new Beiersdorf Campus in Hamburg, which reflects our understanding of “Future of Work” and is supporting our cultural transformation (“World-Class Employee Experience”). We celebrated a major success in the reporting year with the early achievement of our “Gender Parity Ambition”. This saw us achieve an equal proportion of women and men in all leadership positions (“Talents for Tomorrow”) some 18 months ahead of schedule. More information on this milestone is provided below. With a view to our second strategic priority, we spent the reporting year preparing the roll-out of our first global employer branding campaign under the banner CARE CHANGES EVERYTHING and worked on our improved candidate recruitment experience. Both projects will be rolled out in 2024. More information on the employer branding campaign is provided below. There is also a section on leadership.

Corporate culture and values

We believe that our special culture is Beiersdorf’s DNA. Based on trust, collaboration, respect, openness, and mutual appreciation, it centers on our Core Values – Care, Simplicity, Courage, and Trust – and sense of togetherness. This culture of “we” rather than “I” makes us strong and agile and is key to our strong cohesion and sustainable success. Particularly in challenging times, we are showing that we can rely on each other as a team and pursue an objective together: our aim of becoming the world’s best skin care company. To achieve this, we want to create a work environment where everyone can give their best. Our annual teampulse employee survey (more in section “Attractiveness as an employer and employee engagement”) has confirmed that our employees strongly identify with our Core Values.

Care at Beiersdorf

As one of the world’s largest skin care companies, our stated aim is to be true to our Core Value of Care and embed it in all our activities both inside and outside the company. This is reflected in our purpose “Care Beyond Skin”, which is also the name of our sustainability strategy, and in the many services offered at our new campus in Hamburg. This ethos of care, which goes well beyond skin care, is appreciated by our employees, too. It strengthens our corporate culture and sense of cohesion, makes us more attractive to new talent, and sets us apart from the competition.

Our caring approach, as well, has long been reflected by our wide range of working time models, which allow people to improve their work-life balance. Among our local affiliates, 84% offer flex time (previous year: 75%), 94% remote work or the ability to work from home (previous year: 95%), 55% part-time work (previous year: 48%), and 39% sabbaticals (previous year: 35%). We will also continue to roll out the job-sharing model, which we look at in more detail in the “Diversity, equity, and inclusion” section, around the world in the coming months. That section also sets out further examples of the ways we are supporting our employees and meeting their individual needs.

In addition to the many flexible working arrangements on offer, we provide extensive childcare for our employees in Hamburg through our company kindergarten “TroploKids”. With its 108 childcare spots and 26 teachers (as of December 31, 2023), this is one of the largest such kindergartens in Germany.

We reached a very special milestone as part of our Care agenda in February of the reporting year. To mark World Cancer Day 2023, we became the first German company to sign the #workingwithcancer pledge initiated by Publicis Groupe. In line with our Core Value of “Care”, we committed to support our employees who are diagnosed with cancer or another life-threatening condition and to reduce the stigmatization of cancer and other serious illnesses in the workplace. A cross-functional project team worked hard during 2023 to put this into practice and create the basis for a supportive work environment that promotes recuperation. On World Cancer Day 2024, we communicated internally and externally the introduction of a global policy to support our employees diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. With this policy, we guarantee global minimum standards for all employees worldwide and close gaps in the social security systems of the various countries. The Global Critical Illness Policy includes, for example, one-year job security and 100% salary compensation for employees with life-threatening illnesses.

In addition to this special initiative, our health management system once again did its part to help employees stay healthy and productive, to promote their health in a systematic way, and to actively help them get better in the event of illness. The common umbrella GOOD FOR ME combines three teams – Medical, Wellbeing, and Social – that provide a wide range of health-related services to employees all year round. These include, for example, ergonomics consultations, psychological counseling sessions, exercise programs, presentations about health, and regular medical checkups. During the reporting year, we began preparations for our cancer prevention week in Hamburg to mark World Cancer Day 2024. The idea behind: As well as attending presentations by experts in this field, our employees will be able to take advantage of free cancer screening or learn specific techniques to check themselves for potential signs of cancer. The team once again put a focus on mental health in the reporting year with specific offerings geared toward mental wellbeing. These are designed to raise awareness of this important issue and strengthen the culture of health within the company.

