JUST Capital has released the 2022 update to its Corporate Racial Equity
Tracker
— a comprehensive resource detailing disclosures from the US’s 100 largest
employers on their commitments and actions around cultivating diversity, equity,
and inclusion (DEI) within their workplaces and communities. When a rash of
unchecked killings of Black Americans by law enforcement ignited the Black
Lives Matter
movement and a national reckoning with racial injustice, corporations began
releasing equity commitments on an unprecedented scale in response to mounting
stakeholder pressure.
Two years after Black Lives Matter reached a fever pitch with the brutal murders
of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor (to name but a few) in 2020, it
remains challenging to assess and compare data on whether companies are taking
concrete action to advance racial equity. The Tracker is aimed at addressing
that challenge.
New survey research this year by JUST Capital and
SSRS
shows that 92 percent of Americans overall (up from 79 percent last year) and 95
percent of Black Americans believe it is important for companies to promote
racial equity in the workplace. And 68 percent of Americans (up from 64 percent
last year) and 87 percent of Black Americans (up from 81 percent last year) say
companies have more work to do to achieve racial equity in the workplace.
Since 2020, countless companies have committed to sweeping reforms aimed at
advancing racial equity both internally and externally, the latter, often in the
form of various types of investments in communities of
color
— including increasing job
training
and educational
opportunities;
and directing operating and startup
capital
to often-underfunded, Black-run businesses. A number of
frameworks
have been developed to help companies of all sizes do that successfully; and
organizations including Color of
Change
and the Black Travel
Alliance
have set to work holding companies accountable to these commitments. But the
2022 Tracker makes it clear that corporate America is making progress in some
areas but still has a long way to go to demonstrate that companies are walking
the
talk
and taking meaningful actions that will help fundamentally advance racial equity
in the US.
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The 2022 Corporate Racial Equity
Tracker
offers an in-depth accounting of the state of disclosure by the 100 largest US
employers in the Russell 1000, through 23 metrics across six specific dimensions
of racial equity: (1) Pay Equity, (2) Racial/Ethnic Diversity Data, (3)
Education and Training Programs, (4) Response to Mass Incarceration, (5)
Community Investments and (6) Anti-Discrimination Policies.
Across the 85 companies JUST Capital tracked in both 2021 and 2022, the greatest
increases in disclosure are seen in workforce and board diversity data, as well
as pay equity – areas where there has also been rising pressure from investors:
-
Workforce diversity data disclosure increased by 6 percent, from 86
percent to 91 percent.
-
Board diversity data disclosure increased by 13 percent, from 84
percent to 95 percent.
-
Racial/ethnic pay equity analysis disclosure increased by 33
percent, from 34 percent to 45 percent.
-
Disclosure of pay ratios by race/ethnicity increased by
71 percent, from 14 percent to 24 percent.
Metrics that have low levels of meaningful disclosures among the 100 companies
currently tracked include the following. Only:
-
7 percent disclose their internal hire (or promotion) rate by
race/ethnicity.
-
11 percent report re-entry or second chance policies.
-
21 percent report providing anti-harassment training, compared to 98
percent of companies that disclose an anti-harassment policy.
-
22 percent disclose the actual results of the pay equity analysis, i.e.
pay ratios by race/ethnicity.
-
23 percent disclose diversity targets for hiring, workforce composition,
promotion, or retention by race/ethnicity.
-
42 percent disclose a supplier diversity spend amount, and 9 percent
disclose a local supplier/small business spend amount.
“Two years after companies made very public commitments to advancing racial
equity, we've seen some progress — but more is needed," said Ashley Marchand
Orme, Director of Corporate Equity at JUST Capital. “The engagement of the
$18 trillion+ private sector and continued investment in meaningful action by
corporate leaders are critical to helping our society reach equity for all."
Companies with standout DEI disclosures in the 2022 Corporate Racial Equity
Tracker include:
-
JPMorgan discloses internal hiring rates and detailed racial/ethnic data
on promotions, conducts pay equity analyses, discloses its racial/ethnic pay
ratios, and has a robust second chance agenda. It provides anti-harassment
training for employees, tuition assistance, and an apprenticeship program,
and discloses the amount it spends on diverse suppliers and goals for
increasing its diverse supplier spending.
-
Intel discloses racial/ethnic diversity targets and conducts pay equity
analyses by race/ethnicity. It also discloses average hours of training and
career development for its employees, provides tuition assistance and
anti-harassment training to employees, works with the Vera Institute of
Justice and local governments to create more equitable outcomes for all in
the criminal justice system, and has donated $3.25 million since 2017 in
grants for hands-on STEM education for middle schoolers.
-
Accenture discloses detailed race and ethnicity targets; specifically,
by 2025 it intends to increase the representation of African American and
Black employees from 9 percent to 12 percent and the representation of
Hispanic American and Latinx employees from 9.5 percent to 13 percent. It
also conducts pay equity analyses annually, reports its race and ethnicity
pay ratio, discloses its diverse and local supplier spend amounts and
provides apprenticeship programs.
-
Target stands out for its efforts to connect racial equity issues back
to socioeconomic inequities. The company discloses highly disaggregated
EEO-1-level workforce demographic data by gender and race, sets
quantitative and time-bound diversity
targets
with a focus on race/ethnicity, and conducts regular pay audits (the latest
of which confirmed that workers are paid equitably, regardless of race or
ethnicity). The company also announced in February that it was increasing
its starting wage range from $15 to $24, depending on the job and local
market, striving to pay a living wage to all its workers — the #1 priority
for the US
public,
according to JUST Capital’s survey research.
“At Target, we understand we all have a role to play in creating a more
equitable and inclusive society. So, when we’re successful, the wins are
everybody’s,” says Kiera Fernandez, SVP of Talent & Change and Chief
Diversity & Inclusion Officer at Target. “Our diversity, equity and inclusion
goals help us hold ourselves accountable for the ambitious progress we strive to
make as an organization. We're proud of how far we’ve come, and we’re inspired
to work even harder to champion inclusion on behalf of our team, guests and
communities.”
In the weeks and months ahead, JUST Capital will continue to release additional
issue analyses and insights on leading practices relating to Tracker dimensions
and will shine a light on companies that perform best on key disclosure and
performance metrics that address racial equity and advance opportunity and
mobility in a new list – the Workforce Equity and Opportunity Ranking. On June
13, JUST will also host a virtual convening — Moving the Needle: Tracking Corporate Progress on Racial Equity — that will unpack how
companies are measuring up on DEI commitments and feature conversations with
leading investors, asset managers and corporate leaders.
“It’s clear from the data that companies are at very different stages in their
DEI journeys,” said JUST Capital CEO Martin Whittaker. “We've seen many
companies step up in response to ongoing calls for racial equity over the past
two years; and we know the public will be watching closely to see which
companies are taking real steps to drive change and which are behind the curve.”
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Jun 1, 2022 2pm EDT / 11am PDT / 7pm BST / 8pm CEST