Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Personal Care, Beauty & Wellbeing, Home Care, Nutrition, and Ice Cream products, with sales in more than 190 countries, reaching 3.4 billion consumers a day.
We aim to make sustainable living commonplace with high performing brands that are a force for good, taking action for a more sustainable and equitable world. At Unilever North America, we understand our responsibility to leverage our ecosystem, knowing it will contribute to a fair and socially inclusive world.
Internally, we are committed to ensuring that the diversity of our workforce fully reflects the communities we serve and operate in by integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion into our business strategies, talent acquisition, talent development, and retention practices and processes.
Our strategy includes, but is not limited to, the following key areas:
Creating systemic change. Last year, we sought to advance our efforts from a workforce perspective, putting equity at the center. Our first order of business was to conduct an equity and culture assessment to determine if and where barriers prevent people from entering or matriculating through Unilever North America successfully. The assessment examined the talent acquisition process, including candidate sourcing and selection, diverse candidate slates, and diverse interview panels. From a talent-management perspective, we examined how talent was selected for leadership development opportunities, potential barriers preventing success, and how people from underrepresented groups participate in relationship-building efforts, such as mentorship and sponsorship programs.
Recently completed, our focus is on the rollout of our five-year Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging action plan and full integration into our Compass business strategy and talent priorities.
Achieving parity and racial equity. In 2017 we committed to achieving gender parity and accomplished this goal in North America in 2018, resulting in 50% of managerial roles being represented by women. As we continue to affirm our commitment to diversity and inclusion, we are taking important steps toward establishing racial equity in our business. To help us do so, we have allocated talent and financial resources to ensure fair and equitable practices, processes, and programs are in place.
Our Responsibility for Racial Justice
As a company committed to taking action and using our influence to fight systemic racism and social injustice, we are initiating change from within and outside the Unilever North America ecosystem.
To use our influence to help tackle the root causes of social injustice and inequities outside of Unilever North America, we have focused on the following areas:
- Dove co-founded the CROWN Coalition and remains committed to leading advocacy efforts to end hair discrimination
across all 50 states by advancing the CROWN (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair) Act. - Passed the CROWN Act, legislation inspired by the CROWN Act, in 19 states, 42 municipalities, and the first chamber at the Federal level.
- Commissioned research studies about the magnitude and impact of race-based hair discrimination in workplaces (2019) and, most recently, schools (2021).
- Dove continues to champion this legislation across the country and bring awareness to this issue by creating programs (i.e., National CROWN Day, CROWN Clubs, CROWN Awards, etc.) and working with legislators and consumers until hair discrimination is illegal nationwide.
- Our SheaMoisture business has reinvested over $10 million in Black communities through purpose-driven programs, partnerships, and donations.
- Made a global commitment to spend e2 billion annually with diverse suppliers by 2025.
- Working to ensure the diversity of our workforce reflects the communities we serve.
- Upheld a zero-tolerance intolerance policy– among Unilever North America employees and the suppliers, customers, and partners that work with us.
While we are proud of our work, we also recognize there is still much more work to be done, and we are excited about the impact we will make in the advancement of equity for all.