The company’s medical team offered free COVID–19 and flu vaccinations in Hamburg again in the reporting year. A total of 1,554 employees (previous year: 1,784) took advantage of the flu vaccination offer and 209 (previous year: 2,620) of the COVID vaccine offer.

Marked sections contain information that is part of our Non-financial Statement.

Attractiveness as an employer and employee engagement²

Our strategic aim is to create an inclusive and motivating working environment in which everyone can realize their full potential. We cannot achieve this just by encouraging new hybrid ways of working; we also need a culture of trust, empowerment, and community and to live up to our purpose Care Beyond Skin.

The wellbeing of our employees is immensely important to us. That is why we believe in the principle of participation in decision-making and company success and give so much attention to the employee experience and to employee engagement – our employees’ emotional connection with our company. We want to get a real feel for the mood at Beiersdorf and to find out how engaged our employees truly are. We therefore regularly conduct global employee surveys. By “taking the pulse,” we aim to promote dialogue between our managers and their teams and set about making targeted improvements.

In the fourth quarter of the reporting year, we once again conducted our well-known “teampulse” engagement survey worldwide. To ensure the results could be compared with the previous years, we used the same core questions but made some new additions to address current topics such as decision making and communication. As in previous years, our employees were keen to share their feedback. The participation rate was 92% (previous year: 89%). The survey revealed three major strengths of our company: Our employees appreciate our diverse and inclusive working environment, feel a close connection to us even in uncertain times, and have a sense that they are actively contributing to our company’s success. Alongside the standardized responses from the questionnaire, we also received additional feedback in the form of over 23,000 comments (previous year: over 22,000). The teams have already used the survey results and detailed feedback as an opportunity for dialogue and discussing ideas and suggestions. In the coming months, we will work together on measures to sustain the high level of employee engagement at Beiersdorf.

Participation in decision-making and company success

Participation in decision-making and company success, along with transparency and engaging in a dialogue as equals, are key factors essential to a strong “we culture.” We encourage employees to get involved through various events, which largely take place face to face but are also available to stream all around the world. These include global and local town hall meetings, works assemblies, and events and fairs arranged by different departments. We use e-mails from our Executive Committee and our intranet – at global and local level – to keep all employees worldwide informed and involved. This dialogue is designed to strengthen our “we culture” and also reflects our Core Value of Care.

Marked sections contain information that is part of our Non-financial Statement.

Another important element of our corporate culture is the close involvement of employee representatives. Working with them in a constructive atmosphere of trust enables us to make and implement important and sometimes difficult decisions together.

Participation also played a particularly big role in campus planning for our new company headquarters in Hamburg, which we officially opened in September 2023. Employees were involved from the very beginning of the project and were already shaping the new campus before its completion. This ranged from creating a change network to conducting employee surveys on workspace satisfaction, regular tours of the construction sites with over 1,200 Beiersdorf participants, team consultation sessions, and the opportunity to prioritize space modules and campus furniture according to employees’ own needs. Employees also suggested the names of the individual buildings. The new campus also meets the explicit wish of many employees for an environment that encourages creative dialogue and provides more space for people to collaborate, inspire each other, and think outside the box.

Many of our activities related to diversity, equity, and inclusion are also about participation. There is more information about these in the “Diversity, equity, and inclusion” section at the end of this chapter.

Future of work and hybrid working

Our working world has changed fundamentally in recent years. Shaped by digitalization and new technologies, hybrid working has become ever more established. Future of Work has become synonymous with the new forms of work and changing approaches to the workplace.

Marked sections contain information that is part of our Non-financial Statement.

At Beiersdorf, flexible working has been in place for several years. For example, a collective agreement currently allows our staff at Beiersdorf AG, Beiersdorf Customer Supply GmbH, and Beiersdorf Shared Services GmbH to work from a flexible location for up to 40% of their individual planned working hours, provided that their job is suited to remote working. We also offer hybrid working for employees all around the world.

Marked sections contain information that is part of our Non-financial Statement.

