Diversity

One of the cornerstones of our successful business activities, along with our employees’ skills and commitment, is a considerable degree of diversity in the workforce. At our Hannover location, for example, the members of staff come from altogether 43 different nations, a reflection of the international dimension of our operations. Our worldwide Code of Conduct stipulates that nobody may be disadvantaged on grounds of his or her gender, ethnic origin, religion or ideology, disability, age or sexual persuasion. Salary increases and promotions follow a clearly defined process. Our employees are paid according to their specific tasks, their skills and qualifications and their performance.

Diversity and the advancement of women are topics that have come under increasing public scrutiny in recent years. Within the Hannover Re Group, too, it is evident that women are under-represented in the company’s higher hierarchical levels. With a view to changing this, the Executive Board initiated a number of measures geared specifically to furthering women in their professional development. In 2017 we therefore launched another implementation round of our in-house mentoring programme for women at the Hannover location, which ended in March 2018. A further round is already planned for 2019 / 2020.

The specific focus of the internal mentoring programme on a purely female group of participants is part of our initiative to give targeted support to promising junior female managers by raising their profile in the organisation and giving them individual support. The number of participants was expanded to seven mentoring tandems. Female employees (mentees) are paired with senior managers (mentors) for a period of twelve months to engage in a targeted, regular dialogue. In the course of the mentoring programme the mentees are encouraged to reflect on their professional development to date and to take steps to actively shape their future career. They also gain insights into new fields of work and are able to learn from their mentor’s experience. We are particularly pleased that as many as three members of our company’s Executive Board participated as mentors in the 2017 / 2018 round of the programme.

In a survey conducted after its completion both mentees and mentors alike expressed considerable satisfaction with the process and the individually attained learning outcomes. This positive feedback strengthened our resolve to continue the programme. Two informational events were already held in 2018, giving interested employees an opportunity to learn more about the contents and objectives and subsequently to apply for the next implementation round in 2019 / 2020.