COVID-19 Updates
The health and safety of our patients and teammates is our top priority. We are keeping a close eye on this situation and reinforcing the extensive infection control practices already in place to protect them. Please watch an important video and find resources on this page.
Diversity &
Belonging
Belonging starts with each of us, so we are empowering all teammates to create belonging with each other.
Vision for Diversity & Belonging
Our vision: “a diverse Village where everyone belongs.”
Our teammates provide life-sustaining care to over 240,000 patients across the globe. Our more than 3,000 dialysis centers operate in communities large and small in Brazil, China, Columbia, Germany, Malaysia, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The diversity of our Village is inherent in the teammates who work in our centers, the patients we care for, the physicians with whom we partner and the communities we serve.
To realize our vision of “a diverse Village where everyone belongs,” we take a collaborative, leader-led and teammate-driven approach to building our Diversity & Belonging (D&B) program. Everyone, from our front-line patient care technicians and nurses to our divisional vice presidents, CEO and our board of directors, is involved in building and implementing our strategy. It truly will take a Village to bring our vision to life. In this inaugural report, we’ll share:
Our current state
Where We Stand
Our focus areas
What We're Doing
Initiatives we're planning to further pursue our vision
Where We're Going
Strategic objectives & commitments
Last year, we expanded our scope beyond D&B to include economic mobility and health equity. Here is how we bring those to life:
Diversity
We strive to have strong representation of women and people of color in our Village by meeting or exceeding EEO-1 benchmarks for all levels.
Belonging
We aspire to create belonging for all teammates, patients, physicians and care partners regardless of gender, race/ethnicity or any other factor.
Economic Mobility
We are committed to supporting teammates to increase their earnings potential through career development and educational opportunities.
Health Equity
We are dedicated to contributing to equitable health care access and outcomes for the patient communities we serve.
Diversity
Where we stand
We recognize there are many dimensions of diversity that contribute to our unique perspectives. This includes gender identity or expression, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, veteran status, socio-economic status, education, background, work experience and many other elements.
Where we've made progress
We are proud of the diversity of our Village which is:
78%
women
54%
people of color
Leaders with profit and loss responsibility are:
52%
women
27%
people of color
We also have strong representation of women in manager and director roles:
74%
of managers are women
54%
of directors are women
What we're doing
Building a diverse leadership pipeline through external recruiting.
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Diverse Slates and Panels: We strive to have a diverse candidate slate and interview panel whenever possible for leadership roles. A diverse slate or panel includes at least one woman and at least one person of color.
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Diverse Sourcing: Our recruiters are trained on how to source for diverse candidates to ensure we have a robust pipeline at all levels of the organization.
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Redwoods Leadership: We partner closely with diverse student body organizations at universities to source applicants for our Redwoods leadership development programs.
Enabling teammates to reach their full potential by having career development programs that support their growth.
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Career development programs support our full talent pipeline, from entry- to director-level teammates, to foster a fulfilling and meaningful career.
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Coaching and mentoring programs support our high-potential teammates with tailored feedback and customized development plans.
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Through cohort learning, teammates learn as a group about the competencies required to reach the next step in their career.
We’ll continue to expand our efforts to support women and teammates of color by evolving our diverse recruiting and talent development initiatives.
Recruiting: Continue to build our pipeline of diverse leaders and remove bias from the process.
Development: Expand internal programs to support even more diverse leaders and evaluate external development opportunities.
Where we're going
Belonging
Where we stand
Belonging is a fundamental desire.
According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, belonging is a universal desire—every one of us has a powerful need to belong. We’re focused on belonging instead of inclusion because inclusion can make it seem like there are insiders and outsiders and that the outsiders must be “included.” We expect our Village to be a place where everyone is an insider—where everyone feels valued and a sense of belonging.
Belonging extends to all aspects of how teammates experience their workplace and team. It comprises the million tiny moments in a day where we connect with our teammates, support each other when things get hard or take a moment to share a smile or a laugh.
What we're doing
Belonging starts with each of us, so we are empowering all teammates to create belonging with each other. In addition to providing opportunities for teammates to create connection, we have a proprietary suite of learning content including eLearning, facilitated training and one-on-one coaching.
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We create belonging for patients by getting to know them as people. We strive for all of our centers to feel like a second home – a place where our patients feel a sense of belonging. We do this through:
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Our WE CARE behaviors.
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Multi-media, award-winning patient education.
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Celebrating patients in creative ways and having Fun together.
84%
of teammates say they feel like they belong on their teams.
82%
of teammates say their manager creates a sense of belonging.
Some of the most incredible ideas for creating belonging come to us from teammates all across our Village. We’ve spent much of 2020 listening to and learning from our teammates. Based on their feedback, we’ve identified where we should continue to invest to create a Village where everyone belongs.
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Increase communications, both internally and externally, to create accountability and visibility into our work.
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Empower managers to own D&B on their team.
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Continue to provide opportunities for teammates to create connection with one another.
Where we're going
Economic Mobility &
Health Equity
In 2020, we considered how to evolve our D&B strategy with the goal of expanding our impact and scope, informed by intentional, sustained outreach to teammates. We took an inside-out approach, focusing first on what we can impact in our Village and then, in the broader communities we serve. In that spirit, we committed to invest $3,000,000 over the next three years to support teammates and communities of color. We asked our teammates, as we often do, how they wanted us to invest these dollars. Two themes emerged: economic mobility and health equity. We are excited to add several new initiatives alongside our existing programs to make progress on both of these meaningful topics.
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Economic Mobility: Supporting teammates to increase their earnings potential through career development and educational opportunities
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Health Equity: Contributing to equitable health care access and outcomes for the patient communities we serve.
Partnerships & Acknowledgments
Through working with the Forté Foundation and Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT), we are increasing our visibility to diverse candidates and bringing more diverse leaders to our Village.
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We’ve partnered with Forté Foundation since 2013. Their mission is to launch women into fulfilling, significant careers through access to business education, professional development and a community of successful women.
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We’ve partnered with Management Leadership for Tomorrow since 2015. MLT equips and emboldens high-achieving women and men from underrepresented communities to realize their full potential, make a mark and make a difference.
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On Oct. 21, 2020, MLT launched the MLT Black Equity at Work certification, a first-of-its-kind comprehensive, rigorous, but achievable standard for what “good” looks like with respect to Black equity. We are proud to join the inaugural Black Equity at Work cohort, which involves committing to develop a Black Equity at Work Certification Plan with MLT’s support by early 2021.
Acknowledgments
As we continue to advance our D&B efforts we are humbled by the acknowledgments we have received from external D&B champions.