For us, modern workspaces are part and parcel of Future of Work. We use these to encourage new forms of collaboration and create a pleasant working atmosphere. Starting from this basic idea, our offices in Seoul, Bucharest, and Amsterdam underwent a transformative modernization in the reporting year. However, the particular highlight of 2023 was the opening of our new Beiersdorf Campus right in the heart of Hamburg – where our success story began 142 years ago. This new Group headquarters, which combines renovated existing buildings and brand-new structures into a campus spanning 51,000m², is our opportunity for further cultural transformation. This is where we want to bring Future of Work to life, become even more efficient, and break down departmental silos. For us at Beiersdorf, Future of Work means maximizing our employees’ freedom to make decisions. Instead of imposing a model workspace on our approximately 3,000 people in Hamburg, the campus instead offers them different options. Depending on their working style and the tasks and projects on their agenda, they can choose each day to use a workspace that best suits them personally. Together with their team, in a small room, inside, outside in the park, in the working café, on our 4,000m² collaboration floor with modular workshop spaces – the choice for each employee every day is vast. Fitness, osteopathy, bikes, washing, and mail are just some of the on-campus services, and we also have our own kindergarten.

Since the campus officially opened in September 2023, we have seen how excited our employees are to come to the office, meet each other, and work collaboratively and creatively. This was exactly the aim of our €250 million investment: a modern campus that inspires all employees and regularly brings them together – as the basis for our business success, new innovations, and bringing to life our “we culture” and idea of togetherness.

Competing for talent

Competition for talent has been escalating for years. What was once an employer’s market has turned into an employee’s market, as companies increasingly compete internationally to attract the best people. Employees’ needs and expectations have also shifted. The desire for more flexible working has come to the forefront.

We as a company are adjusting to this. With our vision of Future of Work, a highly innovative approach, and the use of the latest technologies, we are seeking to find the right answer to these trends so as to win and retain top talent. Our talent search in the reporting year combined face-to-face events with digital offerings. This included our Open House Day, which this year took place in person on our new Beiersdorf Campus and where our colleagues from tesa and Tchibo offered 80 international participants an insight into our three companies. Since the reporting year, we have also been offering live-streamed events with selected Beiersdorfers – including Executive Board members. These cover various key topics and give students and young professionals the opportunity to better get to know Beiersdorf and ask questions. Our Early Career Team have also been visiting our partner universities and attending various university fairs, including the CEMS Career Forum 2023 in Barcelona. The careers pages of the Beiersdorf website also provide information on open positions and entry options for young and talented people.

To further reinforce our position as an international, attractive employer for the talent of today and tomorrow and to set ourselves apart from other employers, we developed a new employer branding concept in the reporting year and aimed this at a global audience for the first time. The accompanying campaign shows what defines us as an employer and centers on our Core Value of Care. Under the banner “Who cares? We care,” the campaign features current employees and invites people to find out more about Beiersdorf with target group-specific messages and an appealing look and feel. To reach the target group as well as possible, the campaign will run globally and simultaneously on various channels starting from the first quarter of 2024. This will include various social media touchpoints, job portals, and events. The careers website will also undergo a relaunch for the start of the new campaign.

Marked sections contain information that is part of our Non-financial Statement.

Training and further education

Our mission also includes creating employment prospects for young people. Our training and education in Germany are geared to the skills needed, and we regularly review our portfolio of vocational occupations and degree-integrated vocational training. Beiersdorf offered vocational training in nine occupations at its Hamburg headquarters in the reporting year. At the end of 2023, we had 96 vocational trainees here (previous year: 99), 32 of whom started their training in the reporting year, while 27 trainees (previous year: 34) were recruited into a temporary or permanent position having successfully completed their vocational training. Eight of the new trainees started their training under the degree-integrated vocational training model. Here, the trainees complete a three-year vocational course as an industrial business administrator along with a four-year bachelor’s degree in business administration with a focus on industry.

We also offer our global graduate trainee program BEYOND BORDERS for young professionals and a large number of internships for students all around the world. A total of 18 young employees were enrolled in the global BEYOND BORDERS trainee program at the end of the reporting year (previous year: 16). Of this total, ten trainees started in 2023 (previous year: 11). During the 18-month program, the trainees complete personalized assignments in Germany and other countries. They can choose from six focus topics in advance: corporate strategy, brand management & digital marketing, sales & e-commerce, finance & controlling, supply chain management, and human resources.

