Creating an ecosystem for diverse talent in our organization is a key objective of our DEI Strategy. To ensure our workplace is welcoming for all and that people will be encouraged to apply to join our business, whatever their background, we must tailor our outreach and programs to the needs and unique requirements of all groups, including underrepresented groups.
Accelerating Talent Development
At Johnson & Johnson, we maintain a wide range of personal and professional development programs that support the growth and meet the career aspirations of all Johnson & Johnson employees.
Specifically, we proactively leverage these development frameworks to ensure equitable access to opportunities for diverse employees at Johnson & Johnson to accelerate the progress and career development of diverse talent across our business. For example, in 2021, our initiatives included:
RISE: A comprehensive accelerator designed for high-achieving, mid-level aspiring leaders with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. It’s ideal for people interested in pursuing senior roles across the Company and enhances priority skills development through real-world projects.
ASCEND: Our Global Women’s Leadership Development Program is a premium talent accelerator designed to build on the leadership strengths of high-potential women across the organization. We ran one cohort of 30 female leaders in each of our three business regions in 2021, continuing our annual program.
Sponsorship: We maintain many forms of sponsorship in the organization at different levels to support personal and professional growth. Our Enterprise Sponsorship Program began in 2016 to support high-performing diverse managers through supportive sponsorship relationships with senior leaders to accelerate their development.
Enterprise Sponsorship Program Highlights
Around the world, we tailor sponsorship opportunities to meet the needs of colleagues in different teams and regions. For example, in 2021, our Johnson & Johnson Technology (JJT) team onboarded more than 50 diverse colleagues to the Enterprise Sponsorship Program, pairing mid-management colleagues with more senior JJT managers to foster networking and skill building needed to advance a management career.
Reverse mentoring: Across the organization, we have many examples of reverse mentoring, providing our senior leaders with exposure to managers at an early stage in their careers, who provide their diverse perspectives and experiences. JJT introduced reverse mentoring for young managers to mentor seasoned colleagues and provide different insights on the changing ways of working in the digital age.
Development with our partner organizations:
- The Executive Leadership Council (ELC) is the pre-eminent membership organization committed to increasing the number of global Black executives in C-Suites, on corporate boards and in global enterprises. In 2021, we leveraged an ELC program focused on helping Black men further their development and careers.
- The Black Men in Leadership Virtual Conference is designed to help Black men navigate the corporate landscape with more confidence, clarity, and competency. This virtual program aims to provide crucial conversations, networking, and resources to help Black men continue their success. Based on overwhelming positive feedback, we are offering this session again in 2022, along with one for Black women.
- McKinsey Leadership Academy to expand opportunities for our diverse talent to attend structured programs that could accelerate their development. The Executive Leadership Program supports rising executives through capability building and a strong network and is delivered through virtual, expert-led plenary sessions and facilitated small group sessions over a three-month period.
Expanding Inclusion Opportunities
We take a conscious and proactive approach to creating a workplace that offers opportunities to all, ensuring that we intentionally work to remove barriers to entry and provide targeted support for underrepresented communities. Examples of our work in 2021 to advance women in STEM, support the veteran community and welcome people with disabilities are among the many areas of inclusive access we address through our DEI Strategy and practices.
Women and Girls in STEM
We believe women are catalysts for creating healthier people, healthier communities and a healthier world. Historically, women have been underrepresented in science and technology professions. Women of color constitute 20% of the population but only 14% of bachelor’s degrees in STEM fields. At Johnson & Johnson, we believe we can change that.
Our WiSTEM2D program has been active since 2015 and operates across four pillars:
Johnson & Johnson’s Health for Humanity 2025 Goals include our ambition to engage more women in Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, Manufacturing and Design (WiSTEM²D), with a specific goal of engaging two million girls by 2025.
Through our WiSTEM²D Youth Pillar, more than 2,400 Johnson & Johnson employee volunteers directly supported approximately 300,000 girls. The program also indirectly reached more than 6 million girls through nonprofit partnerships and teachers across more than 30 countries. Our WiSTEM²D Scholars Pillar organized events and activities with partner universities as well as internships, professional development programs and other opportunities for students. In 2021, WiSTEM²D partnered with more than 65 universities and delivered more than 90 events, reaching more than 7,000 undergraduate university students.
Similarly, each year since 2017, we have selected women STEM²D tenure-track professors who are making key STEM²D discoveries as part of our ongoing WiSTEM²D Scholars Award Program. Each awardee receives a grant of $150,000 and three years of mentorship to help them advance global innovations for better healthcare outcomes in a range of fields. In 2021, six women scholars were selected from more than 430 highly qualified applicants, with more than 68% from outside the U.S.
WiSTEM2D Scholars Award Mathematics Winner: Ivana Bozic
Meet our 2021 WiSTEM²D Scholars Award Mathematics Winner, Ivana Bozic
Dr. Bozic develops computational models to study the evolutionary dynamics of cancer and uses mathematics to optimize cancer immunotherapy.
Veterans, Service Members & Military Families
Johnson & Johnson has a long history of welcoming U.S. Armed Forces members and veterans, their families, and caregivers. This community of veterans brings exceptional skills and competencies to Johnson & Johnson, and we engage service members in a range of roles to which they are uniquely suited. All our veterans are invited to join our active Veterans Leadership Council Employee Resource Group (ERG) (see section: Growing Our DEI Networks).
In 2021, we maintained and added programs and benefits for veterans at Johnson & Johnson, as follows:
Sales roles for vets: The Janssen Veteran Sales Pathway is a comprehensive new initiative to support the success of transitioning military veterans into pharmaceutical sales roles. The program includes coaching, mentorship and development support.
