Championing women in dentistry has been an important area of action for Dentsply Sirona for many years and a cornerstone of Dentsply Sirona’s sustainability strategy “BEYOND: Taking action for a brighter world”. As a result, the company once again fullheartedly supports International Women’s Day and hopes to help spread this year’s motto to “Inspire Inclusion” around the world.
Ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, Dentsply Sirona, the world’s largest manufacturer of professional dental products and technologies, advocates for a greater focus on women’s equality, representation and inclusion in the dental industry. The company also reaffirms its own commitment to work towards more diversity, equity and inclusion both internally and externally.
“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 a 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
* Dentsply Sirona Prime Solutions: a comprehensive end-to-end offering that enables dental practitioners to focus on treating their patients while leveraging communication and cooperation with dental labs and partners, powered by the cloud-based platform DS Core. Prime Solutions includes Primescan, Dentsply Sirona’s easy-to-use, fast and accurate intraoral scanner; Primeprint, a medical-grade 3D printing system optimized for dental applications and that can run the entire printing process including post-processing, andPrimemill, a 0.5 mm wet/dry grinding and milling unit, highly accurate and ideal for chairside production, reliably delivering first class clinical results.
