Champion Better Lives

One way we are ensuring we have a robust talent pipeline is through recruiting, interviewing and hiring leadership that reflects the diverse communities we serve. As a Company, we have taken the ParityPledge in Support of Women In Leadership and the ParityPledge in Support of People of Color, underscoring our commitment to interview at least one female candidate, at least one Black candidate and at least one candidate from other underrepresented groups for each role at the VP level and above. We have committed to ensuring that people of color (POC) represent at least 20% of our Global Leadership Team by 2023. Ongoing education helps us maintain an environment where every employee feels safe and respected. All employees, including Board members, completed unconscious bias training this year, and we are delivering allyship and advocacy training in FY21.

It’s important that everything we do reflects our values, especially our love of people and culture. We are, with great intention, working to ensure our sources of inspiration are respected and strengthened when they are represented through our brand. This principle guides our creative process from product design and development to marketing and advertising. By 2020, all of our design, production and merchant teams will complete training on inclusive and culturally aware design.

Read more about our diversity and inclusion efforts in our 2020 Global Citizenship & Sustainability Report.

Last year, we achieved our gender parity goal for equal representation of women in leadership positions three years ahead of schedule. In the U.S., we reached gender pay equity, providing equal pay for equal work, and we will expand our pay equity assessment to our global workforce in the coming year with the same objective in.

While we are proud of this progress, COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on working women – particularly on women of color – demonstrates that parity alone is not enough. We must address the systems preexisting the pandemic that have pressured female workers to sacrifice their professional ambitions and leave the workforce entirely.

That's why in October 2020, we partnered with Parity.org to craft and publish "Unlocking Gender Parity in Fashion," a roadmap for the fashion industry to progress in achieving gender parity. The paper offers a five-point plan and unifying philosophy that will allow fashion companies to accelerate gender equity in our industry. The actionable tools and practical solutions offered in the paper were informed by a series of roundtable discussions, led by Ralph Lauren and Parity.org in 2019, with coauthors that include PVH, Lacoste, Tiffany & Co. and Movado Group Inc.

With this framework and, most importantly, our own people as our guidepost, we are exploring and implementing employee-driven policy changes like expanded flexible working arrangements, increased emergency back-up caretaker support, enhanced benefits offerings for part-time employees, additional support resources for working parents and more. We hope our industry peers will join us in this important work to equip every woman with the tools and resources she needs for success in the workplace and beyond.

Read the paper and learn more about strategies for fostering gender parity in the apparel retail workforce.

The talent and commitment of half a million workers in our supply chain make the timeless style and quality of Ralph Lauren pieces a reality. On average, women make up half of the apparel supply chain workforce, yet the vast majority of supervisor positions are held by men. To address this disparity, we partnered with the International Finance Corporation on their Gender Equality and Returns Program (GEAR). GEAR advances women from basic factory worker roles by training them in people management and technical skills. We’ve launched GEAR in select Bangladesh factories and will continue rolling it out in the region over the next year.

We also continued our work with the HERproject™ in Bangladesh and launched the HERhealth program in five factories. The program provides information on women’s health topics such as healthy eating, personal hygiene and maternal health. The HERproject has benefitted over 20,000 supply chain workers to date, half of which were in the HERhealth program. We’re looking forward to expanding HERhealth to Cambodia next year.

We aim to create a culture of belonging where everyone can be their best selves and succeed, both in the workplace and our communities. As part of this mission, Ralph Lauren and the Ralph Lauren Corporate Foundation have proudly supported the LGBTQIA+ community for more than 25 years.

In 2019, we partnered with the Stonewall Community Foundation in support of their mission to drive positive social change and LGBTQIA+ awareness. During Pride 2019, we designed a five-piece gender neutral collection from which a portion of the proceeds for every item sold was donated to Stonewall. We also engaged our employees in these efforts by providing donation and volunteering opportunities to give back to the LGBTQIA+ community.

Within our own company, we are proud to offer transgender- inclusive healthcare benefits and to support our employee community group RL Pride. This global, employee-led group now has more than 500 members and helps drive LGBTQIA+ education and awareness. In Pride Month 2019, RL Pride hosted nearly 30 events across our offices worldwide.