Equal opportunities

Increasing representation and inclusion

Despite encouraging progress, disparities persist across the labour market in terms of gender, race, socio-economic background, and representation of people with disabilities. The journey to full equal rights, equal opportunities and social justice is ongoing.

 

We're striving for equity for all employees

We recognise that barriers to equality can be deeply entrenched in society, often the product of unconscious biases that are difficult to identify and address. As we strive for equity for all our employees, we've embedded inclusivity and collaboration at the heart of our business as key values that steer everything we do.

We positively welcome individual differences – both visible and invisible – including cultural, racial, gender, physical, interests and more. In fact, we consider such differences to be strengths that can be harnessed to reinforce a positive and effective organisational culture. As well as being the right thing to do, we believe this is also the best way to succeed as a business – strengthening our collective intelligence and building a foundation for our future success.

To help to progress these aims within our organisations, we've implemented a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) policy.

 

We're building a better company through our European DE&I policy

To help to progress the aim of diversity, equity and inclusion within our organisations, we have implemented a European DE&I policy that includes:

• Diversity, equity and inclusion definitions
• Leaders' and employees' responsibilities for creating and maintaining a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace
• Understanding of all kinds of discrimination and their consequences 
• Clear codes of behaviour for all employees 
• Procedures in place to help

Diversity refers to the similarities and differences – diversity dimensions – among people. Differences in experience, knowledge and skills, and thoughts and values bring different perspectives and new ideas to the organisation. Diversity dimensions also include characteristics such as gender, age, nationality, race/ethnicity, gender recognition/sexual orientation and disability or heritage.

Equity is about securing opportunities for everyone to succeed by providing tools and resources tailored to each person's situation. It's also about taking deliberate actions to identify and eliminate organisational and structural barriers that hinder opportunities, disrupt well-being, and create and reinforce unfair outcomes, in order to maximise everyone's capabilities and potential.

Inclusion describes an organisational culture where each person feels welcomed, psychologically safe, respected, heard, engaged, motivated, and valued for who they are; and can fully participate in the decision-making process. This creates an environment for taking on new challenges and engaging in healthy debate.

 

Global DE&I Learning Path

Our Global DE&I Learning Path, available on our European intranet, provides employees with education and information on DE&I topics, as well as a platform for dialogue. It aims to:

• Reduce unconscious bias
• Ensure that leaders, managers and employees make DE&I an ongoing priority
• Ensure that the company takes a positive and proactive approach, instead of reacting to societal events or workplace incidents

Key topics include defining diversity, equity and inclusion; understanding discrimination and its impacts; and best-practice guidance in areas such as inclusive language and leadership. The structured path consists of a foundation module followed by four levels of learning: emerging, evolving, influencing and transforming.

 

We're improving gender equality

We're taking a three-pronged approach to improving gender equality:

Pay gap. Analysis of employee pay revealed gender disparities, which we aim to reduce over the coming years.

Increasing the percentage of woman in leadership. We're committed to this aim through specific interventions. For example, we plan to introduce dedicated career programs, mentoring and key performance indicators (KPI). We also started the global Woman2Lead programme in 2023 with the aim to empower our women leaders’ capabilities across different leadership roles and responsibilities.

Promoting women in innovation. Our Transformation Innovation Programme (TIP), running since 2015, invites everyone in the company to come up with new solutions and innovations. Proactively encouraging female employees to take part means the programme now has a higher percentage of female participants, session leaders and prize-winners.

 

Communities, networks and events

Communities, networks and events provide valuable opportunities to engage people, promote inclusivity and help individuals build a successful career. Rethink Empowerment is our umbrella brand to promote and drive engagement initiatives that help to represent the interests of various groups within Konica Minolta, including:

• Konica Minolta Business Women Network organises regular events and facilitates professional exchange at a local and global level.
• VIBRANT is our global LGBTQ+ network which holds meetings twice a month and organises events. It aims to encourage an inclusive and fair culture that embraces diversity and celebrates difference.
• New Employees Group brings new joiners together and helps them experience our collaborative working environment.
• AGILE Labs is an engaged community that shares insight and knowledge about 'agile' and 'new work'; and provides an environment to discover and test new ways of thinking and working before rolling them out to the business. It encourages a more connected, collaborative, innovative and engaged organisation and company culture.

At least three times a year, we hold global events that focus on specific topics such as gender equality, LGBTQ+, racism, or people with disabilities. They often take place in parallel with dedicated international theme days or events, such International Woman’s Day or Pride Month; and include conversations with our senior leadership and guest speakers alongside interactive panels and workshops, ensuring that voices from all levels of the organisation are heard.

 

Creating accessible spaces and events

Because inclusion involves ensuring barrier-free access to spaces and event venues, we developed a guide to help employees create barrier-free events. It provides on understanding and meeting diverse needs, including the needs of people with limited mobility or visual or hearing impairments.
We also recognise the challenge of linguistic and communication barriers, and offer guidance on creating event materials (such as invitations, signage and presentations) in easy-to-understand language.