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Reebok’s united against racism commitments: One Year Progress Report


June 2, 2021
 – One year ago, Reebok made a commitment to stand united against racism and strengthen our diversity and inclusion efforts. In partnership with adidas, we set out to not only make Reebok a better, more inclusive place, but to also contribute to and promote the Black and LatinX communities, while prioritizing diverse representation at the corporate level and in leadership.

Over the past year, we have made progress on each of the five pillars we stood up to execute this work: Human Rights AwardProduct with PurposeBOKS re-focusHiring and Retention and Change Management.

Here is our one-year progress report:  

Reebok Human Rights Award: Over the past year, Reebok employees have dedicated 2,700+ hours to re-launching this program, which originally ran from 1988-2007. We signed two partners, the ACLU and Alabama State University, and established an external advisory board to govern.

  • On February 8, 2021, we re-launched the Reebok Human Rights Award (HRA) and received 100+ nominations from 11 countries.
  • On April 24, the HRA Advisory Board deliberated and identified three award recipients for 2021.
  • We’ll host a virtual Reebok Human Rights Summit on Aug. 12, 2021 where we will announce the winners.

Product with Purpose is now its own function within the Reebok Product team. This team focuses on establishing a long-term product platform that represents our commitment to human rights.

  • Designed and developed the first ‘Human Right Now’ product capsule of footwear, apparel and accessories that will launch on August 12, 2021 – alongside the Human Rights Award Summit.
  • We’ve identified a non-profit organization that educates and empowers the sports community to eliminate racial discrimination, champion social justice and improve race relations to be the 2021 donation recipient for the Human Rights Now capsule product. We will announce this key partnership soon.

BOKS Charge: While BOKS has always focused on kids of all abilities and races, we took this year to further target Black and LatinX communities.

  • In order to reach Black and LatinX communities, we established additional partnerships with Mission Society, After School All-Stars, Jack and Jill of America, MENTOR, Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools and Communities in Schools having an effect on 8,245 kids to date.
  • Implemented an improved grant strategy to provide more equitable programming to reach more racially diverse, underserved communities with our grant dollars; we provided $300K of funded programming throughout the 2020-21 school year.
  • We surpassed our KPI of focusing 75% of BOKS outreach on Black and LatinX communities; to date, 57% of the total kids served come from Black or LatinX communities.
  • In February 2021, we launched a partnership with Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality (RISE), to create a BOKS training and educational activities on social justice to inspire our BOKS trainers and kids to create positive change on matters of race and equality.

Talent Practices (hiring, promotion, retention): in partnership with adidas North America, Reebok has implemented a variety of programs designed to improve our hiring practices, including:

  • We continue to make successful progress on our hiring targets for Black and LatinX talent in the U.S. We are on well on track towards the target of filling 30% of open roles with Black and LatinX talent, and 50% with overall diverse talent.
  • We launched the Creating Culture of Inclusion (CCI) training, a global training where employees explored critical topics including diversity dimensions, unconscious biases, privilege and microaggressions. Nearly all adidas employees around the world have completed this training – approximately 25 hours each over four months.
  • Both Reebok and adidas signed the Juneteenth Pledge, making June 19 a paid holiday in the U.S. In 2021, we’ll observe this holiday on Friday, June 18).
  • We’ve strengthened our global Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy, and developed the Corrective Action Matrix, providing clear guidance on how the company will respond to harassment, discrimination and disrespectful conduct.
  • In September 2020, we hosted our first annual Global Day of Inclusion, a company-wide celebration of diversity and promoting a culture of inclusion at Reebok.
  • In January 2021, we launched the Champions Program, training employees to drive consistency across a fair hiring process.
  • In October 2020, we launched the Pilot Reebok Career Coaching Program , promoting mentorship and coaching at Reebok. This six-month program had 120 participants for the pilot season, matching leaders and employees cross functionally.

Change Management: and through all of this, a dedicated team of Reebok employees have supported each of these initiatives by working to drive a cultural transformation here at Reebok – emphasizing change, commitment, community and conversation.

  • We’ve hosted a total of 13 ‘Courageous Conversations’ to date facilitated by an external D&I consultant, where employees discuss the concepts introduced by the CCI workouts, and continue our education on what diversity, equity and inclusion really mean to each employee at Reebok.

We will continue to share progress updates in a timely fashion.

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