Workplace Equity Report
PROMOTING DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION THROUGH EDUCATIONAL SCORECARDS
As You Sow’s workplace equity shareholder engagements are informed by the data within the Workplace Equity Disclosure Scorecard. When we speak with companies, they are asked to release hiring, promotion, and retention rates for diverse employees, as well as two, or more, years of EEO-1 forms.
To allow companies to effectively gather this data and present it in an accurate and meaningful way, we acknowledge the need for some time to publicly release these metrics. The release of the data is important from a transparency perspective; from a communications perspective we also recommend that companies place it within a tailored narrative context specific to their organization. Tracking the data, reconciling the numbers, and crafting communications can take some time.
CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW Scorecard / Data Visualization
With this in mind, in our shareholder resolution withdrawal conversations with companies, we generally ask that they release their hiring, retention and promotion rates (gender globally, race and ethnicity within the United States) within the next two years. The workplace equity data visualization tool tracks both released data and data that companies have committed to release.
WORKPLACE EQUITY METHODOLOGY, SCORING, AND KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
As You Sow, in collaboration with Whistle Stop Capital, has examined the websites and sustainability reports for each company in the Large-Cap 3000 to determine their current levels of transparency. Corporate disclosures of the aforementioned data contributed to companies’ scores, all of which were identified on a binary yes/no. That is, if a company releases the data set identified, it receives all of the possible points for that set. The weighting of each data set is a reflection of how important the information is from a transparency perspective, relative to an investors’ ability to understand the effectiveness of a corporate DEI program.
Our researchers visited corporate websites, looking through company reporting, blogs, sustainability/ corporate responsibility/ DEI/ annual reports, and career pages as well as the companies’ social media sites. It is possible that they missed some reporting, or that the company has increased its reporting since our review. To inform us of corporate reporting not captured here, please send a note to [email protected].
Our findings are presented on As You Sow’s website using a data visualization tool that enables dynamic analysis and sorting. The data is updated each quarter, with a major update annually.
LEADERS: TOP 10
LAGGARDS: BOTTOM 10
QUARTERLY KEY FINDINGS
98% of the S&P 100 companies release, or have committed to release, their consolidated EEO-1 forms, a good first step for sharing workplace composition. In August 2020, when this benchmarking project began, only 20% of the S&P 100 did so.
More than 15% (17%) of Large-Cap 3000 companies release or have committed to release their EEO-1 report, whereas almost half (42%) of Russell 1000 companies do.
More than half (56%) of the Large-Cap 3000 companies release gender/racial demographic data on their workforce in some form, whereas 81% of Russell 1000 companies do.
Within the Large-Cap 3000 constituent companies, the Financials sector has the most companies releasing their EEO-1 forms.
Within the Large-Cap 3000 constituent companies, the Healthcare sector has the most companies releasing promotion rate data by gender, hiring rate data by gender and race, and retention rate data by race.
Within the Large-Cap 3000 constituent companies, the Consumer Discretionary sector has the most companies releasing promotion rate data by race.
Within the Large-Cap 3000 constituent companies, the Information Technology sector has the most companies releasing retention rate data by gender.
Of the inclusion factors, hiring rates are the most reported on, while promotion rates are the least.
Companies were most likely to release hiring rates of their Black and female employees. They were least likely to share data related to their Native American and Pacific Islander employees.
Disclosure rates of recruitment, retention, and promotion data by race and ethnicity is still catching up to gender data, likely a reflection of the #metoo movement gaining traction in 2017, while the protests in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder began in late May, 2020, far more recently.
Companies that have made future, time-bound commitments to release at least two of the three inclusion factors are: Albertsons, Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Baxter International, Biogen, Charter Communications, The Walt Disney Co., eBay, Electronic Arts, Estee Lauder, Ford Motor, General Dynamics, NCR Voyix, Philip Morris International, Raytheon Technologies, Simon Property Group, Southern Co, Sprouts Farmers Market, T-Mobile, Target, Texas Instruments, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Victoria's Secret, among others.
The Workplace Equity Disclosure Initiative has reviewed the Large-Cap 3000 constituent companies to identify which companies are currently releasing standardized, comparable and meaningful workplace equity data.
The intention of this initiative is to provide a public resource showing the current level of DEI disclosure from companies. Transparency and reporting, in and of itself, is an important best-practice to be celebrated. When a company releases meaningful data on its workforce composition alongside its rates of promotion, recruitment or hiring, and retention or turnover of diverse employees it illustrates a number of things to its stakeholders:
It shows that it takes seriously that discrimination is a systemic problem in corporate America, and that it is willing to do its part in addressing it openly;
It illustrates the depth of its commitment to be accountable to its employees;
It acknowledges its own imperfections honestly; and
It provides data which allows investors and other stakeholders to assess and compare the effectiveness of its programs.