Leadership

An open and modern leadership culture forms the basis for an attractive and appreciative working environment in which all employees can give their best. In order to establish it, we formulated our understanding of a good leadership culture in “Leadership the Beiersdorf Way” back in 2017. This leadership culture is based on our Core Values of Care, Simplicity, Courage, and Trust. It aims to develop leaders who are authentic and inspiring and empower their team to outstanding achievements. The idea behind this is that by giving employees more decision-making power, their sense of engagement and accountability will increase. This will lead to better team performances and higher intrinsic motivation.

We continued to work on developing a new leadership culture in the reporting year. The global roll-out is planned for 2024. We used the reporting year to step up the dialogue between our first level of management and the Executive Board (including through cross-functional collaboration on strategic projects) and 360° feedback for all managers who report directly to the Executive Board. We also continued our “Behavior Activation Journey”, which aims to integrate behaviors into our day-to-day workplace culture that are important to our success. Along with prioritization, these chiefly include a culture of communicating openly. With this, we want to promote a culture in which employees find a psychologically safe environment in which they are allowed to have and defend their own opinion and question things. In this way, we aim to better leverage the potential of different perspectives among our workforce.

Since 2021, we have been using the “Development & Potential Process” in order to identify and promote new management talent. In line with the slogan “Develop your way,” it focuses on each employee’s individual development and consists of three stages: focused self-reflection, a round of talks between managers (known as development reviews), and an individual development meeting, in which the employee discusses their individually tailored development plan with their manager.

To identify an employee’s potential, we build on the “learning agility model,” which consists of four dimensions: mental agility, people agility, change agility, and results agility. On this basis, we aim to identify potential leaders who have the ability to adapt to new circumstances, learn quickly, including from experience, and continue their personal growth. As such, potential should not be equated with performance, but rather the ability to deal with future challenges in the best possible way.

In the past fiscal year, we worked on refining our processes and improving the quality of development plans for successor candidates. In the coming year, we will focus on further improving the quality of development plans at all levels of management.

Our fundamental aim is to fill the majority of management positions with talented people from within our own ranks – and this plan is working: In fiscal year 2023, 100% of positions at the first management level (previous year: 100%) and 73% at the second management level (previous year: 89%) were awarded to internal candidates. To support these individuals, we offer the Base Camp training program, which is aimed at all employees who are taking on a management position for the first time. Our training portfolio for managers also includes the “Lead with Care & Courage” program, which is geared toward senior executives and employees, the Lead in Change program, which is aimed at all other managers, and numerous other management training courses on our COMPASS LEARNING online platform (e.g., on topics such as managing virtual teams and resilience).

Knowledge and learning

We are convinced that the skills and expertise of our employees play a crucial role in our sustainable success and long-term growth. For this reason, we continuously invest in training our workforce and pursue the idea of a learning organization through our global learning strategy, which encourages self-directed, lifelong learning by all. In this context, our concept is built on a three-pronged approach:

• Building and maintaining a global learning infrastructure, i.e., a flexible learning management system in which we can create our own learning content
• Promoting targeted learning, including guidance and providing group-specific learning content
• Enshrining learning in our day-to-day work

In the reporting year, we added new learning content to our established global learning management platform COMPASS Learning, launched in 2019. This included various e-learning programs on the topics of sustainability, behavioral change, and digital training. With LEVEL-UP, we developed the first global training platform for digital upskilling (with a focus on Office 365). This was created in collaboration with different departments, including local training staff. With our range of learning materials, we aim to ensure that our employees in all parts of the company find offerings specially tailored to them.

As a major new component of our learning infrastructure, we introduced our new learning experience platform SKILLCARE in the reporting year, starting with a limited number of functions and countries. As a new Beiersdorf learning center, SKILLCARE combines all the internal and external learning opportunities available to the workforce. That means that the COMPASS learning platform is integrated into our new Learning Gateway along with our virtual learning offering of over 21,800 Linkedln Learning courses and more than 600,000 Linkedln Learning videos, including existing curated paths on diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as resilience. A project team consisting of global training staff and the Sales Academy has developed new learning plans based on the Sales Competency Model. This new content specifically for sales employees is available on SKILLCARE. Bespoke new learning programs were also developed for HR in the reporting year based on the HR upskilling priorities for 2023. These can be found on SKILLCARE along with the Operational Excellence (OPEX) learning path, which was published in November 2023 as the first cross-functional learning program.

