D.Diversity

"Innovation comes from positive ‘frictions’ between different personalities and backgrounds."

Enjoy being surprised

Franck Riboud

Our Diversity journey: where we are, where we are going.1

Enjoy being surprised

To start with Valuing the cultural, social, gender and generational diversity of our employees, benefiting from the richness of their different experiences and backgrounds: this is no longer an HR topic but a business topic.

The collective intelligence created within teams where different people bring together their differences and their strengths leads to innovation.

Interview with Bernard HOURS

Diversity, what does it mean to you?

It’s firstly the diversity of Danone businesses, our products and the extreme speed with which social and economic contexts change. It’s also our spectacular geographical transformation in less than 4 years.

It’s the diversity of our consumers, of their nutritional needs, cultures, levels of purchasing power and the huge impact of social networks and new technologies on purchasing behaviours, which are making traditional consumer categories disappear.

What is at stake for Danone?

To be able to understand our consumers and their cultures, through many talents reflecting the local societies at all levels of the organisation. >> To learn to manage businesses in very different countries, to invent new business models, to accompany the growth by an offer more and more differentiated and accessible to the largest number of people. >> To attract and retain talents, to develop them as much as possible according to their wishes and possibilities, to accompany our growth.

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How can we advance concretely?

Firstly, I went to the Danone Women Leadership LAB and I was struck by the famous “crocodile chart”.

We put in energy to recruit and train women and we lose them. Let’s stop this waste of talents.

I supported the “Women action plan”, with Muriel, which aims to reduce barriers both at individual and collective levels.

Then, we need more mixed teams to keep high our mental agility, thinking out of the box to achieve breakthrough results.

Diversity means business Our commitments >> Danone has signed a worldwide Diversity agreement in 2007 with IUF (International Union of Food). This agreement has adopted an HR “Diverse teams, process approach that allows it to be declined in all countries, when managed well, whatever the local context. significantly outperform homogeneous teams” >> Diversity is one of the 16 points of the Danone Way fundamentals on which all CBUs assess themselves every year, on policies as well Susanne as on concrete results. Indicators, which evolve as we progress, LUICK-NIJBOER concern today: women, promotions to the 1st manager level, and another indicator that is locally selected.

Two examples... >> In 2008, HOD Mexico hired 120 women and built pairs with men. In only one year, these “mixed teams” have increased results by 30% in terms of daily delivery compared to 3% in other “market routes”.

MX HOD Sales Increase 09 vs 08 with Mixed Teams +3% 100 95

87

= +27% 90

90

86 +30%

85 80

2008

75

66

70

2009

65 60 55 50

Home Channel HOD (905 routes)

Comunidad Hogar/ Mixed teams (120 routes)

>> When French Business Units made their consumers’ hotline available to deaf people through a weblink using sign language, this allowed them to reach 5 million potential new consumers. >> In only 18 months, the number of calls on a monthly basis increased by 30%.

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Enjoy being surprised

STOP mental barriers Some thoughts that may cross our minds: If you are not a GM when you reach 40 years old, you should look for another opportunity

A worker will always remain a worker A cross functional move is a waste of time or a sign of no possibility in growing up further

A plant manager is obviously a man

We need to open our minds, connect inside and outside: welcome different profiles, mix generations, break silos, reveal talents that we might not have discovered yet, in order to drive business.

Enjoy being surprised!

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The Diversity journey The Diversity path

Women action plan

Diversity agreement

Open sourcing strategy

Modularity and Flexibility LABS

The women action plan Why a women action plan at Danone?

Let’s have a look at the current metrics

What is this action plan?

To ensure equality in processes

100 %

Men

80 %

73 %

To leverage self confidence

90 %

Attraction

76 %

68 %

Training

Balanced recruitment at all levels

Up to now > 200 women trained

Promotion

Several hundred mentors and mentees involved

62 %

60 %

55 % 54 % 53 %

40 %

Fair talent/ fair share

47 % 45 % 46 %

Mentoring

38 % 32 %

20 %

27 %

Retention

Systematic exit interview

24 % 10 %

9.9

9

8

7

6b

6a

Management levels

5

4 and up 12/2010

“Dare to be empowered, that is the essence of EVE. A seminar in partnership with other companies, which aims to shape stronger individuals, women and men, to bring change in the organization” Anne THEVENETABITBOL

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Women 0%

Networking

Up to now, 10 women networks

Monitor the metrics and fuel the pipe to close the mouth of the crocodile

This action plan is the result of a working group of 80 Danoners who met in 2009 and 2010. This work doesn’t stop here. Today we keep working on new topics “career path modularity” and “work life flexibility” that concern all Danoners.

