Message from James Smith  Chairman, Shell UK Ltd    

Diversity & Inclusiveness

Why would a company be interested in Diversity & Inclusiveness?  Well, there are three sources of advantage that Diversity & Inclusiveness offers.  Firstly, you become a more attractive employer making yourself more interesting to a much broader proportion of potential recruits.  This covers all the dimensions of diversity, including gender, race, nationality, religion and belief, age and sexual orientation.  Indeed, in Shell, we define diversity as “all the ways in which we differ”.  Secondly, in the workplace, a positive culture of inclusiveness leads to more energy, teamwork and creativity.  And thirdly, what could be more diverse than a company’s customer base?  We operate in 140 countries and we have over 110,000 employees.  We have 45,000 petrol stations around the world and approximately 20 million customers cross our doorstep every day.  What therefore could be more important than having a diverse organisation capable of understanding and responding to diverse customer needs? 

Our target, and how we plan to get there

The Shell Group has a stated aspiration to achieve at least 20% of senior positions filled by women globally, and there is strong senior level commitment to achieving this target.  We have undertaken a major study of women’s retention and progression in Shell, which led us to several recommendations for action.  We are currently working through these to ensure that barriers are removed.  The actions we plan to take will embed diversity and inclusion of women in all our key people processes with greater accountability for results at business, country and individual level.

Some of the specific actions we are taking to help develop and progress Shell women include:

• A Shell Women’s Network in the UK.  This was established to help women leverage their full personal and professional potential through self-development and business engagement.
• Our Mentoring schemes – we have two.  Firstly, there are one to one Mentoring pairs, where Mentees and Mentors are matched together.  Secondly, there are Mentoring circles. This is a discussion group that consists of one Mentor, one Circle Coordinator and 10 Mentees, who discuss a set topic, once every 2-3 months, for 2 hours.
• Our Women’s Career Development Programme.  This programme aims to help women to realise their full potential through self-knowledge and a better understanding of the career prospects open to them.  It is aimed at women in managerial job grades, of different nationalities and from different businesses, who have been identified as having the potential to progress in their careers.

Gender diversity in the workforce

At board level, Shell ranks as number 10 in the Female FTSE 100 Index, with 20% of the board being women.  We have the world’s largest LNG business, which is headed by a woman who is also a main board member.  The global head of our refining business, one of the world’s largest, with 50 refineries, is a woman.  Our heads of exploration in the United States and the Middle East are women as is the head of our most significant oil and gas field in the North Sea.  We believe it is particularly important that we can get the message across to women that there are exciting and rewarding technical careers in the oil industry and we have a competitive offer that is second to none.

We have made solid progress to embed Diversity & Inclusiveness into Group businesses. We still need to put Diversity & Inclusiveness at the very heart of our business processes with greater accountability for results at business, country and individual level.  By integrating Diversity & Inclusiveness into the mainstream of the business, we can translate our core values of honesty, integrity and respect for people into action and improve our global performance.

Being on the Opportunity Now Leadership team highlights my strong belief in the importance of gender equality in the workplace.  Opportunity Now is an excellent source of information, and helps companies to benchmark, network and share best practice.

Diversity & Inclusiveness are vital for winning in today’s business environment.  They create a competitive edge by helping us to attract and retain the best people, increase creativity and improve decision-making.  Most importantly, Diversity & Inclusiveness build trust and strengthen relationships with all of our stakeholders.