Adobe’s FY2021 Diversity & Inclusion Year in Review

Today we published our Adobe Diversity & Inclusion Year in Review for fiscal year 2021. In the report, we look at the progress Adobe is making against our goals of creating a more diverse and inclusive workforce, unleashing the full potential of every employee, and helping drive meaningful change across both our industry and society at large.

Looking back at 2021, we have a lot to be proud of. And I am pleased to say that we are making strides in a number of areas as we aspire to live the values of Adobe For All — our belief that when people feel appreciated and included, they can be more creative, innovative, and successful.

Here are some highlights from the report:

Employee demographic metrics

In FY2021, our diversity metrics demonstrated incremental movement for employee representation for women and US underrepresented minorities (URM) — i.e., those who identify as Black/African-American, Hispanic/Latinx, Native American, Pacific Islander, and/or two or more races. Overall, we have seen positive movement with diverse representation over the last five years that we have reported.

As our workforce continues to grow, our rate of diverse representation will also shift from year to year. We believe that consistent positive movement over a longer time frame demonstrates that we’re making strides, and we are pleased with our progress from FY2017 to FY2021. Increasing representation for a large, high-growth company like Adobe can be challenging, and we are committed to making continued progress.

Gender representation

Globally, women represented 33.8 percent of our employees, 27.2 percent of our leadership roles, and 26.2 percent of our technical roles at the end of FY2021.

From the end of FY2017 to the end of FY2021, the number of Adobe employees self-identifying as women increased from 5,527 to 8,743 (a 58.2 percent increase).

To increase transparency, we provide views of our intersectional gender and race/ethnicity data. In FY2021, our US race/ethnicity by gender representation was as follows:

US underrepresented minorities (URM) representation

At the end of FY2021, URM employees comprised 10.9 percent of our US employee base. From the end of FY2017 to the end of FY2021, the total number of US employees self-identifying as URM increased from 746 to 1461 (a 95.8 percent increase).

In the US, URM employees represented 7.0 percent of our leadership roles and 9.2 percent of our technical roles.

US URM representation by race/ethnicity was as follows:

Aspirational goals

To help improve employee representation, in September 2020 we established aspirational goals for overall representation and representation at leadership levels. Because we believe that leadership role models can create a virtuous cycle of growth, development, and advancement, we want to increase representation of women in leadership positions to 30 percent globally by 2025, double representation of US URM in leadership positions by 2025, and double Black representation as a percentage of US employees by 2025.

At the end of FY2021, progress against these goals included:

• Women represented 27.2 percent of leadership globally.
• URM employees represented 7.0 percent of leadership in the US.
• Black employees represented 2.8 percent of US employee base.

Attracting diverse talent

Our dedicated Diversity Talent Acquisition team stayed focused on engaging and recruiting Black/African-American candidates, Hispanic/Latinx candidates, veterans, women, and other candidates from underrepresented groups. We continue to invest in this team, which nearly doubled in 2021, helping to increase our recruitment efforts and acquire 2,252 new hire women and 406 new hire US URM in FY2021.

In FY2021, we launched a pilot program that includes partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-serving Institutions to help prepare students for careers in tech and creative industries. In addition to making US$1 million donations to each of our inaugural members — Bowie State University, Winston-Salem State University, and San Jose State University — we will work with them to provide students with training and learning programs, access to creative and digital tools, mentoring and career development, and more.

We also continued our Hiring at Adobe program, which strengthens and further standardizes our hiring processes as part of our commitment to fair, inclusive hiring practices — sponsored events and recruited at conferences to broaden our connections to diverse talent communities — continued our She Spark internship program in India for women returning to the workforce — and hosted our Digital Academy Program giving people with nontraditional backgrounds opportunities to enter technology and design careers.

Ensuring that everyone feels valued and successful

Employee communities

Our eight employee resource groups (ERGs), which we call employee networks, were instrumental in building community and driving progress for underrepresented communities. Our employee networks hosted cultural moment celebrations, created opportunities to learn and grow, helped with recruiting efforts, and provided support for nonprofit organizations.

In 2021, Adobe employees gave more than US$470,000 in personal donations and Adobe matching grants during cultural moments in support of 71 nonprofit organizations. And employee networks helped drive more than 10,000 employee engagements during cultural moment events.

We continued our weeklong virtual experience called Adobe For All Week, which brought together more than 7,000 unique employee attendees worldwide (30 percent of Adobe’s employee base) to build inclusion, empathy, and connections centered around the theme, Do One Thing Today.

Pay parity

We define pay parity as ensuring that employees in the same job and location are paid fairly relative to one another, regardless of their gender or ethnicity. In FY2021, we affirmed that we have maintained global gender pay parity for the fourth year in a row. Also, after having achieved pay parity between URM and non-URM employees in the US in FY2020, we affirmed that we maintained it in FY2021. We are committed to maintaining pay parity and we plan to continue investing in salary analysis across hiring, acquisition integrations, and annual pay review processes.

Partnering with organizations dedicated to driving change

With financial support from the Adobe Foundation, we launched the Adobe Equity and Advancement Initiative, a multi-year, strategic grantmaking program supporting 11 leading international and domestic Non-Governmental Organizations. Through this model, the Adobe Foundation and the company are making long-term, strategic commitments and investing a minimum of US$20 million over three years to provide meaningful partnership opportunities, learning experiences for employees, and new ways of leveraging Adobe’s unique strengths in support of issues key to Adobe and our communities.

Through our Supplier Diversity program, which ensures that Adobe is purchasing goods and services from businesses that are certified as majority-owned and operated by underrepresented groups, our spend with diverse suppliers increased by 58 percent from FY2020 to FY2021.

Maintaining our convictions and stamina

At Adobe, diversity and inclusion is not just a call to action. It is the way we show up for work every day, and it impacts our performance across the business. This past year, I have been inspired by the nimbleness and resilience of our employees.

As 2022 progresses, we are continuing to invest in and innovate to make Adobe the best place for employees to learn, grow, and feel valued for who they are and what they bring. We invite you to explore our 2021 Diversity and Inclusion Year in Review Report to see the positive progress we have made and understand how we will draw on our strengths and continue upholding our values for Adobe For All as we move forward.