Four employees are looking to make it as easy as possible for colleagues worldwide to live up to Novozymes’ values and management principles. They are known as ‘facilitators’ and work on corporate governance.
From January 1, 2007 Novozymes will itself be responsible for the ‘facilitations’ which form part of its overall corporate governance programme. The aim of facilitation is to ensure that all parts of the organisation know, understand and comply with Novozymes’ management principles and values as set out in The Novozymes Touch, an employee handbook presenting Novozymes’ vision, mission, values and management principles.
A facilitation is more than just a check
During a facilitation, the facilitators hold workshops and interviews with managers and employees to take a kind of snapshot of everyday reality which they can hold up against Novozymes’ values and principles – our fundamentals – which define the way we do business.
These facilitations are not just about monitoring that our values are being lived throughout the business. Novozymes’ facilitators also help the various parts of the business to find out what could be done better, and how this can be achieved in practice.
Each business area is facilitated roughly every three years. Once the facilitation is complete, the vice president of the relevant area receives a report on the results, and the overall conclusions form part of a combined report sent to the Executive Management and Board of Directors twice a year.
Careful choice of facilitators
The special thing about the facilitator corps is that it is both an internal and an external function. It reports to the CEO and can contact the Board of Directors directly.
The facilitators’ work demands in-depth knowledge of Novozymes. Managerial experience and length of service are therefore key criteria in the selection of the individual facilitator.
A decade of facilitations
The concept of facilitation has existed at Novozymes since 1997, when the company was still part of Novo Nordisk A/S. When Novozymes became an independent company in 2000, the facilitator corps was attached to the holding company Novo A/S to ensure continuity and common values for the two companies.
Novozymes has now taken over responsibility for facilitations itself. Our business and organisation have grown larger and more complex, with new business areas and acquisitions, and facilitations therefore require an even more intimate knowledge of our business than before to safeguard our values.
