Alcoa Committed to Gender Balance - Building Gender Balanced Business

Since the late 1980s senior managers at the aluminium company Alcoa have been encouraged by the top leadership to build diverse teams.

Work at Alcoa can be hard. It is involved in all the hot and dirty work associated with a heavy industry from mining to smelting to manufacturing the end product for such sectors as aerospace and automotives. Operations are often in remote places in countries such as Brazil, Australia and Russia. “We aren’t very attractive to many potential employees because many of our jobs involve physically demanding work, and sometimes are in unattractive locations,” says Rudi Huber, Vice President of Alcoa and President of Alcoa (Europe).

In that context, it is quite a challenge for Alcoa to ensure that its new hires include a large percentage of women and minorities. But the company has not flinched from this challenge. For example, when Huber was in charge of the most service-oriented part of Alcoa, known as Global Business Services (GBS), he operated the 80-20 Rule.