Diversity
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“The global diversity of Luxottica’s businesses, brands, customers and employees is fundamental to our position as the global leader in eyewear. Being open-minded about diverse thinking and leadership styles, personal and professional experience, cultural patterns and differences will drive our continued growth as we pursue incredible potential in the ever more competitive global markets. It is a mindset that is central to The Way Forward and our ability to be entrepreneurial, imaginative, passionate, simple and fast.”
Andrea Guerra, CEO, Luxottica Group
Andrea Guerra, CEO, Luxottica Group
Luxottica is a diverse global family of more than 60,000 employees. We speak 55 languages and serve millions of customers across 130 countries. We believe diversity and inclusion of our associates, customers and partners is fundamental to the Group’s success as a dynamic global business. We have a strategic approach to how we think about this and our leaders are committed to its success. We proudly support industry-recognized Diversity Training programs, associate engagement through culture teams, a diverse supplier base and recognize employee efforts to champion diversity through the Spirit of Diversity Awards. We also partner with leading diversity and inclusion organizations.
The Way We Define Diversity & Inclusion
In today’s world, change is constant. As a global organization, Luxottica must be open to change in order to be successful. We must embrace The Way Forward by being Entrepreneurial, Imaginative, Passionate, Simple and Fast. Our shared understanding of diversity, inclusion and cultural patterns is integral to all of these characteristics.
Diversity: We define Diversity as leveraging differences and similarities in our employees, customers, doctors, and partners to be the best place to work, shop, invest and the best at helping the world see. We have very talented employees whose different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives are essential to our continued success.
Inclusion: Inclusion is the business approach we take to embrace these differences and similarities in a way that engages employees at all levels, fostering both individual success and the success of the company.
The Importance of Understanding Cultures and Cultural Patterns
“Our success together, the result of shared work, requires understanding of other cultures and different cultural patterns, including how we see ourselves, how we interact with others, how we communicate and how we see and interact with the world around us.”
Nicola Pela, Luxottica Group Global Human Resources Director
Our employees and customers come from all over the world and represent many different cultures, producing a pattern of behaviour, attitudes and values. We believe there are four key areas that are critical when examining and understanding cultural differences:
Identity:How we see ourselves
Relationship orientation:How we interact with others
Communication:How we define ourselves and what is around us
World orientation:How we see and interact with the world around us
Within these four key areas there are many different patterns. Understanding these patterns is critical to establishing important, long-lasting relations with all of our employees and customers around the world.
Diversity & Inclusion Priorities and Supporting Initiatives
“Our leadership team understands the great power of diversity to grow our employees and build our business by valuing the similarities and differences that drive our entrepreneurial spirit and ignite our passion for excellence. Together we leverage diversity and inclusion to develop our employees, serve the needs of our customers and expand our charitable work to help the world see.”
Keith Borders, Vice President of Associate Relations & Diversity
Our People
While there are many dimensions to our complex vertically integrated business, the foundation of our success is simple: our people. Luxottica is dedicated to a culture of customer service excellence where employee satisfaction and engagement, training and development, diversity and inclusion are the central pillars of who we are and guide the important work we do every day.
We want to recruit and retain the best talent in the world. We have a specific priority to increase the number of women in leadership positions globally and we are partnering with McKenzie on programs to achieve our goals. (Link to article)
Our Passion
One of the most important ways we connect our global workforce and immerse our employees in different cultures is through OneSight foundation. Every year, we bring cross-functional teams of employees from different countries in the world together to volunteer on global and regional clinics, created ad hoc, where they provide care to those in need. It is a profound experience for our employees, coming from all over the world, to interact with their global colleagues and work side-by-side for a humanitarian project while immersing themselves in a new cultural context.
Articles and Presentations
Luxottica leaders are frequently invited to share best practices and key teachings about our diversity and inclusion initiatives in news articles or at conferences. We are always seeking opportunities to learn more and exchange ideas with other organizations and thought leaders. Following are several articles about our programs as well as some recent conferences featuring Luxottica leaders:
Diversity Executive: Intercultural Team Work Opportunities at Luxottica Retail
Recognizing the true value and innovation within its own workforce, Luxottica Retail has created employee resource groups (Volunteer Intercultural Teams) to leverage the creative, cultural and communication skills of employees. These groups have provided valuable insights into what customers want and need to strengthen product mix and advertising and marketing campaigns that in turn have increased revenues and market share.
Business Courier of Cincinnati: LensCrafters parent sets goal to employ more woman executives
Striving to reflect the customer base and talent pool, Luxottica Group aims to increase representation of women to 30% of its top 200 jobs worldwide. Currently, about 60 percent of Luxottica’s customers are women, but they comprise only 38 percent of its employee base in Milan. Luxottica is making strides: women make up 63% of all associates, the heads of US-based EyeMed Vision Care and Target Optical are women, six of its 37 worldwide country managers are women and one of 8 factories is managed by a woman.
Business Courier of Cincinnati: By taking on an equity partner, the horizon has been expanded for the Cincinnati-based consulting firm Global Lead
Luxottica has welcomed the strengthening of Global Lead Management Consulting, its partner in diversity and inclusion, when the firm added Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group as an equity partner to provide capital and strategic expertise for international expansion. Global Lead has helped Luxottica develop internal diversity policies and training programs as well as a global approach to leverage the diversity of its international work force and customer base. The firm’s expansion provides Luxottica with greater resources and understanding of cultural and diversity issues around the world.
Attachments
Last update: 8 NOVEMBER 2011
