At Eaton, we aspire to be a model of inclusion and diversity in our industry – known for the way we welcome all people to the table and include them by listening to what they have to offer. We want an environment where all our employees have an opportunity to be their best.

We were again recognized by the Human Rights Campaign on their 2021 list of Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Equality, achieving a 100%  on HRC's Corporate Equality Index. Eaton has received this recognition for six consecutive years, earning a perfect score each year. Companies are rated on criteria in five categories: non-discrimination policies, employment benefits, demonstrated organizational competency and accountability around LGBTQ diversity and inclusion, public commitment to LGBTQ equality, and responsible citizenship. 

To be successful, we must create an inclusive, safe and engaging workplace where every employee has an opportunity to learn, grow and be healthy. To deliver on this, we sponsor and promote Inclusion Employee Resource Groups (iERGs). In 2020, these employee-led resource groups grew to more than 10,500 employees.

Inclusion and diversity means recognizing, valuing and leveraging the differences in our perspectives and backgrounds that make each of us unique. We need inclusion and diversity to achieve our business results and vision and to fulfill our goal to be a model of inclusion and diversity in our industry. Openness to diversity widens our access to the best talent and inclusion allows us to engage that talent fully. Our employees are free to achieve their highest potential in an environment that promotes innovation and open communication. Learn more about inclusion and diversity.

Four pillars of excellence for inclusion and diversity

Our four pillars serve as the global focus areas for inclusion and diversity:

• Talent: Inclusive behaviors help attract, retain and advance great talent needed to fuel growth.
• Performance: Inclusive behaviors enable all employees to contribute their unique skills  to achieve their highest potential and optimize business results.
• Globalization: Inclusive behaviors accelerate the process of becoming a global enterprise that can win in all markets.
• Innovation: Inclusive behaviors cultivate and leverage different backgrounds, perspectives and thinking to create better processes, product and service solutions.

Eaton's six leadership attributes — we are ethical, passionate, accountable, efficient, transparent and we learn — support our culture of inclusion and are the basis of an open and inclusive work environment. We know the single most important ingredient to our success is our people. We also recognize that individuals are unique — with perspectives, backgrounds and experiences that influence and inform their ideas and opinions. These differences and perspectives lead to innovative ideas, better decisions for our company and our customers and a broad foundation of knowledge that advances our reputation as a thought leader. And we’re making it real. We’re asking our leaders to develop goals — articulated and measured just like any other business goal — toward creating an inclusive work environment. Learn more about our vision and goals.

The global competitive market has shifted, along with our mix of talent. We are hiring different people today than we were 20 years ago, and this will accelerate in the future. In the United States, more workers are minorities. Around the world more women are entering the workforce while an increasing number of retirement-age workers are leaving and being replaced by next-generation workers. To compete, the diversity of our leadership and business approach must reflect our employees, communities and global customer base.

Inclusion Eaton Resource Groups (iERGs) bring together employees who share a common purpose, interest or background. These eight iERGs promote a welcoming, inclusive work environment that embraces difference and encourages the participation of all employees:

• WAVE – Women Adding Value at Eaton iERG
• Veterans – U.S. Military Veterans iERG
• ENGAGE – Eaton Next Generation Achieving Goals and Excelling iERG
• iConnect – Black, African-American and People of Color iERG
• SOAR – Strengthening Our Asian Resources Asian-American iERG
• #VAMOS! – Hispanic and Latino iERG
• Eaton Pride – LGBTQ+ and Allies iERG
• enABLE – People with disabilities and/or managing special needs iERG

Inclusion ERGs are a place for employees to collaborate and provide or receive mentoring and professional development. Moreover, iERGs introduce new employees to our organizational culture and help to build and maintain employee engagement, satisfaction and retention.

Currently, our eight iERGs have more than 10,500 members in 60 countries.

The WAVE and ENGAGE iERGs operate on a global basis, with more than 150 local groups. The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer iERG (Eaton Pride) has its presence in North America, Mexico and parts of Europe. In the United States, the veterans iERG serves members of the military and support allies. Three additional iERGs in the U.S. include SOAR in support of our Asian-American employees; iConnect, supporting Black/African-American/People of Color employees; and #VAMOS!, supporting our Hispanic-American and Latino employees. 

