We are proudly championing Diversity and Inclusion by creating a place of work focused on gender equality and internationality, as part of our People Strategy, which is in line with the OMV Group Diversity Strategy.
Age Diversity – Currently working together in OMV Petrom are four generations of people with different nationalities: Baby Boomers (17.83%), Generation X (69.15%) Millennials (12.28%) and Generation Z (0.74%). Age diversity is one of our main preoccupations, having in view that the average age within the Group is 49 years and the fact that the new generations are losing appetite for the oil and gas industry.
Consequently, for the future workers in Upstream, the Oilmen School initiative through which we, OMV Petrom, re-established in 2015 the professional classes in the oil & gas industry in three high schools in Romania, starting from our business need to attract new employees in the company and industry. We established three classes specializing in Well Operator in three partner high schools: “Astra Pitești” Technical High School, “Grigore Cobălcescu” Technical High School of Moinești and the “Voievodul Mircea” Technical High School of Târgoviște. More information about this project can be found also at Community Relations chapter.
Nationality Diversity – The mix of nationalities in OMV Petrom is currently 94.34% Romanians and the rest natives from different countries.
Gender Diversity – Because we operate in an industry with a strong technical focus, it is particularly challenging for OMV Petrom to achieve a balanced gender ratio in all areas of business activity. The proportion of women in OMV Petrom amounts to 24.03%.
To encourage gender diversity, our recruitment policy reflects our commitment to promoting equal opportunities: at least one female candidate is included in every shortlist for each position. Internationality, another focus of our diversity strategy is integrated into the recruitment process by highlighting the advantage of recruiting candidates with professional international experience. Our diversity targets are also embedded in succession planning, with a preference for female candidates when identifying top talent.
Women in managerial positions
At the end of 2020, 30% of the first line directors reporting to the Executive Board were women, and the share of women in managerial roles was 25.56%. We specifically aim to increase our female representation in Senior Leadership roles to 30% by 2025 and keep a high share of our managers in senior leadership roles with international experience.
Equitable gender choice for maternity and paternity
We believe that our appreciation for individual differences allows us to benefit from varied perspectives, which is a powerful advantage in creating diversity-based business value both in the long run and throughout crises, such as the health and economic downturn we are currently experiencing.
We also believe that equitable gender choice for maternity and paternity leave and other leave entitlements nurture top talent attraction and retention. These, in turn, are some of our enablers for high performance. During 2020, the total number of employees who were entitled to parental leave was 10,761, of which 25 men and 143 women took it during the reporting period.
Non-discrimination - the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation
The internal regulation frame provides transparent statements against any discrimination, regardless of criteria and access to jobs is ensured freely throughout the organization, regardless of the level. Internal programs are developed to encourage diversity and equal treatment as a way to shape organizational culture. Apart from actively building a diversity culture, the internal regulation frame provides for efficient tools to safeguard our culture towards any discrimination, by means of internal grievance and disciplinary policy.
Diversity and Inclusion initiatives
Championing Diversity in OMV Petrom is not limited only to fostering multiple generations at work, promoting gender equality at all levels, and especially in Senior Leadership roles, or nurturing work location mobility among different nationalities. It is also about diverse experiences and ways of thinking.
We consider this particular dimension a wealth of resources we may rely on and, at the same time, have a duty to nurture through continuously aligning the organization on purpose, embracing flexibility, and promoting diversity intelligence (DQ).
Diversity is an enormous strength that we are actively leveraging by creating diversity-based business value. It has therefore become a strategically important goal with two measurable targets in our Sustainability Strategy 2025: gender equality and internationality. The focus on diversity is one of the key pillars of our People Strategy, which has been defined under the strategic priority of leadership as “Inspiring leaders – building high-performing, diverse teams.”
At OMV Petrom level, all the Diversity & Inclusion initiatives planned at the beginning of 2020 quickly adapted to the new context. Once the pandemic started, we shifted all of our initial plans to the virtual environment and have started a series of initiatives directed at celebrating Diversity of Thought and Experience and Promoting Work-Life Balance and an Inclusive Culture. These were directed at building a collection of Diversity & Inclusion tips, tools, and resources to build awareness, help our employees learn more on the subject and make inclusion easily approachable within the team, as a peer or manager, or even at home, as a parent or spouse. The initiatives under the Diversity & Inclusion umbrella were sponsored by one of the OMV Petrom’s Board members and the Human Resources Vice President.
Moreover, in 2020, we started the planning for additional initiatives that will be rolled-out in 2021, such as Diversity Talks, a series of events based on diversity success stories that aims to:
► Raise awareness on main diversity topics of interest for OMV Group;
► Identify relevant diversity topics as per the OMV Diversity strategy or immediate needs of the companies/groups across the world;
► Collect and present best practices existing across the Group, as well as promote to business as usual the most relevant experiences;
► Build a Community of Diversity Experts and Ambassadors that will be able to address and constructively deal with main diversity indicators.
