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Diversity & Inclusion: Mercury’s goals as an employer of choice
To continue to attract and retain the best talent into the future, it is our duty to be recognised as a safe, diverse, and inclusive employer, offering equal opportunities, while investing in the wellbeing and development of our people.
We have a workforce of 3,800+ direct employees, and our diverse people hail from 46 different nationalities across the world. As an industry leader, we strive to provide a dynamic and innovative working environment that is inclusive for all.
With competition for new talent high, recruiting future leaders or experts is no easy task. Most candidates are passionate about sustainability, diversity & inclusion, and demand positive actions in this regard.
Crucial to this are our actions and efforts to provide an inclusive workplace that ensures all employees feel seen and heard, while maintaining a sense of belonging. Through our various procedures and frameworks, including performance management, feedback processes and annual salary review, we are taking conscious actions to address these challenges and achieve our goals.
As part of its agenda for Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations has identified “reduced Inequalities”, “gender equality”, “quality education”, “good health and wellbeing” and “decent work and economic growth” as some of the key drivers. These pillars form a key part of Mercury’s goals to attract and support employees.
Stella Ugborhioba, HR Business Partner, recently spoke our goals for diversity, inclusion and equality at Mercury, and the measures we have undertaken to ensure we remain an employer of choice.
Read below for Stella’s full insight.
How does policy at Mercury ensure a working environment that promotes diversity & inclusion?
“Our commitment to diversity & inclusion is one of the key drivers of our winning culture, and we continue to build momentum in this regard. We have several policies and procedures in place to ensure that the relevant support systems are present to empower our diverse workforce. For example, we have a resource for reporting any employee who contravenes our Dignity & Respect at work policy. During 2021, four D&I grievances were recorded, and three of these were resolved by the end of the year, the fourth complaint was lodged in late December of last year. While this might seem like a low figure for a company of our size, it is our ultimate goal to provide a workplace where no breaches occur.“
“In addition, we also review and upgrade our HR procedures and practices to ensure all new hires receive critical training related to D&I. Employees and managers receive annual refresher workshops or training courses to keep these principles fresh in their minds, and we also partner with organizations specializing in sourcing new hires from non-traditional groups to further increase the diversity of our workforce.”
How does Mercury embed Diversity and Inclusion in company structures and processes?
“We listen to what employees have to say and understand how people are experiencing the culture within the company. We are engaging with executive and senior leaders and are planning more actions to implement further improvements to our workplace environment towards a fully inclusive employee experience. ”
“Our workforce is diverse in a number of ways. Firstly, we operate in 14 countries and employ 3,800+ direct staff from 46 different countries. In addition to this, we have a well-balanced age-profile. Around 25% of our staff are less than 30 years old, with 15% aged over 50. Almost 60% of our employees are Millennial’s and the average age of workforce is 36. These unique and diverse perspectives empower us to drive a positive culture of innovation, improvement, inclusion, while also promoting the sharing of knowledge. ”
What does Mercury do to support gender equality?
“We understand the importance of promoting women’s achievements and in increasing visibility of our women in construction. While females in this industry may be fewer in numbers when compared to males, their dynamic work and leadership makes a significant difference to the projects that we deliver throughout Europe. ”
„At Mercury our commitment to equality goes beyond yearly initiatives and is something that we strive to instill into our working culture on a daily basis. This has been greatly reflected in our recruitment and retention statistics over the past twelve months.“
„Including trades, nine percent of our workforce is made up of women, which compares favorably to 6.5% of women in the construction industry, while 14.2% of our senior executives are women. In 2021, female hires grew from 11% to 16% in 2021, which rises to 21% when you exclude trades hires. In terms of the next generation, 20% of our graduate programme intake for 2021 are females, which is up from 7% on the year previous. We’ve also noted a significant increase in our number of female apprentices, which grew by 200% in 2021. In terms of internal career opportunities, we promoted almost 20% of our female employees over the last year, while the figure for male promotions is lower at 5%. In addition, it worth highlighting that our retention rate for female employees stands at 99% as of last year. We are also conscious that men do not always get to spend much time with their new-born children. For this reason, we chose to go beyond the legal unpaid paternity leave entitlement and pay fathers for a number of these days.”
„These figures give insight into the improvements we have made towards parity, but we know that as a company, we must keep finding new and innovative ways to attract and source new hires from under-represented groups, especially in the trades.“
What does Mercury do to ensure fair remuneration?
“We utilise local and internal compensation and bench-marking during the hiring process. Our HR function works to ensure all offers are realistic and up to date with the latest market data, and in line with existing compensation packages for comparable roles within the company. Every year we conduct a group-wide salary review process using an online platform. Managers consider individual increases based on an overall approved budget for their department. Managers can compare individuals in their group, or in similar roles, using historic increases and performance management information for each employee. This ensures that we have a fair approach, and that each employee’s compensation package is reviewed every twelve months.”
What are the achievements of Diversity and Inclusion at Mercury?
“Our commitment to Diversity & Inclusion is one of the key motivators behind our winning culture and the fact that we recently achieved the Irish Centre for Diversity’s Silver status underlines this. As part of this award, we issued a survey that solicited feedback from employees regarding their experience and impressions of our D&I practices in the workplace. We were pleased with our result which was received at the end of 2021 and highlights early progress over our previous rating of Bronze. Covering the principles of behaviours, conduct, attitudes and individual beliefs of staff allows us to map out specific improvement goals and activities for the coming 12 months.”
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
At Mercury, our drive towards diversity & inclusion is one of the key driving factors behind our winning culture.
We have put in place a Diversity & Inclusion Policy that is driven by our Executive Management Team. Diversity & Inclusion is woven into the fabric of the vision and values of Mercury, not only through our culture, but through the entire life cycle of the employee experience.
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