Diversity, Inclusion, and Equal Opportunity

Avery Dennison is a diverse company, operating in more than 50 countries and offering a broad and varied portfolio of products and services. Diversity is central to our success and to our competitive advantage. It is critical to innovation because the best solutions come from a mix of ideas, perspectives and backgrounds. Inclusion—ensuring that all of these diverse perspectives are considered—is equally important. Our ambition is to offer a working environment where every employee’s voice is heard and where all employees can realize their full potential. Diversity, equity and inclusion shape our workplace culture and inform the ways we engage with customers, suppliers, partners, and the communities in which we have a presence. Diversity and inclusion are priorities within our company, and we seek to advance both through robust and progressive policies, programs, and systems. 

Governance

Our diversity and inclusion efforts are led by our director of diversity and inclusion, who is supported by our cross-functional, cross-divisional DEI Council, which represents the regions in which we operate. The Council is chaired by our CEO and advised by our Chief Human Resources Officer. 

In recent years, our DEI efforts have included training our managers globally on unconscious bias; increasing the number of sites offering flexible work arrangements; adding an inclusion index to our annual employee engagement survey; and providing training around cultural awareness.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Councils

In 2020, we established regional diversity and inclusion councils in North America (NA), Latin America (LATAM), Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. Because diversity is defined differently in different places, each council develops initiatives relevant to their respective regions. We also established regional diversity and inclusion executive councils in some regions to enable direct collaboration with our business leaders, integrate diversity and inclusion with our business strategies, and accelerate DEI initiatives. Our regional councils consist of regional leaders and leaders of our employee resource groups (ERGs). 

Goals

Our initial diversity and inclusion efforts focused on gender diversity, with a goal to achieve 40% female representation in manager and above roles by 2025. In 2020, we began to broaden our DEI focus by increasing our efforts addressing diversity in race and ethnicity. At least annually, our Board of Directors reviews progress towards our sustainability goals which includes our goals for diversity and inclusion. The Board evaluates progress towards meeting our 2025 sustainability goals when evaluating our Chief Executive Officer’s compensation. Our CEO's annual performance evaluation includes an assessment of his performance against his strategic objectives, including progress towards our sustainability goals.

Inclusion Index

Our DEI strategy reflects who we are today and the future we are building together. We continually reassess the impact the DEI strategy has on our goals. By introducing a new inclusion index in our 2023 annual employee engagement survey, we were able to better understand how our organizational culture impacts how included employees feel at Avery Dennison. We are developing action plans with each of our Regional DEI Councils to address our new inclusion index drivers.

These new inclusion drivers also surfaced as key engagement drivers, meaning that as we work on these focused areas, we will positively impact both inclusion and engagement.

Talent Acquisition

In the United States, we continue refining our recruitment and talent attraction processes to attract and hire the most qualified candidates while meeting our diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. For example, we established a partnership with the INROADS internship program to provide opportunities throughout our organization for young people of diverse backgrounds. Through the program, we will place ten students into paid summer internships, where students will learn skills and make connections that could make them possible candidates for employment with our company. We are also building relationships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to recruit talent from their student bodies.

Increasing Transparency, Inside and Out

In 2021 we made our Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) statistics—which the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission collects to ensure compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws—publicly available in our most recent ESG Download. We have also made significant advancements in our system of workforce analytics so that we can better understand our demographics and human capital management. In 2022, we released our first DEI data (synopsis) report.

Reviewing Pay Equity

We have continued annually evaluating pay equity, making adjustments where appropriate. In 2023, we reviewed pay equity (considering total base and annual incentive compensation) with respect to gender for all non-manufacturing employees globally, as well as all manufacturing employees in the U.S. and certain other countries, and with respect to race and ethnicity for all U.S. employees. We work to continually improve how we ensure pay equity is properly evaluated, such as including employees from recent acquisitions, expanding our analysis to include long-term incentives for director-level and above employees, and fine tuning our analysis to account for regional differences.

Expanding Our ERGs

Our Employee Resource Groups are open to all employees interested in learning about the experiences and challenges of their colleagues. 

In 2019, we expanded our support of ERGs globally. Our ERG categories include Asian Employees, Black/African American Employees, Caregiving, Hispanic / Latinx, LGBTQI+, Mental Health and Wellbeing, Potential and Ambition, Racially Ethnic Group, Veteran’s and Women’s Networking & Development.

Over 3,200 employees worldwide are a member or ally of an ERG. Members and allies can build relationships and expand networks across business units and functions, network, collaborate, showcase and further develop skills and advocate for cultural change.

Increasing Understanding Through Training

We offer formal training and learning opportunities that help create awareness of, and appreciation for, the differences among our employees. These include sessions on cultural awareness, workstyle appreciation, and conflict resolution. Training is available to both individuals and teams through either facilitator-led sessions or self-paced online learning and can be tailored to specific regional needs.

Mentoring 

Many of our regional teams offer mentoring programs for Avery Dennison employees from underrepresented populations. Most of our efforts are currently at the local level and we are working to scale the most successful programs so that we can offer them enterprise-wide.

Equal Employment Opportunity Data

Below are the statistics we supply annually to the U.S. government to demonstrate our compliance with anti-discrimination laws. We made the decision to share these publicly for the first time in 2021 as part of our commitment to increased transparency.