Competitive advantages through diversity

The diversity of our employees creates opportunities for BASF. It helps us to react to changing markets and tap into new customer segments. The goal of our Diversity + Inclusion initiative is to recruit and support employees worldwide who bring a variety of social and specialized skills to our company and contribute to BASF’s success. We aim to encourage a corporate culture in which everyone plays a part and is appreciated. Furthermore, we respond to expectations regarding career advancement and work-life balance. Our Best Team approach focuses on the inclusion of varying competencies and backgrounds, but without setting an overall project goal such as quotas. All divisions and regions define their goals based on their own business strategies and situations, and implement individual measures to achieve them. Anchoring these values in our business is the basis of our strategy. In 2009, we analyzed success factors and potential for improvement in pilot projects in Europe, North America and Asia: In this way, we examine which project measures lead to improvements. As a result, we are implementing Diversity + Inclusion measures globally in further areas.

In 2009, the percentage of women in senior executive positions in the BASF Group was 6.5%. The percentage of non-German senior executives was 32.7% in 2009, while 76.8% of senior executives had international experience. We provide equal opportunities for all employees and are committed to the equal treatment of both men and women. We do not make any distinction between male and female employees when it comes to setting salaries.

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BASF Group employee structure 2009 (2008 in parentheses)
	Women	Men
Total number of employees	22.5% (21.9%)	77.5% (78.1%)
Management and professionals	24.1% (23.2%)	75.9% (76.8%)
Senior executives	6.5%   (5.7%)	93.5% (94.3%)