The use of SKILLCARE is to be extended to further functions and regions in 2024. With this step, we want to build a global, comprehensive learning ecosystem that facilitates targeted, self-determined learning as part of people’s day-to-day work.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

As a global company, we see diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) as a real competitive advantage. We firmly believe that people are happier, more effective, and more motivated when their different backgrounds, experience, and skills are valued and when they can truly be their unique selves. That is why, alongside equal opportunities, we want to nurture an inclusive corporate culture where everyone feels they belong – whatever their age, ethnicity, nationality, sex and gender identity, physical and mental abilities, religion and belief, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic background. We see this diversity as a unique source of creativity, strength, consumer centricity, and innovation. We also believe that our commitment to DE&I gives us advantages in the competition for global talent and supports our vision of becoming the world’s best employer in the skin care sector.

To showcase our DE&I ambition and as a sign of our commitment in this area, we signed the Charta der Vielfalt (Diversity Charter) back in 2012. The initiative aims to advance the recognition, appreciation, and inclusion of various aspects of diversity in the world of work. In order to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion across Beiersdorf as a whole, we have also had a Global Director Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) since 2020, who reports directly to the Executive Board. Together with a small team, this position leads and coordinates Group-wide DE&I initiatives. To reinforce this topic at global, regional, and local level, too, we have a global network of more than 100 DE&I champions in our international affiliates. They regularly discuss Group-wide and local DE&I initiatives. In addition, the Diversity Committee of the Supervisory Board regularly reviews and supports various initiatives. To further boost the visibility of our DE&I activities and approaches among new talent, we merged our Strategic Recruiting & Talent Acquisition department, including our “early career” activities at universities and careers fairs, with the DE&I organization effective December 1, 2023. With this change, the former Global Director DE&I has now become HR Vice President CoE DEI & TA.

We track the progress of our DE&I activities using various key performance indicators (KPIs), on which we report regularly to the Executive Board and selected internal stakeholders. Our DE&I KPI Dashboard and our DE&I KPI Reports are designed to provide transparency. This enables regions and functions to analyze the progress and potential of DE&I work based on our global DE&I strategy. The aim is to help enshrine DE&I ambitions and strengthen DE&I governance on the basis of this data and in close collaboration with global, regional, and local stakeholders. In addition to this, the Executive Committee is also evaluated on the basis of changes to the KPIs.

Our Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Roadmap

At the beginning of the 2023 fiscal year, we reorganized our diversity and inclusion agenda, which was formulated in 2021. With this new global “DE&I Roadmap,” which incorporates multiple dimensions of diversity, we aim to make Beiersdorf fit for the future and set out our clear ambition: We want to become a top employer for global talent by establishing a truly inclusive corporate culture. On top of this comes our vision of building a management team and workforce who reflect the diversity of our consumers and an equal gender balance. Building on these ideas, our roadmap is focusing on three strategic priorities:

• Embedding a truly inclusive we culture
• Driving diversity in leadership positions (focus: gender parity)
• Building the future beyond the focus on gender (#beyondgender)

We implemented various measures in all these areas in the reporting year. We briefly describe the successes below:

Embedding a truly inclusive we culture

To build a sustainable bedrock of DE&I knowledge within our organization and promote an inclusive culture of respect and collaboration, we introduced our Global DEI Knowledge Framework in 2021. As well as various inspiration sessions and events, this also now includes the new, holistic DE&I Learning Curriculum introduced in the reporting year, which brings together different training programs for employees and managers. The Global DE&I Essentials Journey training program will use a special train-the-trainer concept to provide some 3,000 global middle managers with a sustainable bedrock of DE&I knowledge by 2025 as part of Beiersdorf’s largest learning initiative and to strengthen the inclusive management of teams. The curriculum also includes e-learning units on unconscious bias and a DE&I-inclusive language training course entitled “Choosing Our Words With Care”, which we introduced as a pilot in 2022. Its goal is to raise awareness among employees worldwide regarding the need to use language in a sensitive, nuanced way in order to avoid subtle discrimination and to respect and honor the perspectives and feelings of others. To be ready for the global roll-out of this training, we trained over 40% of our approximately 500 global HR employees in 2023. In the next two years, we plan to offer the content in the form of e-learning courses worldwide and to continue providing it on a regular basis during our DE&I events. At our Hamburg location, we worked with a local project called INNOKLUSIO in fall 2023 to establish a new upskilling format. This will improve our employees’ inclusion awareness in relation to people with a disability. These four-hour training sessions were preceded by the Global D&I Week, where we put a spotlight on disability as part of an internal event.