Some of the 2020 Diversity & Inclusion initiatives examples may include:
► Diversity Insights – a series of blog articles on Diversity and Inclusion.
Understanding Diversity & Inclusion, what we mean by these terms, why they matter for each and every one of us as individuals, for our teams, and for the organization as a whole, is the first step towards actively contributing towards an Inclusive Diversity Culture in our company and our local community. Through the series of blog articles published on the OMV Petrom blog in 2020, numerous dimensions of Diversity & Inclusion were covered. Topics were ranging from a celebration of women, plural and inclusive cities, schools open to diversity or combining cultural and social diversity to promote harmonious relationships between men and women, to rediscover interesting places to visit in our Romania and spend atypical winter holidays in 2020.
► Kids’ Corner
The initiative is aiming at supporting work-life balance & parenthood, by providing tips, tools, talk and encouragement in the parents’ journeys to raising kids or dealing with specific challenges along the way.
Communication on Diversity
OMV Petrom is a signatory of the Diversity Charter, (Romanian Diversity Charter took place on 2018, Romania thus becoming the 21st country in the European Union with a Diversity Charter and benefiting from the membership in the European Diversity Platform) joining other employers in Romania, in the desire to think together, in harmony and respect for diversity and equal opportunities. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the EU Charter Platform on Diversity, our CEO addressed a video message on the EU platform to all companies in Europe for the active promotion of diversity and awareness of its benefit for the business.
Furthermore, in 2020, between the 255 companies in the European Union assessed by Equileap, OMV Petrom was named as the best company on Romanian BET 15 for gender equality.
Workplace Flexibility
Our employees are continuously taking advantage of individualized working programs that allow them to better use their time in order to accommodate in a fair manner both professional and personal lives. Starting from 2020, we reshuffled the “Friday Work from Home” program, a program that allowed the eligible employees to work from home on Fridays, and built a Teleworking program that allows all eligible population of OMV Petrom, based on pre-established eligibility criteria to work from two locations for a maximum number of 8 days per month.
Teleworking is a solid, ready-to-use and flexible program that provides a superior user experience by the mean of end to end digital flows. The program Enrolment was launched in November 2020 and will be implemented for the entire organization in 2021.
The provision of ready to use, easily accessible and digital programs is for us a priority, therefore we are working to provide our employees with state-of-the-art tools that are responding to the current labor context and are customized on our organization-specific needs. Just as an example, we shall be shortly launching the Flexi Desk program that aims to provide all employees in Petrom City Campus flexible desks in especially dedicated clusters, thus enabling our commitment to growing flexibility. Another program on which we started working on in 2020 is Flexi Time – this would allow the employees a better work-life balance by having the possibility to choose start and end time, within the available time windows, while managing a time account.
Individual labor agreements types
OMV Petrom and affiliated companies fully comply with the labor legislation when making available various types of individual labor agreements. As per the legal requirements, individual labor agreements are usually concluded for an unlimited period of time, this being a rule for hiring, as per Romanian legislation and the company’s organizational culture. The employment under individual labor agreement for limited periods of time is available in the specific cases prescribed by the legislation (for example to ensure as a substitute for the employees whose labor agreements are suspended or to cover needs where the activity increases) and for the limited durations allowed by the law (no more than 36 months). The employees having limited duration individual labor agreements benefit from similar rights are ensured to those having unlimited duration labor agreements. Where possible, limited duration employees have also access to unlimited duration positions.
Part-time employments are also available where compatible with the employer’s needs. Referring to the rights granted for part-time employment, the legal requirements are met, in terms of granting similar rights to full-time employment, except for the salaries computed on a pro-rata basis comparing the ones granted to full-time employees. The information on full-time job positions are available on the company’s intranet to ensure employee’s free access to it, as per the legal requirements.
Family-related rights:time off and financial support
We understand that our employees are part of families and this makes them happy and productive, therefore we make sure that they exercise their legal rights and have access to social security paid days off, as per the legal frame.
In line with the legal obligations, our employees are entitled to long-term paid time off via maternity leave (for women, prior and after childbirth); child care leave up to the child’s age of 2/3 years, and unpaid leave following the Leave for child care, to be granted to both men and women; leave for the care of the sick child under a certain age to be granted to both men and women; paternity leave up to 15 days; adoption leave for parents (men & women) adopting a child. Short-term vacations (days off) are also available as paid days for legal holidays including International Children Days, first day in school every year, and International Women’s Day;
In addition, under the collective labor agreement frame, our company encourages employees to participate to close family events by paid days off and also by dedicated allowances granted by the employer in relation to certain family events. Unpaid days off are also available for personal situations.
The internal arrangements also refer to the reimbursement of part of the costs with the education of small children, while advantageous conditions with some private education providers are also negotiated for our employees.
In the past years, OMV Petrom has achieved major steps towards being a digital player. In the context of the COVID-19 crises, this was a big advantage, as we were able to implement important stages in a record implementation time, like digital signature and work from home program for almost half of our employees.