And the iERGs can be change agents:

• It was our iERGs that provided feedback and the business case to expand our paid parental leave policy in the U.S. Since implementation in 2017, over 1,600 employees per year have taken the opportunity to bond with their new child, furthering work-life balance.
• Our iERGs benchmarked and developed our new Stretch Assignment Marketplace (SAM), a creative way for employees to get involved in projects across our businesses, functions and regions and develop skills while building connections across the company. More than 3,000 employees benefited from this experiential learning program to develop their capabilities, delivering over 370 projects since 2017. 
• The iERGs introduced listening circles in 2020 to give employees a chance to say what they are thinking and feeling and can help engender mutual understanding and support among them in stressful and challenging times.

We are proud of the impact iERGs have had at Eaton. Their activities are engaging and empowering thousands around the world.

The Eaton global mentoring program is another resource for developing and advancing our diverse talent. The formal mentoring program is designed as a mutual process between a paired mentor and mentee to focus on specific development needs aligned with the employee's short- and long-term career aspirations.

The iERGs and mentoring program support our aspirational goals and nurture an inclusive work environment through mentoring, education and development opportunities. They also support the strategy and objectives set by Eaton's Global Inclusion Council and the four Regional Inclusion Councils.

In 2014, we launched our full-day leadership experience, Valuing Inclusion & Diversity at Eaton—The Power of Perspectives (VID), globally to all leaders of people. Since then, more than 5,900 leaders have attended, with the objective of increasing awareness of personal biases, developing inclusive leadership skills and advancing a culture of inclusion. Participants have said the experience is eye-opening and has positively impacted their perceptions, including focusing on inclusive leadership. To reinforce their VID learning, leaders have access to "Moment of Choice" tools created to aid and encourage their journey from unconscious bias to conscious inclusion. In 2020, we took steps to convert this learning experience to an engaging, high impact virtual platform, allowing broader access to this critical learning opportunity. In addition, we committed to a multi-week virtual learning experience on bias that is rooted in neuroscience research.

Building a diverse and inclusive workforce begins with identifying the best talent. Talent management means hiring people with the right skills and aligning their career development and goals with our corporate strategy. Fifty-four percent of our global leadership team are U.S. minorities. Learn more about talent management at Eaton.

Balancing work-life effectiveness is a common concern voiced by our employees. And, with the number of dual income and single-parent households rising around the world, our culture must be supportive of our employees in weighing work, family and personal demands. 

By the end of 2020, more than 2,300 employees (3% of global employees) participated in our flexible work solutions program. Flexible solutions, which have been in place well before the global pandemic, include compressed work weeks, remote work, job sharing, part-time work, flextime and telework. Flexible work solutions and inclusive programs help us remain competitive in attracting the best talent and improve the lives of our employees, at work and at home.

The Eaton Business System (EBS) is how we run our enterprise as an integrated operating company and it is our source of competitive advantage. Through EBS we are able to operate in a common way, speaking the same "language" across globally diverse regions, markets and businesses. And, EBS ensures that we have a single vision, a values-based culture and a shared philosophy that fosters inclusion and diversity. With EBS as how we work, we unite the power of many into the Power of One. Learn more.

Our pledge to be inclusive in our business practices and within our work environments begins with our Board members, who jointly oversee all corporate activities and targets. Our Board of Directors and CEO collaboratively establish diversity goals and monitor progress company-wide. As of the second quarter of this year, our Board of Directors reached a milestone, with two-thirds of its members now women or U.S. minorities. Learn more about our Board of Directors.

Small and diverse businesses fuel the economy by creating jobs and delivering innovative solutions. We believe that encouraging these organizations to compete for our business benefits us and our communities. 

Eaton’s combined spending with minority, women, veteran-owned diverse and small businesses was greater than 32% of supplier spending in the U.S. in 2020 with a total of $702 million going to minority, women, veteran, LGBT+ and disabled-owned businesses. In 2020 we advanced our supplier diversity program, purchasing $1.9 billion in goods and services from small and diverse suppliers, and growing our business with women-owned businesses by approximately 7% and with veteran-owned businesses by nearly 5% over 2019. Learn more about supplier diversity at Eaton.

Eaton is proud to have strong internal processes and controls for managing our sustainability performance. Many of these controls connect individuals and teams across our company and include management at each level of the organization. Learn more about our governance policy for inclusion and diversity.