Case study: How CNH Industrial promotes workplace diversity

What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2019 Sustainability Report CNH Industrial identified a range of material issues, such as circular product life cycle, CO2 and other air emissions, occupational health and safety, employee engagement, water and waste efficiency. Among these, promoting workplace diversity stands out as a key material issue for CNH Industrial.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The organization should identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process s of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups CNH Industrial engages with:

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics CNH Industrial received feedback from a sample of 1,934 stakeholders among employees, customers, dealers, opinion leaders, public institutions, NGOs, investors, and journalists through an online survey or direct interview.

What actions were taken by CNH Industrial to promote workplace diversity?

In its 2019 Sustainability Report CNH Industrial reports that it took the following actions for promoting workplace diversity:

• Promoting gender diversity
• To promote gender diversity, in Europe, some of CNH Industrial’s most outstanding female employees participated in workshops held in schools, where they shared their experiences with students while encouraging girls to pursue their ambitions free from limiting stereotypes. In addition, support programmes were organised for mothers returning from maternity leave, and several workshops were held on women’s leadership, self-awareness, networking, and personal empowerment. Coaching and mentoring programmes to address women’s growth were developed in Brazil and Italy, while, in India, training was provided to help tackle sexual harassment and to encourage diversity. In North America, CNH Industrial is a Corporate Partnership Council member of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), an organisation that empowers women to achieve their full potential in careers as engineers and leaders, highlighting the value of diversity. As a corporate member, CNH Industrial attended the SWE’s annual conference and continued to support its mission and objectives by funding programmes, supporting diversity, and creating and promoting opportunities for women in engineering and technology.

• Supporting the employment of people with disabilities
• A survey monitoring the employment of people with disabilities is conducted at CNH Industrial every 2 years. The last such survey was carried out in 2018 in 42 countries, covering almost 99% of CNH Industrial’s The survey showed that, in the countries where the law requires companies to employ a minimum percentage of workers with disabilities (15 mapped, accounting for about 69% of CNH Industrial’s global personnel), the latter make up 3.6% of total employees (compared to 3.4% in the 2016 survey). In many other countries (including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Mexico, Poland, UK, and USA) there is no legislation relating to the employment of persons with disabilities that establishes minimum quotas, although in some cases other forms of protection exist (i.e., related to working hours or workplace environments, specific grants/benefits for companies employing workers with disabilities, etc.). In these countries (27 mapped by the survey), there are objective limitations to reporting the number of these workers, as the information is sensitive and often subject to data protection legislation. As a result, CNH Industrial is only aware of an employee’s personal status if he/she chooses to disclose it. In September 2015, IVECO France agreed with all 5 trade unions represented in CNH Industrial to implement, for an indefinite term, the agreement signed in 2007 (and subsequently renewed in 2012) setting specific rules and measures aimed at the recruitment, training, and development of people with disabilities and at their long-term employment. As of March 2017, CNH Industrial also entered into a 3-year agreement with all the trade unions in France represented in CNH Industrial, which establishes provisions for employees with disabilities very similar to those in the IVECO agreement. In Europe, awareness of intellectual and physical disabilities was also promoted through the many initiatives in place to engage and integrate people with disabilities in the workforce. In Spain, for example, CNH Industrial renewed this commitment by collaborating once again with local NGO Fundación Roncalli Juan XXIII in support of the enclave laboral, resulting in the hiring of workers with physical disabilities at the manufacturing plant in Madrid. CNH Industrial also continued to support the Integracamp project to promote cognitive impairment awareness and build diversity values among employees’ children from an early age. Moreover, as part of its diversity and inclusion projects, CNH Industrial actively participated in a number of job fairs focused on the employment of persons with disabilities. 

• Promoting awareness of unconscious bias
• CNH Industrial promoted awareness of unconscious bias, in various ways. In Argentina, for example, conferences open to all were organised, attendance voluntary, with a focus on the value of an inclusive environment within an organisation, recognising diversity bias, and practical tools to instigate change. CNH Industrial aims to make diversity and inclusion a competitive advantage for the company, and to create an environment that encourages creative ideas, excludes bias, and retains talent. Evidence of this commitment is its Diversity Committee in South America specifically supporting diversity and promoting inclusivity, as well as the letter of intention sent by the regional head of HR to external recruitment agencies at the beginning of 2019, inviting them to present diversity candidates (such as women for leadership roles, professionals with special needs, people from immigrant and LGBT+2 communities, black professionals, and mothers).

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standard addressed in this case is: Disclosure 405-1 Diversity of governance bodies and employees

Disclosure 405-1 Diversity of governance bodies and employees corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: Gender Equality
• Targets: 5.1, 5.5
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.5

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

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References:

1) This case study is based on published information by CNH Industrial, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, please revert to the original on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database at the link:

http://database.globalreporting.org/

2) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

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