Guided by our shared values
Deloitte is a people business. Our people are our greatest asset. That is why our Shared Values are core to our culture and our success. Without them, we would never have been able to gather more than 415,000 people worldwide and build the biggest professional services firm in the world. These values bind us together across Deloitte, guiding our collective behaviours and uniting us around one shared purpose: to make an impact that matters for our people, clients, and the communities we are part of, so we can build better futures.
These values help us live our purpose. Our Global Principles of Business Conduct describe our ethical commitments, and our Commitment to Responsible Business Practices covers the responsible business principles we believe in and the commitments we have made. Together they shape our policies and guide our decision-making.
With our reach and capabilities come responsibilities, and we are committed to continuing to use ours to foster a more sustainable future for our people, clients, and society.
Deloitte’s reputation is one of our greatest assets. It is built on trust and by our people. It distinguishes Deloitte in the marketplace, differentiating us from the competition and enabling us to attract the world-class talent that is our hallmark.
A responsibility we take very seriously at Deloitte is upholding the public trust while ensuring objectivity and providing transparency across the organisations we serve. It is our licence to operate, and if we fail to live up to these standards, we risk that people and businesses will lose faith in systems, authorities, and capital markets.
Therefore, we work every day to uphold our position as the leading professional services firm in the world by acting ethically and with integrity and serving as role models in our communities - while complying with external as well as regulatory requirements and expectations.
Learn more about our ethics and information security policies.
Coping with COVID-19 and the after-effects
As we started our financial year in June 2021, COVID-19 had finally begun to lose its grip, and the Government launched a plan for a full reopening of society. As restrictions were lifted, we were happy to return to a more normal everyday life with physical meetings and social gatherings. Fortunately, this also meant that we could again serve our clients face to face, and as travel restrictions were slowly lifted, business travel also became possible.
Travelling is, in many cases, a key enabler for our work with clients and collaboration across member firms. Therefore, as restrictions were lifted, we saw a rise in travelling due to a natural need to meet physically with clients and teams post COVID-19. But as business travel accounts for a significant part of our CO2 emissions, we have launched a new travel policy to ensure that we do not return to the same travel habits as before the pandemic - read more about our climate initiatives under Environmental.
The pandemic changed the way we work, making flexible and hybrid ways of working the new normal. Based on the learnings from COVID-19 and focus group interviews with employees, we developed Deloitte's Code of Distributed Work to support our people in maintaining a flexible working life. In addition, to ensure a good physical working environment, we continue to offer all employees home office equipment - an initiative that was introduced last year but will remain, as many of our people appreciate more flexible ways of working. Unfortunately, COVID-19 restrictions have taken their toll on our people’s well-being with increasing stress levels. Therefore, we have initiated several well-being initiatives, which you can read more about under Social.
We will continue in FY23 to monitor the pandemic’s impact on our people closely and be ready to respond and support as needed.
On a more social level, we celebrated that we could finally gather all our colleagues across our offices and boosted social cohesiveness by throwing an epic ‘Green Dot Party’ in the Royal Arena in Copenhagen with concerts by leading Danish artists, a festival vibe, food and drinks - the first social gathering for the whole of Deloitte Denmark in years, but hopefully not the last.
Contributing to a more sustainable society
As a professional services business comprised of knowledge workers, we believe we make the greatest societal impact when our people use their skills and expertise to help others succeed. Our commitment to make an impact that matters to society is outlined in Deloitte’s global WorldClass ambition, in which we focus on developing job skills, improving educational outcomes, and expanding opportunities. We do so by enabling our professionals to help those from underrepresented segments of society. In collaboration with leading educational organisations, we aim to provide quality education and opportunities for 100 million people worldwide by 2030. Since we started measuring our global impact in 2018, we have reached 33.6 million individuals worldwide.
In FY22, we selected 12 winners from Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and Australia. All winners had submitted novel educational approaches to advancing learning during the pandemic through the UpLink platform. Over the next year, they will receive up to USD 1 million in professional services on a pro bono basis, financial grants, a dedicated relationship manager to support the organisations’ collaboration with Deloitte, and participation in selected World Economic Forum and Deloitte events, projects, and communities.
UpLink is a free and open digital platform which Deloitte designed and developed in collaboration with the Forum and Salesforce. It seeks to address the world’s most pressing issues, as outlined by the Sustainable Development Goals, by connecting the most promising submissions to the expertise, resources, and networks which can scale the venture and accelerate their impact.
WorldClass in Denmark - our local impact
In addition to our global initiatives, we have several local WorldClass initiatives that support our ambition - including those described below. Through our various WorldClass initiatives in Denmark, we have reached 2,450 people this year.
Small Great Nation is our main social impact initiative. Small Great Nation is a collaboration with think tank Kraka to create a fact-based discussion about Denmark’s strengths, opportunities, and challenges as a country. Through analyses, events, podcasts, and press activities, we have engaged business leaders, politicians, organisations, the public sector, and the broader society in discussions about Denmark’s future. During the past year, we launched our ninth report ‘The labour market of tomorrow - a party for everyone?’, which investigates the structural challenges faced by the labour market and how they can be addressed without leaving anyone behind. And we launched our tenth report ‘Green cows, Russian gas and CO2 - myths and realities’, which explores how Denmark can achieve its ambitious climate targets.
We also went on a Small Great Nation roadshow across Denmark where we discussed local strengths and challenges, focusing particularly on climate, education, and building sustainable cities. By sharing these research-based findings, we engage communities and educate people across Denmark to participate in the public debate. Read more about Small Great Nation here.
During FY22, we also initiated a collaboration across the Nordics to inspire each other and work together to expand the number of Nordic futures on which we have a positive impact. Each of the Nordic countries has partnered with organisations that work to enhance education and job opportunities in society. For example, in Denmark, we have formed a close partnership with the Danish NGO Human Practice Foundation, which creates schools, quality education, and entrepreneurial projects for children and communities in Nepal, Kenya, and Denmark.
Deloitte supports the Human Practice Foundation in their operations with advisory and auditing services – including organising their fundraisings. All our work is pro bono, and today the Human Practice Foundation is a successful and fast-growing NGO that brings about positive change for children by building and restructuring schools in developing countries and helping vulnerable school children in Denmark.
Additionally, we collaborate with the organisation VELKOMMEN HJEM (Welcome Home), which helps Danish veterans transition from military service to the civilian labour market through a well-planned course that uncovers the veterans' competencies and matches them with a mentor from a private company. This collaboration is to ensure that we, as a society, leverage the veterans’ military competencies and experiences while transitioning back to civilian life as smoothly as possible. Deloitte supports VELKOMMEN HJEM by making a number of mentors available to the participating veterans.
To contribute to the education of high school students and expand opportunities, members of our Audit & Assurance practice have held ‘Audit Masterclasses’ in high schools around Denmark. By teaching final-year students about auditing and working at Deloitte, they have provided fun learning experiences and expanded the students’ views on future career possibilities, as many of these students come from areas where they might not be exposed to a diverse range of career opportunities.