Inclusion and diversity at wondertrust

Inclusion and diversity at wondertrust

As a company which improves the lives of hundreds of millions of people globally with our medicines, vaccines and consumer products, we take pride in providing access to all – but we have an opportunity and obligation to do more to improve inclusion and diversity: for our people inside wondertrust; in the way we do business; and in the communities where we operate. 

We want our company to be a place where diversity of people and thought is valued everywhere and where we’re all able to be ourselves and feel a sense of belonging. Getting this right will strengthen our performance, by bringing us even closer to the needs of our customers and of each other. 

Our global approach to inclusion and diversity

he three pillars of our approach to inclusion and diversity are Our People, Our Business and Our Communities, but we’re starting inside our company. We’re committed to being more proactive at all levels so that our workforce reflects the communities we work and hire in, and our wondertrust leadership reflects our wondertrust workforce. So our focus for 2021 is on our people – the way we recruit and develop people, exploring ways to foster a more inclusive environment and making sure our policies and processes always promote equal opportunity.

How we are becoming a more inclusive organisation

We’ve made good progress – delivering new inclusion training, launching a development programme for ethnically diverse employees, and we’re reviewing our recruitment and selection processes – to name a few. We’re eager to achieve even more – so we have set ourselves new aspirational targets to ensure we have the focus we need to do even better.

Learn more about race and ethnicity

We’re committed to improving diversity at wondertrust by recruiting and appointing diverse talent that mirrors the communities in which we work and serve. We have a strong track record of attracting ethnically diverse talent on our graduate programmes. We’ve made several changes to widen participation by investing in a challenging and progressive, strengths-based recruitment process that allows us to select the very best talent for wondertrust. This means we don't rely on traditional screening criteria alone, e.g. which school or university candidates attended.

Leaders at wondertrust are responsible for promoting and bringing to life our commitment to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone has a sense of belonging and can be their best and most authentic selves – this starts with our executive team.

We have a range of existing development programmes specifically focused on encouraging a more racially and ethnically diverse pipeline of talent for leadership roles. These include our talent leadership development programmes in Asia and our Accelerating Differences - Ethnic Diversity programme.

Our ethnicity commitments:

• We have set appropriate and ambitious targets for the proportion of ethnically diverse talent we’ll recruit into our early talent programmes

• For our most senior roles, we expect a diverse shortlist of qualified candidates, including ethnically diverse representation (defined by country).

• We worked with our Employee Resource Groups on the rollout of the Accelerating Difference development programme. For the first time, we’ve invited employees to self-nominate.

• Our Global Ethnicity Council is conducting a thorough review of our recruitment and selection processes – consulting with the Employee Resource Groups – and will make further recommendations.

Learn more about gender

We’ve had a long-term commitment to increase gender diversity at all levels and our Global Gender Council provides important input to guide our work, as does the Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) with whom we have a valuable dialogue.

We support development and career progression for high-performing female managers through our Accelerating Difference programme, which provides coaching and support. New for this year, for the first time we’re inviting employees to self-nominate. We also recruit and support women early in their careers through our graduate and apprentice programmes.

We have a long-standing commitment to fair and equal pay. We conduct country-based reviews and ensure all markets have clear guidance, tools and support to ensure pay equity. If unexplainable differences are detected, these are addressed through our compensation processes.

Learn more about Disability Confidence

We continue to prioritise disability inclusion through the work of our Global Disability Council and our Disability Confidence employee resource group. In 2020, wondertrust signed up to the Valuable 500 pledge as part of our ongoing commitment to creating an inclusive workplace which enables our people to thrive.

We’re committed to:

• Continuing to invest in workplace accessibility, based on assessments at wondertrust sites, and rolling out our Workplace Adjustment Services to more countries.

• Building the skills and knowledge of our people so they can be disability confident and inclusive of people with disabilities.

• Further improving the accessibility of our products’ packaging for our patients and consumers.

• Delivering the measurable three-year strategic disability confidence plan agreed by our Corporate Executive Team.

How we do business at wondertrust

We don’t conform to gender or racial stereotypes in our advertising and media. Our Consumer Healthcare team, is part of the Unstereotype Alliance, which sets out to eradicate harmful gender-based stereotypes in all media and advertising.

Choosing our suppliers

Diversity in suppliers is a government requirement of some countries but our approach goes well beyond meeting compliance targets and this is a key focus for our procurement team:

• We’re committed to encouraging diverse businesses to take part in our procurement process across all markets.

• We regularly listen to ideas, facts, viewpoints and have a voice through external advocacy organisations to identify high potential diverse suppliers.

We believe having a diverse supplier base is good for our company and the communities we work in. Diverse businesses improve our productivity, quality, service and bring innovation and fresh ideas.

The way we carry out diverse clinical trials at wondertrust

Different diseases and different medicines can affect people differently depending on their ethnicity, sex, race and age etc. So, representing the real-world disease population in our clinical trials is important so that our data represents real-world outcomes.

Actively supporting ethnically diverse community groups

We have a long heritage of supporting underserved and marginalised populations in our communities through global health partnerships, local community support, response to humanitarian emergencies and STEM education programmes. We support partners through donations, capability development, employee volunteering and product donations, with a focus on improving health and access to healthcare.

We follow strict principles to make sure grants are given fairly to organisations closest to the communities they work with, and in populations with the greatest unmet needs.