Marked sections contain information that is part of our Non-financial Statement.

Alongside these training programs and events, our numerous employee communities and grassroots initiatives made a major contribution in the reporting year to instilling a truly inclusive “we culture.” They ensure that our employees’ voices are heard and that their different needs are incorporated into the DE&I strategy. The DE&I team is in regular dialogue with the various communities. These include:

• “Be You” – the LGBTIQ+³ community, which aims to raise awareness of LGBTIQ+ issues and create an even more inclusive environment
• #SisterhoodisPower – the grassroots community where women empower each other in their careers
• “LEAD NETWORK Community” – a group of Beiersdorfers who belong to the Europe-wide LEAD Network and aim to drive gender parity across Europe together with employees at other companies
• “New Generation 50+” – a network representing the interests of the older generation
• “WEnited” – a group of international staff who aim to promote dialogue and cohesion between international coworkers
• “dad.icated” – a community of fathers, fathers-to-be, and allies, who are encouraged to make their own idea of life as a father a reality.

All the networks initiated diverse events and training offerings in the reporting year. The employee communities and DE&I team engaged in a wide range of win-win partnerships for inspiration and dialogue:

November 21, 2023 was a particular highlight in our partnership work: as a long-term partner to the BeyondGenderAgenda (BGA) initiative, we had the pleasure of hosting the German Diversity Award 2023 on our Beiersdorf Campus. It was a particular honor to meet Germany’s diversity drivers and present the awards to the 14 best projects and individuals.

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Driving diversity in leadership positions (focus: gender parity)

We announced our Beiersdorf Gender Parity Ambition on International Women’s Day 2021. The aim was to promote gender diversity in leadership positions. We wanted to achieve a 50/50 gender-balanced leadership across all management positions worldwide below the Executive Board (management groups 1–4) by 2025. We achieved this target in the reporting year – 18 months earlier than planned. As of September 1, 2023, the representation of women in management positions worldwide increased to over 50%. But our work is not yet done. We want to continue our efforts and ensure that a gender balance remains the norm in the future, too. We want to ensure equal opportunities, because while talent is spread evenly, opportunities are not.

In addition to our global Gender Parity Ambition, in Germany we are bound by the provisions of the German Law on the equal participation of men and women in leadership positions. Under § 76 (4) of the German Stock Corporation Act (Aktiengesetz, AktG), Beiersdorf AG must set binding targets for increasing the proportion of women at the two management levels below the Executive Board, to be achieved by 2026. A minimum proportion of at least 30% women and 30% men on the Supervisory Board and at least one woman on the Executive Board are also required by law; in addition, the Supervisory Board has set a voluntary target of 30% women on the Executive Board. The targets and actual figures as of December 31, 2023, were as follows:

• Executive Board: women hold at least 30% of seats on the Board (as of December 31, 2023: 42.9%)
• First management level: women hold at least 35% of the positions by December 31, 2026 (as of December 31, 2023: 39.3%)
• Second management level: women hold at least 50% of the positions by December 31, 2026 (as of December 31, 2023: 41.9%)
• Supervisory Board: women hold at least 30% of seats on the Board (as of December 31, 2023: 41.7%)

Marked sections contain information that is part of our Non-financial Statement.

Marked sections contain information that is part of our Non-financial Statement.

For years, we have been using various measures to achieve a gender balance while ensuring equal opportunities for all genders. On International Women’s Day on March 8, we offered our employees a global online event under the banner “#EmbraceEquity.” with numerous sessions designed to put the put the spotlight on gender equity and raise awareness of unconscious bias. In advance of International Women’s Day, the DE&I team encouraged all employees to show their commitment to more equality and post a photo of themselves in the #EmbraceEquity pose on the intranet so as to highlight the importance of equal opportunity for all genders.

