Governance, risk & compliance
development, means the best talent is less likely to be overlooked, improving results. A truly inclusive culture encourages that talent to stay at the company for longer, reducing recruitment costs. In an industry as dynamic as media intelligence, where companies are competing fiercely for talent, being an attractive employer is the only way to stay at the top of your game.
Before Shishkina and Bjertnæs accepted positions at Meltwater, its retention statistics already spoke to a strong and supportive culture. The average executive tenure is seven years, and CEO John Box is a 16-year veteran of the company. “The values are very clear, they have been very consistent and rooted in Norway and we still pronounce them in the regional language,” Shishkina says.
There are three key values: Fun (‘Moro’), Number One (‘Enere’) and Respect (‘Respekt’), which, when distilled into their Norwegian acronym, MER, mean ‘more’. “It’s about always going the extra mile, delivering more, being more of what you can be,” explains Bjertnæs. “We’re very mindful of being a public company and creating value with the shareholders in terms of revenue growth and profitability,” she continues. “But also, if you ask anybody for help, they’ll always step in, they do it with a smile. It’s a combination [of] being number one but with respect for each other. You feel like you can drop your shoulders and achieve things together without competing against each other. That culture is the glue that brings us all together on a good day or tough day.”
The right impact Deloitte’s CFO Signals survey for Q2 2021, which drew 138 responses, asked finance chiefs to name “the one thing you plan to do to make the greatest impact on advancing DEI”. Their responses centered on reducing biases in recruiting, hiring, and development practices, including diversifying their teams and modelling inclusive leadership. Another high-ranking response was setting DEI-related goals and metrics. These findings chime with Meltwater’s approach. At present, Shishkina is focused on assessing the current talent within the company and looking at the diversity of the talent mix. She is in the process of hiring a team from the Netherlands that will be in charge of transactional accounting, which is set to be the company’s most diverse yet. But this is just one strand of a much wider DEI strategy, led by Bjertnæs, who was recently appointed as the global sponsor for all Meltwater DEI initiatives. “Commitment to DEI needs to come from the top, and should not be seen as a solely HR initiative,” Bjertnæs stresses. “Moreover, our DEI initiatives need to be sustained, consistent, measurable and backed by investment. It’s not a quick fix and we don’t see it that way.”
Finance Director Europe /
www.financedirectoreurope.com
Meltwater has had a DEI strategy in place for the last two years, but Bjertnæs says the company is now at the point of honing its structure. She has a cross-functional team with HR, comms and other departments involved, as well as an external advisor who brings an objective point of view to how Meltwater is doing. That’s shadowed by scaling already existing programmes and pinpointing where impact can be made most effectively, a process which involves detailed goal setting and defining realistic and measurable KPIs.
Some of the DEI measurements that Meltwater tracks include the obvious, such as the percentage of employees and leadership that are women. But less common metrics are being used too – including the number of languages each employee speaks. “We’re geographically spread across five continents, and we have 50 offices,” Bjertnæs says. “Are we respecting that part of our culture? And do we measure it as part of our cultural diversity?” Meltwater’s DEI team will also start measuring its diversity tunnel in terms of gender and race – from the board right down to the recent recruits. That’s echoed by considering KPIs around DEI education: who is taking the courses on offer, and what percentage of employees are actually completing them? “One thing we work a lot with is building trust and understanding, so we get the right numbers into our KPIs,” Bjertnæs says. “Everybody has to feel that this is a safe environment to share, a safe environment to build, and that we’re measuring the right things.”
Setting a benchmark
These kinds of measurements allow Meltwater to demonstrate not only to employees but also to the wider industry what progress they are making on the DEI front – and its impact on financial performance. “It’s crucial for us as a listed company that we communicate our goals and KPIs externally to
Alexandra Bjertnæs, chief strategy officer, Meltwater
Lena Shishkina, chief financial officer, Meltwater
10%
The annual stock return over five years of the 20 most diverse companies in the S&P 500, compared with the 4.2% achieved by their least diverse counterparts.
Wall Street Journal 37
Meltwater
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