Adobe For All: Top 10 Moments of 2019

Contributed by Katie Juran, Senior Director, Diversity & Inclusion

Here we are at the end of 2019 – where did the time go? I am incredibly proud of the progress we have made to advance our Adobe For All vision. We believe that when people feel appreciated and included they can be more creative, innovative, and successful – as said so beautifully by our employees in this video.

As I reflect on the year, there were many great moments and achievements throughout the year. These are my top 10:

1. Hot off the press today, it’s an honor for Adobe to receive the Best Workplaces for Diversity 2019 award by Fortune and the Great Place to Work Institute. This year we rank no. 8 out of the top 100 companies listed. Based on employees’ feedback from women, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, the Boomers-and-older cohort, and people with disabilities, this industry recognition is a great testament to our commitment to advancing diversity and inclusion at Adobe. This joins a portfolio of 19 other diversity and inclusion awards we have received this year.

2. In February, Adobe joined fellow members at the MAKERS Conference, a global event that explores ways to accelerate women’s equality. Five Adobe senior leaders joined me at the conference to initiate important conversations with peers and influencers to drive meaningful change. Check out the reflections from Nan Guo, John Pritchard, and Julie Warburton – all amazing advocates

3. During our onstage pledge at MAKERS, we were the first company to announce a commitment to opportunity parity – a term we created to describe fairness in promotions and horizontal movements across demographic groups. We believe this is the next chapter in ensuring fairness and growth across all parts of the company, and we are investing in ongoing analysis and transparency to demonstrate our commitment to opportunity parity globally. We achieved our first milestone with a public disclosure in September; look out for more to come.

4. Our global Adobe For All Summits in San Jose and New Delhi brought together 3,000+ employees, diversity and inclusion experts, and inspirational speakers to advance Adobe as a workplace that works for everyone. The theme was Empower Every Voice, and the best part of these events were our powerful employee storytellers. These employees from around the world moved the audience with their personal stories about the way their life experiences have shaped who they are today.

Adobe’s Chief Human Resources Officer, Donna Morris, presenting at the Adobe For All Summit 2019, San Jose, CA.

Adobe’s Ruchira Garg in conversation with Prince M.S. Gohil and Major D.P. Singh at the India, APAC and Japan Adobe For All Summit 2019, New Delhi, India.

5. At the Summits, we activated Adobe For All in Action, five specific and tangible ways our employees can be more inclusive. We developed easy-to-use reference cards that give tips on how to apply these actions in everyday situations (feel free to download the cards on our website, they apply anywhere!):

6. We announced enhanced parental benefits that help our employees and their families expand and evolve. We have tripled our U.S. fertility Rx lifetime max (increased from $20K to $60K) to cover egg-freezing and storage, IVF cycles and infertility drugs for fertility preservation supporting employees actively trying to have a baby.

7. The Grace Hopper Celebration in both the U.S. and India were a highlight of a great year relative to our efforts to attract diverse talent through events and partnerships. We hosted events with historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and the United College Fund (UNCF); and participated in AfroTech, Lesbians Who Tech, and VetsInTech, among many others. Our diversity recruitment efforts resulted in thousands of new relationships for Adobe and some terrific new hires.

Adobe’s booth at the Grace Hopper Celebration 2019, Orlando, FL.

Adobe employees at AfroTech 2019, Oakland, CA.

8. Adobe Digital Academy offers career switchers from diverse backgrounds the education and experience they need to launch careers in technology. Given its success, this year we rolled out an open-source playbook that explains our process and offers tips and best practices to help other companies build their own modern apprenticeship programs. This is a great example of how we are supporting our peers to drive diversity across tech and creative industries at large.

9. At The 3% Conference, Adobe was honored as the first corporate brand certified by The 3% Movement for making meaningful strides towards gender equality. Historically, The 3% Movement has examined entire creative agencies for their practices across female leadership, workplace culture and equal creative opportunity. It was new territory for both of our organizations to look at one creative department within a larger company. We are committed to moving the industry forward, and we hope this collaboration will inspire other brands to examine the experience of their in-house creative teams.

10. Earlier this month (in the same week!), the UK Black Employee Network (BEN) was honored by the Inclusive Tech Alliance (ITA) for Best ‘D&I Activity – Ethnicity’ award and UK AdobeProud network received the LGBTQ Network Group award at the Rainbow Honours This topped off a terrific year for our employee networks globally. The number of Adobe employees involved in our networks has increased 25% from a year ago, with exciting growth happening internationally. For the first time, our AdobeProud networks in Munich, Tokyo, and Toronto all marched for Pride and they are enthusiastically planning for 2020 events.

Adobe UK Black Employee Network accepting the Inclusive Tech Alliance Award.

This was an amazing year, but we still have a lot of work ahead. Cheers to everyone who is driving progress on diversity and inclusion at Adobe and across the industry, and let’s go big in 2020!