One Day With… Laura Johanns, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Expert

At Uniper, we believe that an inclusive corporate culture brings added value, promotes creativity and innovation, and strengthens the resilience of the organization. We are pleased that many of our employees are committed to the topics of diversity, equity and inclusion. To live up to these values throughout the company, we need a driving force to implement our DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) strategy and to further develop it with a variety of measures and initiatives. 

An important part of this is Laura Johanns, who, alongside her colleague Larissa Leienbach, makes up the DEI team. Of course, the pair are not on their own. They receive plenty of support from managers, DEI ambassadors and various DEI networks, who act as disseminators and promote diversity, equity and inclusion in the company through events and activities. Nevertheless, Laura and Larissa are always involved — projects across the company always end up back with them, since they maintain an overview and coordinate all measures at Uniper.

Laura has always been very interested in politics, global developments, social sciences and, above all, psychology. During her Master's degree in Business Psychology, she was able to dive deeper into topics such as intercultural awareness, business ethics and personnel and organizational development. Laura started as a trainee in the HR department at Uniper, then switched sides and managed trainees before taking on the role of DEI Expert in mid-2022. "For me, a great job has to involve exciting topics that are meaningful and have a purpose, make a real difference for our employees and, of course, also bring added value for the company," says Laura. "In short, implementing our DEI strategy is clearly a job that serves a higher purpose — and that's what I'm striving for."

Since her work is highly project-related, Laura does not have a daily routine. Each day is completely different and always depends on current projects and deadlines. The tasks vary greatly and comprise up to five or six different topics per day: Laura is responsible for everything from an operational to a highly strategic level. Among other things, she is working on a new mentoring program for personal development, the implementation of job sharing as a new working model, the "You Belong" DEI training program and a gender pay gap analysis together with external consultants and various reports. 

The overall goal is to create an inclusive workplace on a conceptual and company-wide level, where people feel comfortable and can contribute their own ideas and opinions. Laura has always felt comfortable at Uniper. "Even though the workload is high, everyone tries to pull together to move the company—and in particular the energy transition—forward," she says. Laura values the freedom and flexibility in designing projects and processes, developing new ideas, making decisions and trying out new approaches that comes as part of her role. In order to promote an inclusive way of working, she considers collaboration in teams and interaction with different stakeholders to be essential for understanding different views, perspectives and needs, and for learning from their experiences.

Become an energy evolutionary: https://www.uniper.energy/career