People and Culture Shared Interest Group

Dear fellow SIG members,

This post might be of interest to Finance professionals in the SIG People and Culture Group as it examines trends in word usage to describe diversity  matters in annual reports over time in the Netherlands / Europe. 

Last weekend there was an article in the Dutch newspaper FD which had an interesting table where they compared the diversity language used in the annual reports from AEX companies (Dutch blue chip companies). They counted the frequency of certain words / terms compared to the previous years. The outcome is not surprising and is related to the current political and regulatory winds. 

The majority of the AEX companies is using more neutral wording to describe what, in their view, is the same strategy. So between 2021 and now we moved from diversity and D&I to representation and gender to address the same topics.

This outcome highlights an area that requires continued attention and professional judgement in the context of transparent and balanced reporting. 

------------------------------
Gwen Van Berne CMA
Other
Rotterdam
Netherlands
------------------------------

Wow these are interesting statistics. And I do see the shift in wording in practice as well. Time will tell whether it does more harm or more good but until then, we can keep making sure that the issues that deserve attention are highlighted wherever needed!

------------------------------
Izz Ghanaa Ansari
------------------------------