ESTEE LAUDER Listening and Learning
Perhaps the most important thing we learned in a difficult, yet rewarding year is that to accomplish any of our goals, we must have accountability at the leadership level that mirrors the accountability demanded of employees at EVERY level.
We also know that the uptick in hate crimes against Black Americans further contributes to the legitimate unease experienced by employees of color. While working virtually during the pandemic, Black colleagues have largely been insulated from microinequities and other non-inclusive behaviors. Our Black employees, along with other employee communities including our Asian American and Pacific Islander employees, have concerns about commuting on public transportation to our corporate offices in the
As a continuation of our commitment from last year, ELC:
Increased our employee listening sessions through a combination of formalized feedback programs and informal team sessions across brands, regions, and functions - successfully creating spaces for employees to share at their individual comfort level.
Hosted and supported numerous educational events, discussing various aspects of the employee experience, such as mental health and wellbeing, and the Global ID&E Week focused on Solidarity: Stronger Together.
Increased Unconscious Bias trainings to reach 94% of corporate employees, 100% of Supply Chain employees, and 61% of point-of-sale employees in the
Launched Inclusive Leadership, Psychological Safety, Allyship, and Anti-Racism trainings.
As a result of what we learned this year, ELC actioned the following:
Created a task force to advance ELC's culture of belonging with primary focus on development and acknowledgment of leadership accountability at all levels of the organization.
Grew leadership education and training programming around behavior, psychological safety, and training on how to have courageous conversations with employees at all levels.
Began work to build an insights capability to ensure feedback from employees influence all areas of commitment strategy.
Talent and Opportunity
Internally, we are more conscious of the direct needs and desires of our employees based on the honest and authentic feedback received from various conversations and surveys. What we learned this year was another important truth: financial investments are critical, but meaningful employee advancement and having a clear path to both advancement and growth within ELC is a top priority for our employees.
While ELC increased Black representation overall, we need to do a better job to see this reflected on our teams across senior leadership, brands, and product development to ensure that our operations and products better reflect our multicultural society. We've created programs and exposure for our Black employees to advance and accelerate career mobility and support employees at every stage of development.
This past year, ELC:
Increased the hiring of Black candidates to 18.8% of
Launched the second cohort of the From Every Chair Program, with expanded participant eligibility. 23% of the first cohort of From Every Chair Program participants received promotions within the year, with 13% experiencing career mobility.
Surpassed our goal of doubling our hires from Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) and doubled our spend with minority-owned recruiting firms.
Launched the Business Industry Accelerator Program as part of She's Howard:
Launched Let's Talk Beauty:
Created a program with
Sent a cohort of Black employees to the
Hosted events with HBCU20x20, a platform that provides companies with the opportunity to engage with HBCU college students across the
Increased ELC's commitment to
As a result of what ELC learned this year, we will:
Focus on retention of our Black employees by expanding internal talent development opportunities, as well as engagement opportunities.
Continue to place additional safeguards around talent reviews to eliminate bias.
Expand and build on our recruitment strategy for Black talent.
Accelerate partnerships with talent recruitment firms focused on Black talent.
Deepen relationships with external partners like
Continue to assess the growth, development, and career trajectory of Black talent and prioritize promotions from within the company.
Representation
Our consumers feel a personal connection to our brands, and likewise we feel a responsibility to represent authentically both behind and in front of our product portfolios. ELC is committed to expanding representation and diverse voices in every facet of product creation, from concept to counter. While we have laid the foundation for ensuring ELC's makeup brands meet the needs of the Black consumer, we must accelerate efforts on further embedding this framework across all our brands and categories for planning and execution.
What we accomplished this year:
Through the evolution of the
Launched an internal series meant to introduce, highlight, and promote minority-owned agencies to our brand creative teams.
Developed Racial Equity Scorecards and activation plans for our brands along with implementing monthly collaboration sessions to help support authentic execution.
Increased our shade representation capabilities and developed
As a result of what we learned this year, we will:
Continue to differentiate ourselves by evolving our creative end-to-end process to represent the Black experience accurately and consistently, and support ELC's brands development of authentic, consumer-inspired campaigns that highlight products with claims and benefits that meet the needs of our Black consumers.
Continue to ensure we have Black talent in consumer-facing decisions - from product development, creative, education, to social campaigns - to ensure our brands reflect the needs of Black consumers authentically.
Suppliers
ELC remains committed to leveraging our power to support Black-owned businesses and has made strong progress towards supplier diversity. With the establishment of our new dedicated resource focused on supplier diversity, we will continue to build on the momentum to achieve our 2020 pledge of doubling spend on sourcing ingredients, packaging materials, and supplies from Black-owned businesses.
This year, ELC:
Spent
As part of ELC's commitment to supporting Black-owned businesses, which includes doubling our Black-owned business spend by 2023, ELC launched a new Supplier Inclusion & Diversity registration portal where prospective diverse or small businesses can register to be included in ELC's database of potential suppliers. We partnered with the NBMBAA to discuss the importance of working with Black-owned businesses and the impact Supplier I&D has had on the Aveda brand.
As a result of what we learned this year, we will:
Work with leadership on creating long-term opportunities for diverse suppliers and expand the use of Black-owned suppliers across all procurement categories as well as marketing, advertising, and creative agencies.
Investing in Change
ELC will continue to invest in meaningful partnerships with social and racial justice organizations. Additionally, we will continue the evolution of
By the end of this Fiscal Year (FY22), ELC, its brands, Foundation, and the Lauder family will have:
Distributed a total of over
What's Ahead
Transformation is in ELC's DNA. After all, Mrs. Estee Lauder started our company during World War II, when women's roles evolved from homemakers to breadwinners and heads of households. Paradigm shifts around gender helped her build a culture of empowered women, both as business leaders and consumers. In the same way that Gender Equity is ingrained in ELC's DNA, so too must Racial Equity be to achieve our ambition to be the most inclusive, diverse, equitable, humane, global prestige beauty company in the world.
We will keep listening, talking to our employees and consumers, and we will keep evolving through unprecedented times, with devotion and action.
(C) 2022 Electronic News Publishing, source