There was also plenty of space for dialogue at the 7th Wo*Men in Leadership Convention, which took place on November 21, 2023, and was aimed at all employees worldwide. Under the motto “Change – Own – Lead – Grow – Inspire the narrative,” the program comprised various keynotes, “change-making” sessions, and interactive master classes. A speed-dating format also enabled attendees to talk directly to our Executive Committee and various managers from the most senior level. For the first time, there were also local sessions in various regions (e.g., Dubai, Eastern Europe, Brazil, and North America), giving the convention an international focus. The overarching message of the event: “Get involved, because change begins with engagement. We can only change the narrative together.” Some 350 people attended in person, with over 1,100 employees following via the livestream.

The employee community #SisterhoodisPower held their first global summit concurrently with this year’s Wo*Men in Leadership Convention. Here, 19 employees from nine different countries laid the foundations for the community’s global roll-out. The community’s aim is to combine the voices of all female employees around the world and for women to support each other in the workplace.

In addition to these various events designed to break down barriers, we also promoted gender equality through flexible working conditions (e.g., remote working, flex time, part-time options, job sharing, and the encouragement of a healthy work-life balance), which enable equal career progress, as well as tailor-made programs for female talents to support their career development. With the Female Talent Program, we continued our development program for women in the reporting year in collaboration with the London-based company Shape Talent. Having launched the Female Leadership in Finance program in 2022, which continued in 2023, we added a new program in the reporting year for the supply chain organization. This is titled StrongHER. All these measures seek to promote gender equality and tear down any barriers. They inspire women to realize their full potential and (better) contribute their talent. However, we recognize that driving this transformation also requires men to get involved and actively change their behavior.

As in the previous year, we also offered two “parental leavers” programs in collaboration with the start-up MyCollective. One is aimed specifically at managers entering parental leave, while the other is open to all employees currently on leave with young children. Both programs are based on an online platform that enables employees on parental leave to remain in contact with Beiersdorf throughout this period if they wish, to expand their network, and to take advantage of various further training opportunities. The focus here is on providing the right tools to support their return to work in the best possible way.

Marked sections contain information that is part of our Non-financial Statement.

Marked sections contain information that is part of our Non-financial Statement.

To make different jobs feasible with reduced working hours, we continue to offer part-time working, flexible working arrangements, and our job sharing model, where two employees take on the same position together in a job tandem. The job sharing model has been standard practice at our company for several years and also applies at the top management level (known as “top sharing”) or, via the “joint leadership” model, up to the middle management level. We also support the “senior meets junior” model, where employees from two generations share a job and learn from each other. This provides them the option for part-time study or a transition to partial retirement. As “senior meets junior” shows, job sharing these days is not only for mothers returning to the workplace. We see it as an important tool for strategic HR work and employee development . At the end of the reporting year, there were 38 job sharing tandems at Beiersdorf (previous year: 42). 21 tandems (previous year: 22) involve people responsibility – either part-time or full-time. Two tandems also work cross-border – one colleague is based in Hamburg and the other in Vienna (Austria). In the other tandem, one colleague works in Hamburg and the tandem partner works from Birmingham (England).

In addition to the above, we also actively promote gender equity through various partnerships. Since 2022, we have therefore been a close partner of the LEAD Network (Leading Executives Advancing Diversity), whose goal is to attract, retain and advance women in the consumer goods and retail sector in Europe. Like Beiersdorf, the LEAD Network is committed to creating a diverse workforce in which people of all genders can work to their full potential and where people with equal talents are given equal opportunities. The LEAD community within Beiersdorf’s workforce currently boasts around 200 employees (previous year: around 240), including CEO Vincent Warnery and our Executive Committee, as well as many managers and employees of all genders. There are other partnerships with the initiatives MyCollective (we reported on the “parental leavers” programs above) and conpadres, which focuses on the topics of parental leave and fatherhood.

Marked sections contain information that is part of our Non-financial Statement.

