Management Commentary

At the end of the rainbow is… a sustainable culture based on diversity in all its dimensions and a focus on well-being. Strong values, purpose, diversity, and social responsibility are what I believe a firm like Deloitte should help foster - within our firm, but also at our clients and in society. So, when we say we want more diversity in senior roles, we should try to affect the structural barriers that exist in society – not just in our firm. When our surveys show increasing pressure on the young generation, we need to work with societal institutions as well as our own leadership to bring mental health top of mind and help create healthier study and work environments for the next generation. And when I look back at the year that has passed, we have taken a great leap towards becoming just that. 

Are we there yet? Definitely not, but I am immensely proud of the courage shown within our firm to insist on doing what is right even though it is not easy to drive changes. 

This year has been another year of uncertainty. We made it through the pandemic and returned to work in a more flexible way. Then came the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, creating a whole new level of uncertainty that we had never imagined on European soil. On top of that, we are facing significantly higher inflation and economic uncertainty, and we must fight to reverse the urgent climate crisis - we cannot continue playing in overtime. For the sake of the next generations and their future, Deloitte is committed to addressing the climate crisis through our WorldClimate strategy and making a difference for 100 million futures by providing better learning opportunities through our WorldClass programme.  

Our most valuable asset is our people. Without our people, there simply is no Deloitte. Therefore, it is worrying that the Danish society has seen alarming - and rising - stress levels, especially among the youth. Two years of on-and-off lockdown and isolation followed by the senseless war in Ukraine and the financial instability derived from it have meant that some of our people have been under mental pressure and some have experienced increased workloads. Our internal well-being survey also shows increasing stress levels, which we are very concerned about.

Our response to proactively mitigate the above has been to focus on creating more flexible working conditions and improving well-being, thereby helping our people to live sustainable lives. That is why we have increased the possibilities for flexible ways of working through hybrid working models; we have initiated a long-term well-being initiative around healthy living and workplace well-being, focusing on nutrition, sleep, exercise, walk-and-talks, virtual meditation, and much more.  

The diversity agenda is still a must-win battle for us. We have seen a 40 per cent and 30 per cent uptake of women amongst our past two partner promotions, and we are now at a total of 16 per cent female partners and 35 per cent female directors and senior managers. So, we are moving in the right direction. But we are not there yet. To create an equal playing field, Deloitte introduced a new and improved parental leave policy this year. By giving mothers, fathers, and co-parents 24 weeks of paid leave, we want to help promote the structural change needed for a more equal distribution of parental leave – not just at Deloitte – but also in society in general.  

Diversity is not only about gender. Diversity also means coming from different backgrounds, and we are proud to have 50 different nationalities at Deloitte Denmark – meaning that 10 per cent of our 3,200 people are foreign nationals. In the coming years, we will increase our focus on other kinds of diversity – including age and neurodiversity.    

Globally, Deloitte now has more than 415,000 employees, a revenue of USD 59 billion, and is by far the largest firm among the Big Four. We believe in our business model and will continue our journey towards a more integrated Nordic and global firm. As we become more global, we are able to work more borderless and seamless to better serve our clients by utilising centres of excellence and our global talent pool.

Society is transforming and adjusting to the new realities of climate change, inflation, and post-pandemic. With this agenda, we have been running our Small Great Nation initiative with think tank Kraka for five years now. Thus, in the past year, we have launched our ninth report about the labour market and the tenth report about the climate, and we have been on a roadshow across Denmark to explore some of our small great cities and their local strongholds. Through this, we have continued to shape the public agenda and facilitate a debate with PR stories and podcasts addressing our recent findings.