Sporting goods giant Nike Inc. has been a strong advocate for building a more diverse, inclusive team and announced Thursday that it will report on its hiring and promotion practices.
The announcement came after Nike gave in to pressure from non-profit shareholder association As You Sow. The association is committed to ecological and social corporate responsibility.
43 percent of Nike’s leadership team is female
According to Nike’s fiscal 2021 report, 43 percent of Nike’s executive team is female. Among U.S. employees at director level and above, 30.3 percent are ethnic minorities, up 4.1 percentage points from fiscal 2020. The company also announced that it paid $197 million to various suppliers last year .
Nike has set itself the goal of achieving 45 percent of women in management positions worldwide by 2025 and by then paying a cumulative 1 billion US dollars to various suppliers.
With the announcement, Nike is bowing to pressure from activist investors to disclose more data about the careers of employees from underrepresented groups, according to Bloomberg.
Lack of evidence can undermine trust
As You Sow shareholder activists asked Nike to report back on the effectiveness of the company’s diversity, equality and inclusion efforts back in April. The requirement: “Reporting should be done with reasonable effort, omitting confidential information and addressing findings, using quantitative metrics of employee recruitment, retention and promotion, including data by gender, race and ethnicity.”
Shareholders wanted more data on Nike’s diversity efforts. Because if the sporting goods manufacturer does not integrate best practices into its own processes, it can undermine the trust and brand loyalty of its customers and employees.
“Investors were concerned that Nike could be viewed as inconsistent in its external marketing image and internal policies and practices if it continued to advertise on ethnicity and social justice issues without detailed data on the effectiveness of its own internal diversity policies. to deliver programming,” said Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow.
This translated post previously appeared on FashionUnited.uk.