If You Really Want Diversity, You Have to Create Structures for It

The Robert Bosch Stiftung has embarked on a journey in terms of diversity. In 2023, it developed a diversity strategy and appointed a diversity officer. In 2024, the Foundation signed up to the Diversity Charter and commissioned an extensive employee survey. The aim was to anonymously record, for the first time, diversity characteristics on which an HR department would otherwise have no information – such as migration and educational history, religious denomination, or everyday limitations. What was particularly important in the survey, however, was the employees' view of how diversity is dealt with at the Foundation. Nicole Karle-Komes, head of Human Resources at the Robert Bosch Stiftung, explains in an interview what she learnt from the results.

Nicole, why did the Foundation's HR department initiate a large-scale employee survey on the subject of diversity?

We wanted to know how diverse our foundation is: what level are we starting out with if we want to improve our diversity? I was very pleasantly surprised that we achieved such a high participation rate: 72 per cent!

What other results made you feel positive?

Firstly, that we are more diverse than we thought. For example, when it comes to migration backgrounds: 29 per cent of our employees have a history of migration – that is pretty much the average for the population in Germany. So, we are in a really good position here. 

Secondly, we find great promise in the fact that half of our employees with an academic degree are educational climbers. Conversely, this means that we are providing opportunities and that the social background of applicants really doesn't matter.

Thirdly, we are also in line with the German average in terms of the proportion of queer people. This is also reflected in our day-to-day work: our colleagues are open about it. Nobody has to hide. And, of course, I am also pleased that 80 per cent of those surveyed would recommend us as an employer.

What do you consider to be some of the sore points that emerged from the survey?

We learned that we have some colleagues for whom care work is an important issue – and that we should not always focus solely on parenthood. For mainly older employees, it's also about looking after and caring for relatives. So, we have to look at both. In this context, as an employer, we don't need to develop so many new things – but rather provide more transparent information about the support services we already offer to both groups.

What also became very clear is the issue of people with disabilities. On the one hand, as an employer we have to achieve a disability quota of five per cent. So far, we have two per cent of employees who are officially registered as such. In the survey, a total of 13 per cent of employees mentioned everyday impairments – from physical to mental to other impairments. We still don't know enough about this to be able to offer targeted support. We want to enter into trustful dialogue with these colleagues.

The perception of equal opportunities varies among the workforce. There were fairly high approval ratings for equal opportunities for men and women, while the ratings for equal opportunities for people with a migration background were significantly lower. What do you deduce from this?

We need to do something about this perception. It is important to create good examples that show that it is possible to develop independently of diversity characteristics. At the same time, we need to make it more transparent how our HR tools work and that they are not based on diversity characteristics. When developing employees, we always focus on their potential and performance – regardless of their origin.

Are you in favour of introducing a diversity quota – comparable to a quota for women that has been discussed in some companies?

I would always be against a quota, otherwise we are not doing justice to the people concerned. The impression of a quota advantage arises too quickly. We can only achieve acceptance if there is equal performance, competence and qualification. Nevertheless, as an employer, we can of course endeavour to open our doors even wider in the future via certain job advertisement portals or a specific choice of text or wording so that no one feels excluded, so that people from a wide range of backgrounds can apply and then get a chance. That is why we have made our recruitment process more diversity-sensitive since spring 2024.

In your opinion, where has the Foundation already made progress in terms of diversity in recent years – perhaps also under the active control of the HR department? 

Over the past ten years, the Foundation has repeatedly launched individual activities, and organised visible campaigns on the topic of diversity. However, lasting action and a consistent focus on diversity goals were missing. For certain funding programmes, we have always received applications from people with very different backgrounds and then specifically recruited applicants with a history of migration. We have made significant progress in this area in recent years – without having set this as an explicit goal.

We became really active in 2023: we developed a diversity strategy, from which fields of action and concrete goals emerged. Our current policies contribute to this. We have also invested a lot of money since 2023, including diversity training for all employees and the diversity survey. We are thereby creating a starting point for a joint learning journey.

How has this diversity training been received by employees?

We have a wide range of people at the Foundation: a lot of our employees are very experienced in diversity simply because they are responsible for funding matters related to inequity – but others also take a critical view of the topic and raise questions: What am I actually allowed to say? How should I speak if I want to express myself correctly and in a diversity-sensitive way? In addition to uncertainty, I have also experienced rejection in some cases, because it's about patronising and accusations. We may hastily and wrongly conclude from a less sensitive way of expressing ourselves that there is an underlying anti-diversity attitude.

We saw this clearly in the training sessions: The topic of diversity is also divisive. I can't expect 170 employees to all be unreserved advocates for diversity. That's why we also need to listen to concerns. Frankly, that's the most important thing for me in the training sessions: we raise awareness and learn from each other that this range exists – but we also get to talk about it.