I am proud of our company’s commitment to fostering diversity, equity and inclusion — where every person is valued for who they are and the unique perspectives they bring to our team. Our culture of inclusive innovation helps us deliver strong and sustainable company performance, and we will continue to drive positive change in our company and beyond by creating a more diverse and inclusive team.
As part of our diversity, equity and inclusion journey, we have expanded our efforts to ensure that all employees feel valued and part of our Northrop Grumman family. Some of our accomplishments include strengthening our veteran hiring and retention; enhancing our support for LGBTQ+ equality; improving our services for our people of all abilities by including an online accommodations tool for requests; and expanding our employee resource groups to more than 26,000+ strong and requiring diversity, equity and inclusion training for all employees.
From The Company
Northrop Grumman solves the toughest problems in space, aeronautics, defense and cyberspace to meet the ever-evolving needs of our customers worldwide. Our employees are Defining Possible every day, using science, technology and engineering to create and deliver advanced systems, products and services.
At Northrop Grumman, our culture is based on the shared values and beliefs that our company is stronger and performs better when we embrace diversity, equity and inclusion. We have seen this demonstrated over the past decade. As the diversity of our team and the focus on equity and inclusion has strengthened, our company’s performance has continued to improve.
Some highlights of our accomplishments:
In May 2020, our organization identified the urgent need for specific programming addressing our leaders’ and employees’ need to speak about both the racial injustice they saw around the world and adverse experiences in the workplace. We created a Social Justice and Unity Portal, where employees could easily access resources, register for events and see the many ways the company is working to advance diversity, equity and inclusion at work and in the communities where we work and live.
Also in 2020, we tapped into all available resources, drawing from experience and agility to ensure our employees understood that their safety was our priority as we thoughtfully forged ahead during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our CEO sent weekly updates to employees as we monitored the situation and developed guidelines, resources and FAQs. We created a website to house all of this information in one place, including specialized resources for our leaders.
In March, all but the most essential employees were instructed to work from home, and we established distancing guidelines, alternate work schedules and contact tracing, and distributed PPE for those who still needed to be on site. Through strong leadership commitment and employee cooperation, we have been able to continue our work with minimal disruption.
Finally, in November we held our Women’s Conference, which brought women from all areas of our company to learn from one another, share best practices and hear from leadership on a variety of topics. The event spanned one month and consisted of 50 discussions/panels, with a combined participation of approximately 500 attendees.