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Enjoy being surprised

Open Sourcing is on its way CODE allows us to be more ambitious in our choices for recruiting and developing people. CODE is a kind of compass to detect personalities with something special inside: authenticity, convictions, able to grow themselves and help others around them to develop CODE attitudes.

CODE should be a language of diversity!

Externally “Recruiting with CODE” guidelines have been circulated to all HRDs and resources developers. Based on different initiatives in CBUs (such as recruiting without resume and cover letter in France, and partnerships with universities and using assessment centers for recruiting on personalities at Danone Waters China), that challenges our traditional ways of sourcing and selecting people.

Internally - Best practice identified within the group as an enabler for leveraging ALL talents (coming from Danone Dairy Belgium and some others) is to move from managers’ review to people review, meaning small teams, annual meetings and IPD for all.

- Looking at different individual career paths, we noticed that cross functional “We need moves are now needed to enlarge competencies and vision in order to face to get past the more and more complex business situations. labels. What matters is to offer to everyone the same chances of progression, regardless of their level of studies”

Albert RAGON

ERSITY PEOPLE DIV

E IN DANON

team hecklist look at your current organization / Diversity yocur need for diversity,tio ns:

6

To assess wing ques er the follo and consid

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For interna

Let diversity become a competitive advantage!

Interview with Muriel PENICAUD

What have we learnt so far?

The first learning comes from the meetings we have organized in Evian about women: we need to explore and develop, all of us, women and men; different characteristics of leadership , both sides of our brain, right and left; rigor and intuition, power and cooperation: we don’t have to choose, we have to combine. That is true for women and men but also for all types of diversity.

The second learning comes from business units having experimented with different ways for recruiting and developing people. For example searching for young graduates with artistic or literature backgrounds and not only people coming from traditional business schools. Another example is to develop an inclusive atmosphere to harness diverse talents.

What are the next steps?

>> Implement a women action plan at CBU level: your HRD has the tools, let’s define your ambition and monitor the progress.

>> Appoint a Diversity referent to be a point of contact at CBU level in order to support initiatives, to share good practices and to help to move forward on the diversity journey.

We are now working on career path modularity and flexibility: the demographic changes occurring in many countries, the lengthening of the working life and the expectations of the “millennium generation” lead us to rethink our career rhythms and dynamics to give meaning, to create loyalty and to support the performance of the company. We have to move from standardized processes to more personalized ones if we want to remain a great place to grow.

Diversity brings us out of our comfort zone, and it is worth it, because innovation comes from mixing diverse profiles.

Diversity is both a social and business issue, the objective is to boost business by being a reflection of our society and creating the conditions of company transformation.

Performance of Diverse Teams Number of Teams Homogeneous

>> Integrate Open Sourcing with CODE: use the CODE guidelines for recruiting extensively and ask head hunters to provide lists of diverse candidates. >> Add diversity “eye openers” in training courses: as from now, diversity will be part of the DLC and management training courses, as transformation levers. We need to remove the fears, to leverage openness for better knowledge and respect for each other…, the condition to be ready to… enjoy being surprised!

Diverse

Low

Diverse teams with appropriate support

Performance

High

Diverse teams perform better than homogeneous teams when giving support to understand the personal differences and cultural signals, connecting across differences.

Joe DiStefano, JDS-MBI Model

IMD International, Lausanne, Switzerland

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How far we have come...

Next steps are in our hands

To come ... Diversity as a competitive advantage 2011 MODULARITY AND FLEXIBILITY LABS for ALL Danoners

2010

CODE Into Recruiting

2nd DWLL

Output : WOMEN ACTION PLAN

2009

OPEN SOURCING LABS

1st DWLL in EVIAN Output : MENTORING and CAREER PATHS Labs

2008 2007

1st women leadership training course.

Output : MEETING WITH Franck RIBOUD and decision to work on women

Danone/IUF Diversity agreement

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CONTACT: catherine.thibaux@danone.com

June 2011