Statista and the Financial Times have surveyed more than 80,000 employees across 10,000 companies on diversity policies.
The Financial Times and Statista this week released Diversity Leaders 2020, their ranking of European employers demonstrating advances in diversity.
The companies at the top of the ranking included Amsterdam-headquartered Booking.com, consumer goods giant Colgate-Palmolive, and UK construction and property group Willmott Dixon.
The Diversity Leaders report surveyed more than 80,000 employees across 10,000 private and public companies employing at least 250 people. Surveyed companies were from a range of industries in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.
There were several companies with headquarters in Ireland in the rankings, including Google (12th), Aramark (17th), Apple (64th), Accenture (92nd), Eaton (114th), Abbott (136th), Dell Technologies (185th), DCC (207th), Aptiv (225th) and Experian (586th).
The first of its kind
The report ranked 700 businesses from these 10 European countries that have had their approaches to equality and inclusion commended by employees.
The Financial Times and Statista cited it as “the first ranking of its kind to assess companies’ success in promoting all types of diversity, including gender balance, disability, openness to all forms of sexual orientation, and an ethnic and social mix that reflects wider society, rather than just one aspect of diversity”.
To reflect the opinions of under-represented groups, the evaluations of women, the elderly and the ethnically diverse were “weighted significantly higher” than others’ views, according to the report.
Hubertus Bitting, chief research officer at Statista, said: “Based on our expertise in international research projects focusing on employee satisfaction, we are very happy to highlight the important topic of diversity in the workplace together with the Financial Times for the first time.
“While we found that there has been a lot of progress made towards achieving diversity in the workplace, we also see remaining challenges that put companies under increasing pressure.
“To measure how the challenge of diversity is addressed by the companies to the good of their own success and society at large, we provide a well-founded ranking which leads to more transparency in the employer market.”
The report also offered insights into the challenges faced by Europe-based companies in recruiting talent, achieving equality and fighting discrimination.
