At Dover, “Respects and Values People” is one of our five core values which define how we conduct ourselves with our customers, partners, and one another. Respecting and valuing people is integral to our culture and necessary to maintaining an inclusive culture. We are proud that our people come from across the globe, with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. The diversity of our workforce enables us to attract new talent, keeps our employees engaged and productive, helps us better serve our diverse customers and markets, and advances innovation.
Our Progress Towards Our Goals
We value inclusion as much as we value diversity. We believe that cultivating an inclusive culture, where employees feel valued for their diversity and contributions, is vital for our continued success and innovation. An inclusive culture is what enables us to reap the benefits of a diverse workforce; it is also one of the best enablers of retaining our diverse workforce. Our commitment to these principles is reflected in the diversity and inclusion goals we set last year, in keeping with our internal diversity and inclusion roadmap.
We are pleased to report significant progress on these goals. In 2022, we completed our first annual global employee engagement survey which yielded a 77% participation rate participation and established an inclusion index baseline score of 80% based on our employees’ responses to five diversity and inclusion questions. Dover employees scored our culture in connection with various questions, such as: “I can be myself at work” and “I am comfortable voicing my ideas and opinions, even if they are different from others.” On average, 80% of our survey respondents agreed with those statements, higher than the manufacturing industry average. Overall, the results suggest that our employees feel they are valued as individuals, are comfortable voicing their views, and believe they can be successful within our organization. Our baseline score is encouraging and has informed our development of action plans for further progress on diversity and inclusion. See our Talent Attraction and Development webpage for more details on our engagement survey.
In addition to our efforts to establish a baseline inclusion index, we have broadly deployed training on inclusive leadership. The training focuses on how we define diversity and inclusion at Dover, the impact our people leaders can make in the effort, and ways to identify and overcome unconscious bias. To reinforce the training, leaders receive ongoing communications and suggestions to advance and sustain inclusive behaviors. We are on-track to exceed our goal to train 80% of our leaders on inclusive leadership by 2023. We are encouraged by the broadly positive reception the training received, and we believe this training will continue to improve the inclusion index at Dover in the coming years.
Employee Resource Groups
We continue to support the employee-led resource groups (ERG) hosted by many of our operating companies. These groups foster collaboration and serve as an open forum for networking, professional development, and mentoring. In so doing, they promote a work environment that welcomes diversity, promotes inclusion and engagement and furthers our talent development strategy.
For example, our Environmental Services Group sponsors the “Women of ESG” group and Dover Fueling Solutions hosts a “Women’s Network”. Likewise, our Vehicles Services Group and Sweden-based SWEP hold ongoing Women Speaker series. Our Microwave Products Group, Environmental Solutions Group and Food Refrigeration operating companies each support Veteran ERGs and encourage veterans to share their experiences and leadership skills and help develop strategies to attract and retain veterans in the workforce.
Our Policies on Inclusion
We are committed to maintaining a work environment that is professional, inclusive, and free from discrimination and harassment. That includes ensuring equal opportunity in our hiring practices and treatment of employees regardless of their race, color, religion, disability, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, marital status, age, or other characteristic protected by law. Our Code of Conduct lays out guidelines to maintain a fair and safe workplace in our Ethical Employment Practices, Harassment, and Non-discrimination Policy and makes clear that we do not tolerate harassment or any behavior that creates an intimidating, offensive, or demeaning environment for any person. To help educate our workforce on the benefits of an inclusive environment, and drive awareness, we have invested in training across the organization on topics such as unconscious bias and harassment prevention.
Diversity Metrics
Through our efforts to promote a diverse and inclusive workforce, we have increased our ethnically diverse team members by 7% and our female team members by 3% since 2015. We have partnered with America’s Job Exchange for its diversity outreach efforts for candidate sourcing and are dedicated to continuing to pursue opportunities to identify and recruit diverse candidates to ensure we continue to have the talented workforce we need to deliver strong performance.
We value the contributions and unique perspectives that diversity provides to our companies. A range of age diversity is also represented across the company, enabling us to capitalize on the substantial experience and valuable institutional knowledge of our more experienced employees while preparing for succession and the evolving needs of our businesses.
2021 Diversity Key Statistics
We understand that many of our businesses operate in industries that historically lack gender diversity, especially within disciplines such as operations, production, and engineering. Accordingly, in addition to our efforts on inclusion, we continue to expand our gender diversity recruitment efforts, including by sponsoring career fairs at educational institutions and increasing the diversity of candidate slates for open positions, particularly in leadership roles—see Talent attraction and development for details.
Developing Dover’s Diverse Talent
Within Dover, we provide many opportunities for professional development through leadership programs—see Talent attraction and development for details. While many programs are based on recommendations and career milestones, we make a conscious effort to promote the development of our diverse talent within Dover. For example, Dover's 2-year internal rotational Consulting Program has attracted 56% ethnically or gender diverse participants and benefits from 100% post-program placement within Dover.
Dover’s Supplier Diversity
At Dover, our Supplier Diversity program includes minority, woman, veteran, disabled, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender owned businesses as well as small businesses. Our global sourcing teams are directly engaged in positioning qualified diverse-owned businesses in their portfolio of approved suppliers. We require third-party certification or government registration for suppliers to be included in our Supplier Diversity Program and work with suppliers that provide high-quality goods/services, cost savings and competitive pricing, and are customer-focused and innovative. While Dover continues to develop our supplier diversity program, as of 2019 we had 10.6% of spend1 with over 1,700 small and diverse suppliers in the US.
Recognizing and Celebrating Our Veterans
The veterans of the United States Armed Forces make up a valuable part of our workforce. We celebrate our veterans year-round through displays and Honor Walls that include photographs and information about their military service. On November 11, U.S. Veteran's Day, Dover recognizes our Veterans by presenting them with commemorative medallions. Our operating companies are also encouraged to hold on-site events to further recognize our veterans with their colleagues.
Women Make America Awards Program
Dover participated in the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and The Manufacturing Institute Women Make America Awards Program for the seventh year, nominating 10 women for the 2023 awards. This program recognizes women and their achievements at all levels of a manufacturing organization, from the factory floor to the C-suite, and specifically recognizes women who have made a significant impact on their companies in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and production. The award also looks for women who exemplify leadership in community service within their companies and those who mentor the next generation of talent. We are proud to note that, women from Dover operating companies were honored in 2019 and 2021.
NAM hopes to shrink the gender representation gap and increase innovation by providing a platform for women to build networks, develop skills in the industry, and support women role models who can inspire the next generation.
Dover recognizes and celebrates all of our nominees within each operating company through multiple communications channels, including our enterprise-wide feedback and recognition Dover Celebrates! platform.