To mark International Women's Day (IWD), DHL Global Forwarding hosted an impressive LinkedIn Live Event, Unconventional. Unbeatable. Diverse teams make the difference, shining a spotlight on the importance of diversity in the workforce.

DHL Global Forwarding's Chief Executive Officer for Middle East & Africa, Amadou Diallo, the copany's Vice President of Talent Attraction, Talent Management & Engagement, Daniela Kerkhoff-Guenther, and Head of HR for Middle East & Africa, Eva Mattheeussen, discussed why and how they drive business success through diverse teams.

The event also addressed key challenges, highlighted some of the initiatives with DHL Global Forwarding, Freight, and discussed how enthusiasm can spread across the world.

Importance of equal opportunities

Daniela moderated the company's IWD event, commencing the conversation through highlighting how DHL Global Forwarding drives diversity.

Daniela shared that in the Middle East and Africa region, DHL Global Forwarding employs 70 nationalities, people of different religions, people from four different generations, as well as 45 per cent women and 55 per cent men in the workforce.

To celebrate IWD, the event focused on how gender diversity drives business success, why this matters to the company, and the importance of equal opportunities.

Contributing to the gender diversity conversation

Eva described ways in which women can contribute to the gender diversity conversation, through creating awareness and knowledge sharing, as well as gaining a platform for self-promotion and networking in order to share experiences and the roadblocks that they may face. The variety of initiatives that DHL Global Forwarding supports enables and empowers its employees to grow in their career.

"The partnership with International Women's Day, I think the teams every year work very well around that. And that's for everyone in the organization," said Eva.

"When you are moving into your career, we have our Women in Leadership Signature Program, and we have done that with our sister organization, DHL Express, but we also expanded that within DHL Global Forwarding geographically. That is one program that I am personally very proud of," commented Eva.

"If you are more advanced in your career, then we also have our talent pool, where we have around 200 people in the pool who we are accelerating their growth, from a talent perspective," she added.

Promoting diversity in the workplace

Women at DHL Global Forwarding is a diversity initiative that is committed to promoting diversity in the workplace.

Amadou said: "...celebration is part of what makes us remember how hard it has been to transform our society, and I think that our society is always in continual improvement with all the new technologies that are coming."

"For me, when it comes to us practicing it into business, it is not just a volunteer activity for fun, it is a volunteering activity because it is good for any business."

He continued: "Since we started this initiative, our employee satisfaction went from 78 per cent to over 90 per cent. So, over 90 per cent of people feel good within our whole organization. The quality of the service that we provide to our customers, and the feedback that we are getting from our customers, went from 61 to 82 per cent in terms of customer satisfaction surveys. Whichever Key Performance Indicator that you take to measure, in terms of efficiency of what you are doing, it demonstrates that you have a real business case of making sure that your organization is a balanced organization."

"If we are all determined to change the way our society works, if we are all determined to change the way our companies work, if we are really determined to try to make sure that our purpose is lived up to, so connecting people and improving lives, you cannot connect people and improve lives by leaving 50 per cent of the resources out. That's why I think it is really essential for business, but also for society, and to make the world a better place all together, not just in single teams."

Women at DHL Global Forwarding

In terms of Women at DHL Global Forwarding, Eva explained how the transparency of certain processes enables opportunities to be made visible, and how DHL Global Forwarding works hard to ensure it continues to promote and advocate for gender awareness and diversity in new ways.

"I see that it inspires other colleagues. So it definitely defines the culture of your organization," says Eva. "We are now looking at intersectionality. It is not just about women, but women of color, women with disabilities."

Creating a culture of belonging at DHL

Diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) are at the heart of everything that DHL Group does. However employees identify, where ever they come from, whatever their gender, abilities, age and experience, or beliefs, people at DHL can contribute and know that they belong.

DHL's employees work together to create a safe environment where they all feel comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work. DHL's people have a wide variety of opportunities to grow in their DHL roles, and deliver their best every day.

Follow more conversation with DHL Global Forwarding.

DHL forges a work environment where all employees can thrive

By actively promoting DEIB, DHL develops the best workforce, drives innovation and enables its people so that everyone can make a difference with their contributions.

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