As a global company, we encounter all kinds of challenges every day. To master these, we rely on our employees and their different skills, levels of experience and perspectives. We put together highly diverse teams that complement each other across our entire workforce. Promoting diversity is a key tool for enhancing competitiveness in all aspects of our business.

Numerous studies, including the 2011 study "Dream team better than quotas" by management consulting firm Roland Berger, have shown that diverse teams are more motivated, more creative and more efficient than homogenous ones, and have a better understanding of customers' differing needs. So to leverage this potential and help us stay successful, we create a work environment free of prejudice - one that encourages top performance and guarantees equal opportunity, and one in which people with all kinds of skills enjoy working together as a team. We promote a diverse workplace with a good mixture of people of both genders, plus different ages, nationalities and cultural backgrounds. We also actively support the integration of people with disabilities. And we help disadvantaged young people get their careers off to the right start through special initiatives like "Learning with Energy".

At E.ON, equal opportunity and diversity have been key parts of our corporate culture for years. "We laid the groundwork in 2006 by creating a Group-wide guideline prohibiting any form of discrimination based on age, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or gender," explains Kristen Herde, Vice President of Diversity Management at E.ON AG. "This includes covering diversity issues in intercultural training and management training."

In 2008, we signed the "Charta der Vielfalt" (German Diversity Charter), thereby publicly affirming our commitment to diversity to the German government and German industry. We belong to a network of over 1,000 companies who have signed the charter since its creation in 2006 - companies committed to diversity, tolerance, fairness, valuing people, and to the economic advantages that diversity brings. At the end of 2010, we founded the Diversity Charter Association together with twelve other companies. This public private partnership will direct the diversity activities of the charter in the future and bear financial responsibility for them.

In 2010, we were awarded the "Total E-Quality" equal opportunities seal in recognition of our efforts. The jury of independent experts from the Total E-Quality voluntary association in Germany especially praised the fact that diversity is an integral part of E.ON's corporate culture.


Different Ways of Making Diversity a Reality Throughout the Group

In every one of our units, we run a variety of programs and initiatives to raise awareness of the importance of diversity. This includes our measures for helping employees balance work and family and our preventive health programs. We are currently placing a particular emphasis on fostering an increase in the share of female managers in our businesses.