Siegwerk has announced its membership in the Cologne-based alliance MIT Frauen in Fuhrung (With Women in Leadership). The local initiative specifically promotes gender parity and career advancement for women and offers companies in and around Cologne a platform for exchanging experiences on gender-oriented management.

Siegwerk’s formal acceptance into the alliance took place during the ceremony “Frauen Empowerment – Fakten schaffen!” at Sparkasse Köln Bonn. Ulrich Voigt, chairman of the Board and new patron of the alliance, and Christine Kronenberg, initiator of the initiative, welcomed Siegwerk as another family-owned company and the first manufacturing company in the Cologne alliance.

“Diversity, equality and inclusion are the drivers of successful and satisfied teams. Colorfully mixed teams bring together the most diverse perspectives, enabling disruptive thinking and breaking out of old patterns,” explains Nicolas Wiedmann, chief executive officer of Siegwerk. “Expertise knows no gender, background or personal orientation. And as a company in a classically male-dominated industry, I can only say we need more diversity and urgently more women, at all levels.”

As part of its new sustainability agenda, Siegwerk has set itself the goal, among other things, of doubling the proportion of women at management level by 2025. Joining the Cologne-based corporate alliance Frauen in Fuhrung (Women in Leadership) once again underscores this commitment and is intended to specifically help improve structures and the working environment and ultimately thus attract more women to management positions at the Siegburg headquarters.

“We are pleased to be part of this unique initiative and to exchange ideas with other companies on gender-oriented management and measures for the systematic advancement of women,” adds Wiedmann. “For me, diversity is a clear leadership issue and for this reason I have also made it my personal mission to sensitize managers to the relevance of diversity and to consistently raise awareness within the company. In this unique network, we are therefore very happy to exchange ideas and learn from each other.”

Siegwerk sees itself as a pioneer in its industry and is ready to actively tackle change, put its own structures to the test, and adapt the organization accordingly.

The Cologne Alliance “With Women in Leadership” was founded in 2016 by Female Resources, a management consultancy in the field of gender management, to specifically promote development opportunities for women in companies in the region. With a network of 15 different companies from the Cologne area, the alliance represents a platform for local business to exchange ideas across industries about gender-oriented HR policies and the advancement of women in particular, and to further drive change in society.

“We are pleased to include Siegwerk, another leading company in the region, in our circle that is committed to actively improving the proportion of women in management positions,” says Kronenberg, founder of Female Resources. “I am particularly pleased with Dr. Wiedmann’s personal commitment to working for more gender fairness, diversity and equal opportunities in the company. This commitment from the top of the company is exactly what is needed for sustainable change.”

Siegwerk recognizes that diversity, in combination with equality and inclusion, can make a valuable contribution to the success of individuals and the company as a whole. Diverse teams have been shown to increase individual productivity and creativity. Based on their different skills and different perspectives, employees of diverse teams are enabled to jointly develop new approaches to solutions and sustainable innovations. For example, scientific studies show that companies with more diverse leadership teams bring more innovative products and services to market than those with homogeneous leadership teams.

At the same time, diverse leadership teams statistically achieve above-average business success. “In this context, a diverse workforce and supportive work environment are not only important aspects for retaining employees, but above all for becoming a company that is attractive to women and to potential applicants,” Wiedmann says.

The company wants to reposition itself in the medium term in order to further increase its attractiveness as an employer, especially for female specialists and managers, and to make greater use of the potential of diverse teams. To achieve this, Siegwerk is focusing on education within the company to create awareness of everyone’s collective responsibility. Among other things, this includes reviewing current promotion and hiring processes, conducting training on unconscious bias, or defining new personnel-related key figures and reporting them transparently. In this regard, managers in particular are called upon to personally contribute to making the organization a diverse and inclusive workplace.