Building the future beyond the focus on gender (#beyondgender)

Diversity for us is not only about gender parity. Our DE&I management also works on many other dimensions of diversity. These particularly include:

• cultural diversity and internationality,
• different gender identities and sexual orientations (LGBTIQ+),
• different generations,
• and the integration of people with a disability.

We have been actively promoting the cultural diversity and internationality of our workforce for many years. Our aim is for our workforce to better represent and understand our diverse consumers all around the world. Employees from 112 countries worked at Beiersdorf as of the end of the reporting year (previous year: 102). At the Group headquarters in Hamburg, the proportion of international employees increased to 23.4% (previous year: 21.7%). Of our managers in the top three levels of management, 40% had lived and worked outside of their home countries for at least three years (previous year: 42%).

To send a clear message against discrimination in relation to different skin types and colors, our NIVEA brand implemented its “Skin Out Loud” campaign in the reporting year. The campaign consisted of five episodes on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Spotify that celebrated (skin) diversity and emphasized that every skin has the potential to be healthy and beautiful – irrespective of ethnicity, age, identity, or gender.

It goes without saying that we welcome people of every gender identity and sexual orientation in our workforce. They enrich our global team. Together with our LGBTIQ+ community “Be You @Beiersdorf,” we proactively fly the flag for tolerance and acceptance all year round. In the reporting year, for example this included Pride Month, Christopher Street Day (CSD) in Hamburg, and Coming Out Day. We once again took part in CSD with our colorful Beiersdorf truck. Together with over 200 Beiersdorfers on and alongside the truck, we took a deliberate stand against transphobia and publicly showed that everyone in all their individual uniqueness is welcome in our team. We also continued our partnership with the Hamburg-based non-profit initiative WELCOMING OUT. The initiative aims to alleviate fears of coming out among members of the LGBTIQ+ community and calls upon heterosexual cisgender people to show allyship and solidarity. In October of the reporting year, we took on the hosting and sponsorship of the [WEL-]COMING OUT DAY Event 2023. Our partners invited people to take part and celebrate Coming Out Day. The NIVEA and Labello brands also once again showed their support for the Pride movement in the reporting year. To clearly show their allyship with the LGBTIQ+ community, they launched the Labello Pride Kiss Edition and a NIVEA tin in a new rainbow design.

Strong teamwork between different generations is also hugely important to us. This involves the generations learning from each other and combining their different strengths. We are mindful of the abilities and needs of every employee and especially those of older members of staff. In the Consumer Business Segment in Germany, the proportion of employees aged over 50 was 30% at the end of the reporting period (previous year: 32%). In contrast, a total of 15% of employees are younger than 30 (previous year: 15%). The average age of employees in Germany as of December 31, 2023, was 42 (previous year: 42). To support our employees over 50, there are internal training courses tailored to the needs of this group. For example, these include a learning initiative focused specifically on digital topics, which is offered through the support of Beiersdorf’s affiliate Beiersdorf Shared Services GmbH. In addition, the New Generation 50+ employee network actively furthers the interests of employees aged 50+. On top of this, Beiersdorf sponsored again an online event run by our meta network “ChangeMaker50+” at the end of October 2023. The event was all about “acting as a network” and included inspiring speeches and presentations as well as interactive workshops on generational diversity at work and beyond, some of which were devised by dedicated Beiersdorf staff.

We put a particular focus in the reporting year on the inclusion of people with a disability. Since 2021, we have been supporting the nationwide INNOKLUSIO initiative, which aims to promote inclusion awareness at various levels in order to integrate more people with disabilities into the labor market. The aim is to break down the preconceptions that can lead to exclusion of people with disabilities and to bring about a profound cultural change. As part of this collaboration, our Global DE&I Week 2023 in May was focused on people with disabilities. During the week, employees in Hamburg could find out more about various key topics and experience an exhibition initiated by INNOKLUSIO. This “Blackbox” exhibition allowed participants to see things from a different perspective and raised awareness of how to improve the participation of people with a disability. We also offered a range of online activities for our employees worldwide. To build further knowledge in this area, we established a new upskilling format at our Hamburg location in fall 2023, which was aimed at improving inclusion awareness in relation to people with a disability. These sessions, too, were offered in partnership with INNOKLUSIO and sought to break down anxieties, reservations, and uncertainties around disability.