We treat job applicants and employees in the same way, irrespective of sex, sexual orientation, marital status, age, colour, race, nationality, disability, religion or ethnic origin.
We recognise that a diverse workforce drives greater innovation and better business performance. This means we must encourage a wide range of skills and hire a cultural mix of people who bring different but complementary values, attitudes, talents and knowledge to the workplace.
We know this is a challenge. For example, it is difficult to increase quickly ethnicity and gender diversity in our traditionally white male-dominated sector in the UK.
Diversity is an integral part of everyday management in our Business Units. Senior managers are supported by diversity co-ordinators as well as an implementation team in each Business Unit. Our Corporate Diversity Steering Group, made up of senior diversity champions from across the business, reviews and monitors implementation.
We have used the Framework for Excellence in Equality and Diversity (FEED), an international benchmark developed by the Equality Foundation, to track our progress and identify areas for improvement in a number of our UK Business Units.
Our recruitment and human resources processes are designed to help ensure equality of opportunity. For example, in the US BAE Systems regularly attends and sponsors job fairs run by organisations such as the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). For more information on how we manage Diversity in the US, see related links.
We track data on gender for our businesses in Australia, the UK and US to monitor our progress.
Gender Diversity
Gender diversity – UK, US, Australia and Saudi Arabia (%)
Due to legislation in Sweden we cannot report gender diversity information for this country
Trend
The proportion of female employees at BAE Systems is gradually increasing over time. In 2007, 21% of our employees were women, up by 1 percentage point from the previous year.
Explanation
We are working to change the demographics within our business but recognise that this will occur slowly over time. The sustainability of our workforce and our ability to win and fulfil global contracts depends on us being able to recruit and retain talented people from all backgrounds.
In 2007, each business developed a diversity action plan to help us move towards our goal of establishing a workforce reflective of the national average in terms of gender mix and ethnic diversity.
Our approach to diversity in each of our Home Markets is tailored to local culture and heritage. In South Aftrica, for example, our diversity plans are aligned with the South African Government's Black Economic Empowerment Agenda; in Saudi Arabia, we focus on increasing the number of Saudi nationals in our workforce and transferring skills to local engineers.
In 2008, we will focus on supporting women in developing their careers at BAE Systems by creating a Women's Forum and raising awareness of diversity issues among senior management. Also senior leaders are required in 2008 to undergo a Diversity Awareness Training Programme.
