We employ people from more than 60 nations and respect their diversity. We are particularly committed to promoting women in management positions.

We employ people with different cultural and social backgrounds and experience. This makes it all the more important for us to understand diversity as a strength and to promote it accordingly. After all, it also helps us as a company to reflect the society in which we operate. It brings us closer to our customers, creates new perspectives and at the same time stands for a diversity of ideas. All of this is valuable to us. For this reason, not only do we recognize the diverse potential that our employees possess, we also actively seek to harness that unique potential with a focus on the individual.

Age structure and gender distribution according to employee category

Basis: Germany 9,874 employees (status as of 12/31/2020)

Affirming diversity and bringing people together

We see diversity as an important success factor for our corporate, leadership, project and codetermination culture. To reflect this, we have developed a diversity concept that covers the entire workforce. Our diversity management is based on our Code of Conduct, our commitment to the Charter of Diversity and other in-house agreements such as initiatives to increase the quota of women in management positions. By anchoring it in our corporate values and leadership principles, we demonstrate that we take our responsibility as an employer seriously. At the same time, we expect our employees to respect the diversity of their colleagues and superiors. It is our wish that everybody within the company thinks and acts in this spirit in their daily dealings with one another. These principles are, of course, also reflected in our recruitment decisions and qualification programs. Within the company, our Human Resources department is responsible for the strategic orientation of diversity management and its further development as well as for advising and supporting the Board of Management in this area. Additionally, the staff in the HR department are the first point of contact for all our employees in matters relating to diversity. Once a year, the diversity management scorecard is prepared and presented to the Board of Management and Supervisory Board. Our commitment in this area was recognized in 2017 with the conferring of the diversity award “Der Bunte Schlüssel – Vielfalt gestalten”.

We committed to the principles of the Charter of Diversity back in 2016 during a project conducted by the association Unternehmensverband Bremische Häfen (UBH). This is a German employer initiative to promote and respect diversity in companies. Our goal is to create a work environment that is free from prejudice and in which all employees feel that they are valued irrespective of gender, nationality, ethnic origin, religion or personal outlook, disability, age, sexual orientation and identity.

Cross-cultural competence is becoming an increasingly important qualification for successful co-working. We therefore also offered training in the reporting year aimed at providing our employees with an understanding of other people's behavior as well as ideas for goal-oriented communication with colleagues and teams from other cultures. This helps to minimize conflicts and create the basis for constructive cooperation.

Integrating people – paving the way

For integration to be successful, it is crucial to support people according to their needs. With this in mind, we have developed a number of projects designed to actively boost integration across the company. For example, as part of our basic offering we organize language courses for employees who are not so proficient in German. These make it easier for them to communicate with their supervisors and colleagues and thus boost their chances of success in their job. In addition, we support the integration of young refugees into the employment market by offering them internships, initial qualifications and traineeships. In particular through our “Training through Work” program, we regularly open the door to self-determined vocational choices for them and other young people. At the Schlüchtern location, we conducted an integration measure in 2020, after which 14 of the 17 participants, including a number of long-term unemployed, were taken on into permanent employment. To help young parents, we offer a part-time model that enables them to combine training and childcare.

More women in management

The port and logistics sector in Germany is still very much male-dominated. It is therefore all the more important to break the established mold and to further increase the proportion of women in our workforce, especially in management positions.

In November, Christine Hein was the third woman to join and serve on our Board of Management. Following the handover of duties by her predecessor, our active Board of Management has since December 11, 2020 for the first time been composed of an equal number of men and women. Thus at the very top of the organization, we are setting the benchmark for what women in leadership positions can achieve. The proportion of women in the overall workforce also increased again slightly, with women accounting for around 26 percent of employees in the German companies at the end of the reporting year. In 2020, we again exceeded our target of at least 20 percent women on management levels (ML) 0 to 3 with a quota of 23.3 percent, which was also an improvement on the previous year. However, we did not yet manage to achieve equal distribution within the different levels. For the composition of our Supervisory Board, we comply with the statutory regulations regarding the gender quota. This must be achieved separately for the shareholder representatives and the employee representatives.

As part of our equal opportunities qualification drive, we launched our Women in Management program in 2017, which we plan to reprise from 2021 following an interruption in the reporting year due to the coronavirus pandemic. In a program of modular seminars supplemented by a mentoring scheme, this prepares selected women for taking on higher responsibilities.