Diversity, equality and inclusion

At Applus+, our workforce is our most important asset, enabling us to innovate, respond to the needs of our clients and maintain our reputation of excellence. We promote a people-centric culture within the company, fostering a working atmosphere that is diverse and inclusive, and which enables professional and personal development and success. 

Every Applus+ employee is unique, and we want everyone to achieve their potential. We work to maintain and improve our teams to reflect a diverse, inclusive and dynamic society. Our diverse talent management, in accordance with our corporate values, allows us to attract and retain the best professionals. These talented people help us to achieve better sustainable results.
 

Based on our Equality and Diversity Policy, which establishes a framework for the Group to develop specific actions toward that goal, various initiatives have been implemented based on clarity, simplicity, openness, and inclusivity, principles that are backbone of our corporate culture.

Applus+ is firmly committed to the promotion of equal rights and opportunities for women and men, a commitment that has been materialising over the years in Equality Plans and HR policies in every country of operation. We have also joined the UN’s 7 Women’s Empowerment Principles.

We have developed a model of equality that’s not only directed at the implementation of isolated measures; showing respect for everybody has become part of our organizational culture and is the base of our Code of Ethics and our Equality and Diversity Policies. 

We are particularly pleased with our Equality and Diversity Councils, a meeting place to establish, implement and maintain the following measures:

• Promoting a culture of respect towards everyone and between one another.
• Equality opportunities for all, focalising on diversity and disadvantaged groups, such as differently-abled people.

We have signed collaboration agreements with more than 20 foundations and organisations that help us to include vulnerable groups into our workforce, like Once Foundation and Prodis in Spain, Matamoro Corporation in Colombia or the Buffalo Niagara Partnership Diversity & Inclusion Council in the US, among others.

“Diversity in the company is about incorporating different temperaments, talents and convictions. We accept women for who they are and for their unique perspectives and gifts they offer, hence the importance of Work-Life Balance and Equality Councils. We need to hear all of the perspectives from every woman across the company”, points out Raquel Grandal, Operations Manager and head of Applus+ Automotive’s Diversity and Equality Council.

We monitor the results of the initiatives and the participation of our employees in highlighting new ways to expand and disseminate our actions both internally and externally.

Diversity Policies at Applus+ 

The Global Anti-Discrimination Policy and the Diversity and Inclusion Policy include the commitments made by Applus+ to promote diversity and respect for all people in the organisation:

• Ensure that curricular and extracurricular activities are available to all employees.
• Identify discrimination as a factor devaluing society and impacting anyone in our Traning Plan. 
• Promote equality, avoiding situations which may lead to some form of discrimination and/or stereotype.
• Effectively communicate these policies to all personnel through the induction process during the on-boarding of new employees, through courses aimed at managers, and through the application of new recruits.
• Hold managers and all staff responsible for the application of policies through a training specially designed for this purpose. 
• Reject any discrimination on grounds of race, age, sex, marital status, nationality, beliefs, or any other physical or social characteristics of our staff, and consider diversity a value that results in different points of view that provide greater creativity and innovation.
• Ensure a culture of respect and promote openness and diversity regarding the company’s stakeholders.
• Guarantee the right to equal opportunities and equal treatment for everyone in the organisation, so they can develop personally and professionally and provide their best work.
• Avoid any type of discrimination in access to employment and promotion, professional classification, training, remuneration, work-life balance, family and personal life, and other working conditions.
• Recognise that human rights are fundamental and universal and they must be based on international conventions, treaties and initiatives, such as the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Labor Organisation and the UN Global Compact.
• Promote the use of inclusive, non-sexist, non-discriminatory language, free from prejudice, with the aim of favour respect and equality between the sexes.
• Raise awareness of women and prevent violence and discrimination against anyone, ensuring a work environment free from harassment.

To accomplish these principles, the company is developing and implementing appropriate training programmes and procedures. Since 2021 all members of the Applus+ staff have received training on the Diversity and Equality Policy, as part of our Code of Ethics.

2022 – 2023 Objectives

The Board of Directors of Applus+ has approved that part of the variable remuneration of the management team will depend on the achievement of four ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) objectives, linked to the results of the decarbonisation strategy, diversity, health & safety and ethics.

We aim to increase the representation of women within the company. We have implemented several measures to give more visibility to women in senior management positions.

• Shadowing programme with a female manager, based on selecting a talented female employee to carry out daily tasks with a female senior manager within the organisation, which provides other female workers with experiential learning. 
• We monitor equality between women and men within the Group’s main decision-making bodies. We have follow-up rates, with the aim of achieving gender equality.
• We give visibility to vulnerable groups through our internal channels, like the Appeople magazine.

At Applus+ we celebrate every year International Days highlighting vulnerable groups, and we mark national commemorations that draw attention to the cultural wealth and reflect the reality of ethnic and native peoples. On these occasions, we launch internal and external communication campaigns, both locally and globally.

• International Women's Day
• World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development
• LGTBI Pride Day
• Black Ethnicity Day
• Independence Day (some countries in which we operate)
• International Day for Tolerance
• International Day of Persons with Disabilities 

For more information on our initiatives, please visit our Diversity Report.

To see all the awards garnered by our diversity and equality initiatives, click here.