Blog
Embracing learning and development to expand opportunities
We take pride in being a sustainable, responsible company. Through our innovative solutions and our environmental stewardship, we’ve shared our commitment and the steps taken to create great products for our customers while contributing to a greener future. Our employees are our lifeblood, and to succeed as a responsible company, our employee community must be empowered to thrive.
We believe in creating an inclusive, diverse and equitable workforce because it’s the right thing to do – and we also acknowledge the undoubted benefit to our company that diversity of thought and talent brings. In addition to our differences in backgrounds, abilities, identities and beliefs, each of us brings our unique perspective and talents to inform our ideas and our work. This complex tapestry of diversity is one reason we have been able to succeed in our many geographic markets around the world.
To maintain this momentum, it’s our mission to empower every employee and ensure they have a seat and a voice at the table. That includes the voting “table” via our Voting Time Off policy.
We’re creating an equitable world through empowerment, celebration, and systemic change
Equity among all our employees is critical, and we are making strides to empower and celebrate employees of all ethnic and racial backgrounds. Our employee resource group, the Black Flex Network (BFN), has sought to create a community that fosters freedom of self while building awareness and developing a new generation of black leaders at Flex. By establishing a sustainable structure with executive support that challenges bias and promotes unity, BFN is able to focus on recruitment and representation of black employees at Flex, as well as engage with our local communities to educate and empower minority youth. To further this commitment and increase diversity in leadership at Flex, we have partnered with McKinsey to have 100+ Black employees participate in the upcoming Black Leadership Development program for managers and executives beginning in November.
Some of our global engagements include our CEO Revathi Advaithi joining the Catalyst Board of Directors, as well as the Business Roundtable, where she works with other executives to help fight systemic racial injustice. Revathi along with her direct reports from around the world just completed an Inclusive Leadership Experience that focused on unconscious bias and leading with inclusion. We’re also proud to share that Revathi is chairing the newly launched Global Inclusion Council, which includes 12 members from various diversity dimensions from around the world.
Closer to home, Flex has created a new program called Time to Talk, where employees can meet with Revathi for candid discussions about societal challenges that impact corporate America and what we can do to improve the experience for underrepresented groups at Flex. Most recently Flex introduced the new Voting Time Off policy to ensure all employees have the availability needed to express their vote in the US election. We also introduced a new Paid Parental Leave policy in the US that provides 8 weeks of paid time off for new parents regardless of gender, sexual orientation or any other diversity dimension.
Our commitment to diversity stretches across people and cultures. We love to celebrate the rich histories of our employees, and this year, we honored the stories, cultures and contributions of people of Hispanic and Latin descent during Hispanic Heritage Month. We highlight the extraordinary work of our colleagues of Latin and Hispanic heritage not only in the U.S., but all around the globe.
We provide meaningful opportunities for our employees to advance
We also recognize the historical underrepresentation of women in the manufacturing industry, and we empower our female employees to advance their careers and build strong networks through activities, events and development programs. This is cultivated at the highest level of the organization, starting with our CEO, who is a strong advocate of inclusion and diversity and was recently recognized as one of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women for the second year and Business Today India’s Most Powerful Women.
In 2019, we expanded our efforts of advancement and opportunity for women in our company through SheLeads, a global program focused on creating equal opportunity, fortifying our talent pipeline and increasing a greater sense of diversity and inclusion. We’re excited to invest in and elevate SheLeads and provide women with activities like sponsorship projects and assignments to impactful company initiatives.
We also promote and celebrate gender diversity at Flex and provide spaces for our women to thrive. Since 2018, our employee resource group, Women in Flex, has succeeded in creating opportunities for women across our company, through the promotion of gender equality and balance, and fostering meaningful career growth. In March 2020, we celebrated Women in Flex Week, hosting activities around the world to contribute meaningful and necessary changes in the way our societies approach women in the workplace.
Our inclusive environments help attract and maintain a diverse workforce
For many of our employees, inclusivity is about physical workspaces just as much as it is about awareness and acceptance. In Zhuhai, China, we provide accessible accommodations to attract and retain more than 200 people with disabilities, who are employed in every department. Our Zhuhai team has created dedicated workstations located throughout the facility, equipped with tools and resources for employees with physical and intellectual disabilities to do their best work. Enabling our employees with disabilities to excel helps us retain them, maintaining our strong and successful workforce.
We also engage locally to provide education and empower our communities. Every year we celebrate People with Disabilities Awareness Week, marking the momentous UN International Persons with Disabilities Day. Around the globe, more than 19,000 employees participated in 180+ local initiatives and community activities to empower and celebrate people with disabilities, provide training and raise awareness.
We are a company of people
While our commitment to inclusion and diversity begins at the top, it’s carried out in many different ways through the words and actions of our Flex family. Earlier this year, we invited our employee base to share their stories as we celebrated Pride in our LGBTQ+ communities. Around the world, employees described what #Pride means to them — from struggle, to celebration, to love.
With the help of our wonderful volunteers and through our Flex Foundation, we’ve also maintained our commitment to give back to our communities. In 2019, we helped build rain-water collection systems in Guadalajara in a community with no access to water. The Flex Foundation also partnered with iSisters Technology Mentoring to broaden employment opportunities for participants by providing job search and career development skills training. Since 2017, 133 women have benefited from the iSisters program, with 91 women graduating in 2020 alone. By creating more equitable communities, people of all backgrounds have a better chance to succeed.
At Flex, we celebrate the differences in background, thought, perspective, and talent that our employees bring to our community — and we recognize the success it continues to enable for our company. As we strive to build an environment where our employees thrive and give back to our community, we stay mindful of inclusion every step of the way. As our CEO recently reminded us, at the end of the day, “We are a company of people.”
