Based on the firm belief that people are our biggest asset, our objective first and foremost must be to attract and retain the best talent from all the Member and Associate Member States and to maintain a motivated and productive workforce at CERN. Diverse teams lead to excellence, and improving diversity has been a strategic objective of this mandate. CERN’s 25 by ’25 initiative is helping to improve gender and nationality diversity across CERN’s personnel. As a concrete outcome, our personnel has gone from 21% women in 2021 to 24.5% as of this month. A lot of effort has been made to develop diversity, both in terms of the backgrounds and nationalities of the people we hire. Comparable initiatives have been made to reach a balanced return in other fields, such as procurement, collaborations on advanced technologies, partnership with industry and educational opportunities.

Member and Associate Member States continuously express an expectation for a more balanced return, in terms of human resources in particular, while keeping in mind the fundamental principle of maintaining the highest competence and integrity in our recruitment policy, as set out in the Staff Rules and Regulations. The challenge, common to all international organisations, is multifaceted since the personnel landscape is complex at CERN. Beyond the differences between nationalities, a single country may be over- or under-represented depending on the personnel category being considered, for example staff categories 1, 2 and 5A, graduates, doctoral or technical students. And statistics have to be regularly updated. Even though the solutions are not simple, we have developed a number of actions:

• A new employer branding, outreach and sourcing strategy for all personnel categories, with significant outreach efforts to further diversify our talent pools, specifically in underrepresented Member States. We have so far achieved a significant increase in applicants from Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom.
• A “conscious hiring” package of measures ranging from revamping the careers website and dropping stringent dual language requirements on vacancy notices to encouraging line managers to proactively consider candidates from poorly balanced countries who satisfy the requirements of excellence, while still not applying quotas or positive or negative discrimination.

What does this mean in practice?

This package of measures builds on the 25 by ’25 “Fitness Plan”, adopted by the departments in 2021. It will continue to improve gender and nationality diversity, with the goal of increasing the representation of poorly balanced Member and Associate Member States, in particular in some categories of the personnel.

Vacancy notices

• 25 by ’25 Fitness Plan: Make the wording and requirements as inclusive as possible to attract applications from women and underrepresented Member States.
• New: Remove the requirement to be proficient in both languages on arrival but instead include a commitment to learn and improve in both languages once recruited, with some specific support provided by the Organization to achieve that. In addition, a new careers website will soon be launched to improve accessibility.

Sourcing and screening

• 25 by ’25 Fitness Plan: Work closely with the HR department to consider where to source candidates and which networks to use. Ensure the longlist, shortlist and final selection is sufficiently diverse.
• New: Department head approval will be needed if the diversity is insufficient.

Interviews

• New: Ensure candidates from underrepresented Member States are invited for interview for staff positions, while not exceeding 50% of candidates for interview from overrepresented Member States.

Selection

• New: For overrepresented clusters at the professional level (categories 1, 2 and 5A), the Director-General’s approval is needed. Certain job profiles requiring local competencies will be exempt from these measures.

Conscious hiring practices will help us to improve our diversity, inclusion and attractiveness as an Organization, helping us to better reflect the diversity of our Member and Associate Member States while upholding the criterion of excellence and pursuing the objective of smooth cultural integration in the CERN community.