AREVA is organizing today the first Gender Equality in the Workplace Awareness Day on its 55 European sites.
AREVA is fully convinced that a company should, through its diversity, reflect the society in which it operates. Diversity is also an essential factor in performance; it helps enhance discussions, brings contrasting competencies and visions head to head and is a source of innovation.
So that diversity becomes a reality in the group, AREVA is engaging on a pro-active, transparent and joint initiative. In November 2006, an agreement on equal opportunities was signed in the AREVA group at European level. This agreement states that professional equality is a right and that professional diversity is a factor of collective enrichment, social cohesion and economic effectiveness.
Open Dialogue through Equal Opportunities (ODEO) marked a new stage in 2008. An ambitious and innovative initiative from the AREVA’s Social Policies and European Works Council, ODEO helped put the European agreement in place in the spirit of equality and by sharing best practices.
Through ODEO, 50,000 AREVA employees throughout Europe were made aware of the group’s equal opportunities commitments. These commitments are the result of the involvement of the various employee networks and AREVA management who have worked together for three years to move equal opportunities and diversity further along in the group.
True progress has been made, in terms of recruitment, professional development, work/life balance. In France, where young women represent an average of 17% of the total young engineering graduates, they represent around 35% of AREVA’s hires.
Within AREVA, more and more women are taking on responsibilities at top level. These women are models for the increasing number of young women who are starting out on their careers at AREVA.
The group has set itself the objective of having at least 20% of women on its management committees. This European Day on Gender Equality is the opportunity to make each and every AREVA employee aware of the group’s commitments and prompt them to become pro-active, to share and understand this approach and to work with the group so that equality becomes a reality.
9/29/2009