On-the-job experience: The Johnson & Johnson SkillBridge Program is a new talent pathway designed to support service members separating from the military. This U.S. Department of Defense program offers three to six months of extensive on-the-job experience for separating military service members in their last six months of active duty.
Career opportunities: Our Military Veteran Leadership Development Program (MVLDP) and Experienced Military Veteran Leadership Development Program (EMVLDP) provide transitioning veterans with professional development career opportunities building on experience in two or three rotations over 18 months that encompass a variety of leadership and functions at Johnson & Johnson. In 2021, 22 veterans were active in these development programs.
Partnering for vets: We maintain multiple partnerships with organizations that can help identify potential military or veteran candidates for roles at Johnson & Johnson and provide general career support for them and theor spouses. Examples from 2021 include our engagement with Hiring Our Heroes, Heroes MAKE America, Hire Heroes USA and MedTechVets.
Engaging vets in innovation: We launched two first-ever innovation challenges with military veterans in mind, recognizing that many post-active-duty veterans disproportionately face health issues compared to other Americans. The challenges, part of the Johnson & Johnson Innovation QuickFire Challenges Series, focused on “By Vets”—innovation from Veteran or Military Spouse owned companies and “For Vets”—innovation from any entrepreneur focused on areas where the veteran community faces disparate challenges and health equity issues. Participants submitted ideas earning up to $500,000 in grants for selected ideas.
Learn more about how J&J is supporting our Military Connected Community
U.S. military veterans are highly trained, agile, resourceful, values-based leaders who have entrepreneurial mindsets, see the big picture, understand intent and drive successful execution. They are welcome at Johnson & Johnson.
The skills we bring to the table as veterans are totally transferable. The friction points are the same, no matter if we’re leading from the front in a critical situation or motivating a team to succeed. Today, in my role at Johnson & Johnson, I know that I'm making a positive impact in the lives of so many people every day.
Individuals with Disabilities
As the world’s largest healthcare organization, Johnson & Johnson values the knowledge and skills of individuals with disabilities. There are more than a billion people worldwide with a disability. To better serve this community, it’s important that their perspectives are included when developing and designing our products. We have several initiatives focused on disability inclusion within our organization:
Web accessibility initiative: We created a cross-functional Web Accessibility Council to improve our product websites. We identified a need to provide web developers and brand managers with guidance on what accessible content looks like to reference when they are creating or updating websites. Based on this need, the web accessibility playbook was created. The Council held a series of meetings to share best practices and challenges and to build awareness about web accessibility and the playbook.
Expanded programs for disability hiring: We maintained and initiated new partnerships with nonprofits dedicated to advancing individuals with disabilities as well as recruiting organizations such as Rangam, Lime Connect and Specialisterne, enabling us to meet potential candidates.
- DiverseAbility Program: We identified a need to enhance our capabilities and outreach for disability hiring. In 2021, we launched a pilot program in partnership with Rangam, a workforce solutions company, to recruit individuals with disabilities to Johnson & Johnson. Through this program, we provided managers with disability training and a mentor and supported new employees with a peer buddy. We plan to expand the program further in 2022.
- Hiring people with autism: At Johnson & Johnson Brazil, eight individuals with autism spectrum disorder were hired as welcome members of our team. This was made possible by Project Spectrum, a new proactive hiring program for autistic talent led by Johnson & Johnson Brazil in partnership with our active ERG, Alliance for Diverse Abilities (ADA), and Specialisterne, a company specializing in education and training for people with autism and their inclusion in the labor market. Project Spectrum was launched as part of a program to recognize and celebrate World Autism Day, with ADA holding a first Autism Week at Johnson & Johnson Brazil, raising awareness of the challenges and opportunities associated with autism in the workplace. Johnson & Johnson Brazil provided resources and support to help these new colleagues feel they belong and succeed in their roles.
This is the first time that we have a program in our region specifically designed to attract, develop and retain this specific group of talented individuals. We are committed to ensuring we have a welcoming and inclusive environment to receive autistic talent.
Improving Inclusive Benefits
Our compensation framework includes our commitment to pay equity, including gender and ethnic/racial group pay equity. From time to time, we analyze our pay across functions and levels, and strive to eliminate unconscious bias or other barriers to full pay equity across the Enterprise, expanding our review to a wider sampling of countries in 2021.
In addition to salary and wages, our benefits packages aim to improve the quality of life for employees by providing support for family, health and well-being, education and long-term financial management needs. We continuously review and update our benefits programs and in 2021, among the benefits added across the Enterprise, the following benefits specifically support our DEI objectives:
- Extension of our paid parental leave benefit from 8 weeks to 12 weeks for all eligible employees globally to be implemented on a phased basis in 2022 to all our regions.
- Military Spouse Time-Off Policy for employees in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, which provides up to 10 days of paid time off for eligible military spouse employees when their families experience challenging situations arising from military service.
- Military Leave Policy to enable National Guard and Reserve service member employees in the U.S. and Puerto Rico to receive full pay and benefits during military leave for a maximum duration of three continuous years—an increase from the previous two-year maximum.
- New Employee Mental Well-being Training pilot program to educate and empower employees to prioritize their mental well-being and support their colleagues to do the same.
- J&J Flex offers a hybrid approach to working so all our employees are empowered to find their personal balance of productivity. This hybrid model provides the option for all office-based employees to work at least 3 days on-site and up to 2 days remote per week.
