Our ability to deliver high quality and innovative products and solutions for our customers is only achievable through the talent, expertise, and dedication of our global team of approximately 25,000 employees. Our approach to talent attraction and development is centered on our commitment to ensuring we are continuously attracting the most qualified talent and then nurturing and cultivating their skills and leadership capabilities to support their career growth and the global growth of our businesses.
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT SURVEY
We completed our first annual global employee engagement survey in 2022, which yielded a 77% participation rate. More than 50% of participating employees also shared comments on what they would like senior leadership to know regarding engagement and inclusion at Dover. The survey results revealed our employee engagement of 73% is two points above the manufacturing industry benchmark average, with responses related to satisfaction, advocacy, and pride questions in particular positively exceeding industry benchmarks. Employees noted that a strong belief in our future, a feeling of belonging, and a sense of purpose from their work drove high pride for them. Our employees also noted that Dover feels like an inclusive place where they are comfortable voicing their own thoughts and ideas – see our Diversity and Inclusion webpage for more information on our inclusion index and training.
Following the survey, each of our operating companies established action plans to outline key focus areas to sustain and improve employee engagement. For example, one action plan was to help employees better receive feedback and feel recognized for their contributions. As a result, some of our operating companies implemented a global recognition platform called Dover Celebrates! Consequently, in 2022, our leaders and employees significantly increased the frequency of employee recognition. We expect this new platform to be operationalized enterprise-wide in the future.
Talent Attraction
Our talent attraction strategy is led by the Dover corporate center in coordination with operating company leadership and teams. We focus on attracting and recruiting skilled talent to meet the current and future needs of our global portfolio of businesses. We seek people who are proactive and dedicated and share our commitment to the pursuit of operational excellence. Our entrepreneurial culture attracts people that seek agency in their work and make thoughtful decisions that benefit our customers, leveraging our scale, tools, and expertise.
Employees who come to Dover have the opportunity to develop innovative solutions for our customers
around the world that help the clean energy transition, reduce waste, and enable the circular
economy—see our Innovation for Sustainable Products page for more information. This global reach
affords our employees opportunities to have an impact on critical global challenges and grow their skill
sets in innovation, as well as product and solution delivery.
As part of our talent attraction strategy, we partner with universities to support internship programs
and pursue academic collaborations. Collaboration with students and interns complements the
expertise of our workforce and helps us identify early career talent. We aim to attract not just early
talent but also diverse talent. Our operating company outreach efforts have been fundamental to helping Dover attract diverse talent. For example, our operating companies support employee resource groups (ERGs) that are active in their communities to recruit individuals from a variety of backgrounds. For more information on our work towards a more diverse and inclusive
workforce, please see our Diversity and Inclusion webpage.
Beyond attracting university talent, we are investing in apprenticeship and cooperative education (“co-op”) programs. By establishing relationships with local partners, we introduce to Dover the skilled workers for tomorrow.