Today is International Women’s Day. Dentsply Sirona, the world’s largest manufacturer of professional dental products and technologies, actively advocates for a greater focus on women’s equality, representation, and inclusion in the dental industry. The company also reaffirms its commitment to work towards more diversity, equity, and inclusion both internally and externally.
Under the theme “Inspire Inclusion,” the Dentsply Sirona team highlights how individual and collective efforts can contribute to positive change and empower women in society.
“The world has come a long way since the beginnings of International Women’s Day over a hundred years ago, but we still have some distance to go,” says Andrea Frohning, SVP, Chief Human Resources Officer at Dentsply Sirona. “In a time where more and more women are choosing to join dentistry, we all need to make sure that our industry offers them equal opportunities, values their expertise, and recognizes their achievements.”
Inspiring inclusion throughout the industry
Recently named one of America’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity in 2024 by Newsweek, Dentsply Sirona has long been a champion of gender equality in the dental industry, launching and supporting initiatives designed to further inclusion and to increase the representation of women in educational programs, events, and case studies to best reflect the makeup of the collective dental industry.
Dentsply Sirona’s relaunched Smart Integration Award is one such initiative. The award honors innovative female dentists and dental technicians for their visionary ideas in digital dentistry, including areas such as digital clinical workflows, patient, community, and educational impacts, as well as sustainability practices.
Dentsply Sirona also sponsors a global women speaker development program called “First to 50” which aims to elevate the voices of accomplished female dental professionals and enable more women in dentistry to be represented through speaking opportunities. The program provides access to structured speaker trainings for all levels of experience. Over the years, “First to 50” has grown steadily, with the number of participants per year more than doubling since inception.
Additionally, Dentsply Sirona goes beyond by supporting the “She’s Prime” program in Latin America. Named after the company’s Prime Solutions*, the program aims to help women in the region establish leadership skills and technical knowledge in digital dentistry. The company is empowering the group by providing mentorship, education, and increasing awareness of the important role women play in the dental industry.
Furthering diversity, equity, and inclusion internally
Internally, Dentsply Sirona strives to reach global gender pay parity as well as gender parity by 2025 – five years ahead of the 2030 goal set by the Paradigm for Parity initiative, a coalition to which Dentsply Sirona is a signatory. Furthermore, the company has successfully implemented, amongst other things, trainings focused on eliminating hiring bias, mentoring, coaching, and leadership programs.
A large role in helping create a supportive and growth-promoting environment at Dentsply Sirona is played by “DS Women”, an Employee Resource Group (ERG) that works to elevate female talent through professional development, offering women opportunities to take center stage in the company. It is the biggest ERG at Dentsply Sirona and boasts more than 1,200 members in 40 countries.
Furthermore, Dentsply Sirona recently received certification for its gender equality measures and practices in Italy as part of a national drive to battle low female employment and close the gender pay gap. To achieve this certification, Dentsply Sirona Italy was thoroughly audited by Bureau Veritas, an independent company providing inspections, conformity checks, and certifications. The audit evaluated Dentsply Sirona’s internal gender equality measures based on six key indicators: culture and strategy, governance, human resources processes, opportunities for growth and inclusion of women in the company, remuneration equity by gender, protection of parenthood, and conciliation between work and family life.
“As a leader in the dental industry, Dentsply Sirona is committed to driving the movement for gender inclusion and equity in dentistry. We take this responsibility seriously and are working hard to help build a better, more inclusive world for women,” says Andrea Frohning. “We are delighted and grateful for every company and every dental professional who joins us and takes action for more inclusion and more gender equality.”
To learn more about Dentsply Sirona’s DE&I efforts, please visit https://www.dentsplysirona.com/en-us/company/our-company/diversity-inclusion.html.
