Valuing our team
Our associates make us who we are and bring our vision to life. We aspire to create a high performance, inclusive, and safety-focused culture where our people can reach their full potential. This culture is responsible for our success; when we enable our associates to flourish, we can provide customers with the innovative, sustainable solutions that set us apart.
To achieve this culture, the correct foundations should be set with solid attention to our associates’ health, safety, and well-being. Our company value of ZERO Harm has enabled us to develop robust foundations to provide a safe working environment for our people. Our EHS team works all year round to mitigate risks to our associates’ health and safety while continually promoting a ZERO Harm culture throughout Venator.
ZERO Harm also extends to our communities, meaning that we care about the communities in which we operate, and work hard to protect and enhance them. The aim is to reduce our negative impact while maximizing our positive contributions to the communities we serve through meaningful contributions of time, money, and resources. Our Global Head of Communications coordinates all our initiatives that support our communities and collaborates with all our sites globally to understand the
work being done to enhance the local area.
Ultimately, we must provide opportunities to help our associates flourish and perform at their best. In recent years, we have harmonized our approach to ensuring our associates’ safety, equity, and diversity by developing Venator’s new People strategy.
Focusing on three fundamental areas will deliver the results of this strategy and establish the necessary foundations for development at Venator. We plan to undertake this strategy by directing our Human Resources (HR) efforts to these three fundamental areas
- Cultivate a positive and inclusive workplace environment where everyone feels valued and that they belong
- Provide opportunities for everyone to develop, grow, and perform at their best
- Offer tools to support individual wellness and the navigation of life challenges when they arise
From 2024, we will develop critical initiatives to help us progress against these three areas and continue to make Venator a great workplace.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)
We are proud to have a diverse and exceptionally talented workforce of associates across the globe who are passionate about what they do. We strive to provide them with a great place to work where each person can be at their best, and we are committed to creating a workplace that reflects the communities of which we are a part.
Investing our time and energy in this area is quite simply the right thing to do—for our people, our business, and the communities we serve. We see this as a fundamental part of our Venator values and culture. We are committed to delivering on our diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategy, which will further progress us toward achieving our 2030 targets.
The year 2023 was turbulent for Venator, yet we have remained steadfast and committed to achieving our 2030 target of having more than 30% of senior leadership roles held by women. While our total headcount was reduced during 2023 as a result of the divestment of part of our business, at the end of FY23, female leaders comprised 18% of our leadership.
To enable progress toward our 2030 target, we started the development of our DEI strategy in 2023. Our DEI strategy includes a roadmap of strategic actions and milestones for Venator to complete on the journey to achieving our 2030 target. We recognize that our organization has historically employed a predominately male workforce, and that DEI is an integral part of ensuring the prosperity of our business and an essential element of our role as an employer. As such, a core part of our DEI strategy in the coming years will be exploring ways to ensure our industry appeals to all genders.
In 2024, we will begin the rollout of our DEI strategy and embed the responsibility of its delivery across all our sites. The first step of this will include the launch of our first global Employee Engagement Survey.
It will enable us to better understand our associates’ differences and needs and ensure that everyone has equitable opportunities for progression within Venator. Alongside this, we plan to conduct a new benchmarking exercise; this will enable us to understand the foundations of our current DEI performance, identify new ways in which we can improve DEI, and comprehend the breakdown of broader diversity metrics to ensure that everyone feels valued and proud to be who they are at work.
Our ambitions for DEI continue beyond improving the percentage of female leaders in the business; we want to develop an environment where all our associates’ diverse characteristics are respected and celebrated.
Progress and Impact
Case Study: Apprenticeship opportunities in Uerdingen
In September 2023, six new apprentices started their work at our site in Uerdingen, Germany. They are now undergoing their training to become professional chemical workers. The apprenticeship program entails learning about the theoretical background of chemical engineering and manufacturing and putting into practice the apprentices’ knowledge of the production process. The apprenticeship takes three and a half years and ends with an official exam at the Germany’s Chamber of Commerce
and Industry. Most of the apprenticeship is on the-job training in all relevant on-site departments, and apprentices also complete up to four theoretical training blocks of four weeks per year at the vocational college.
Part of their work on-site entails spending time at our ‘apprenticeship pilot plant’, learning about the filtration process with small filter presses and spray drying processes. The program is critical to developing new talent for Venator’s future while supporting our local communities.
