Trailblazer PACESETTER Late Bloomer

Adobe, a computer software company, has been ranked as a PACESETTER on the Women’s Power and Influence Index.

Adobe reviews compensation practices and has achieved and maintained global pay parity since 2018. Adobe has numerous programs dedicated to women’s professional development as well as a six-month mentorship director-level mentorship program sponsored through an employee network group named Women at Adobe. Adobe also provides DEI speaker events through the Women at Adobe network group. Adobe offers paid parental leave and provides access to benefits including fertility drugs, imaging, and assisted reproductive technology services.

As of 2021, women constitute 37.33% of the workforce and 24.19% of total leadership positions.

Information related to subsidized child care and harassment/discrimination training could not be found or did not meet the Index’s criteria standards.

Review the comprehensive WPI criteria and methodology.

✓ Does the company demonstrate a clear and transparent commitment to equal pay? 

“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. One of the most important ways to show our employees we value them is by ensuring we pay them fairly. We’re proud that in October 2018 we achieved global pay parity between women and men. We also announced pay parity between U.S. URM* and non-URM employees in September 2020. We had previously disclosed that non-white employees were paid as much as white employees. We continue to monitor our progress to ensure that we are creating a culture that fairly rewards and recognizes the contributions of all employees.” Ref: Adobe Pay Parity (Website)

✓ Does the company perform an annual analysis of gender pay equity and pay disparities? 

“With employees appropriately mapped, we initially focused our efforts to review compensation practices in the U.S. and India, two countries that represent 80 percent of our employee population. We announced gender pay parity in the U.S. and India in December 2017 and January 2018, respectively.

We moved on to review employees in the nearly 40 countries where the rest of our employees work by looking at our workforce by market segments: Fast-moving and Mature, as defined by the volatility of market compensation rates. And in October 2018, we announced that we’d achieved our goal of global gender pay parity. In addition, as a core element of our pay parity work, we analyzed pay for employees’ in the same job and location and made a small number of adjustments to employees’ base pay based on that review. All our global pay adjustments, including those previously made in the U.S. and India, impacted less than 5 percent of Adobe employees and accounted for less than 0.2 percent of our global payroll costs.” Ref: Adobe Pay Parity (Website)

✓ Do female employees earn at least 95% of what their male counterparts earn?

“In 2022, we affirmed that we’ve maintained global gender pay parity for the fifth year in a row.

In FY2022, Adobe maintained 1:1 pay parity ratio between women and men globally and between underrepresented minorities and non-underrepresented minorities in the US.” Ref: Adobe Pay Parity (Website)

✓ Does the company demonstrate a commitment to actively attracting, retaining, and/or promoting women within the organization? 

“Adobe’s purpose starts with our commitment to create a workplace and community that reflects the diversity of the world around us, where everyone feels included and respected and has the opportunity to make an impact. Greater representation leads to a virtuous cycle of more role models, advancement, growth and meaningful innovations for our customers and communities. We are proud of our progress in increasing women in Director+ roles globally by 50% and our Black community in the U.S. by 63% over the past two years.” Ref: Pg 2, Adobe Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2022

✓ Does the company provide professional development programs designed specifically for female employees? 

“Because increasing women representation in the tech industry is a universal challenge, we hosted a number of successful programs for women at Adobe including the Leadership Circles development program, which launched 10 years ago; Women’s Executive Shadow Program globally; WeLead program in India; Women in Tech Forum career coaching platform in EMEA; and Women Emerging Leaders Program in APAC and Japan.” Ref: Pg 12, Adobe Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2022

✓ Does the company provide professional development programs designed specifically for diverse employees?

“Adobe is also investing in development programs for underrepresented groups. Through the Taking Action Initiative we have continued the Adobe Sponsorship Program for Black managers and directors, as well as the McKinsey Connected Leaders Academy for Black, Asian/Pacific Islander and Hispanic/Latinx employees.” Ref: Pg 12, Adobe Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2022

✓ Does the company offer a formal mentoring program to support the career advancement of all female employees? 

“Women At Adobe’s mission is to attract, develop, and engage Women at Adobe and allies, to foster connection and growth, and to create an environment that empowers every woman to define and achieve her own success.   Throughout the year, Women at Adobe sponsors a six-month director-level mentorship program, hosts a leadership recognition program, and supports nonprofit organizations including Equality Now and Women for Women International.” Ref: Adobe Employee Networks (Website)

✓ Does the company offer a formal mentoring program to support the career advancement of diverse employees?  

“Throughout the year, Women at Adobe sponsors a six-month director-level mentorship program, hosts a leadership recognition program, and supports nonprofit organizations including Equality Now and Women for Women International.” Ref: Adobe Employee Networks (Website)

✓ Does the company have policies and programs in place to actively recruit female candidates?

“In FY2022, we invested in partnerships and events to engage candidates across underrepresented communities, including: Women: Grace Hopper Celebration of Women, San José State University’s Society of Women in Engineering” Ref: Pg 11, Adobe Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2022

✓ Does the company have policies and programs in place to actively recruit diverse candidates? 

“In FY2022, we invested in partnerships and events to engage candidates across underrepresented communities, including:

• Black/African American: AfroTech, Codehouse, HBCU 20×20, Mentor Me Collective, National Black MBA
• Hispanic/Latinx: San José State University Latino Business Student Association, LatinX in AI
• Indigenous: Advancing Indigenous People in STEM, American Indian Science and Engineering Society
• LGBTQ+: Lesbians Who Tech
• Underrepresented Minorities: AdColor, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, Life After the NFL” Ref: Pg 11,  Adobe Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2022

✓ Does the company demonstrate a commitment to providing support and/or time off for women with children?

“We understand that life doesn’t stop when you leave work—caring for your family is your top priority, and we want to assist you in doing so.” Ref: Adobe Childcare Benefits (Website)

✓ Does the company provide child care support for employees?  

✘ Does the company offer subsidized child care?

Information regarding this criterion was unavailable or incomplete.

✓ Does the company offer paid maternity leave for birthing parents?

“Who it’s for: If you’ve recently become a new parent, you can take time off after your child’s birth, adoption or foster care placement. You must be a regular full-time employee, and you’ll need to provide proof of your child’s birth or placement.

How much time you can take: If you’re eligible for Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave, you can take up to 16 weeks of FMLA-qualifying paid parental leave, taken within 6 months of the birth/placement of your baby. This is separate from any physician-certified FMLA or medical leave resulting from pregnancy or childbirth-related disabilities. If you’re not FMLA-eligible or you’ve exhausted your FMLA allotment as of the birth or placement of your child you can take up to four weeks of non-FMLA-qualifying paid parental leave within one year of the birth or placement of your child.

If you’re eligible for the maximum medical leave and parental leave benefits, you can take up to a combined total of 26 weeks of fully paid leave during and after pregnancy.” Ref: Adobe Timeoff Policy (Website)

✓ Does the company provide paid parental leave that extends beyond birthing parents to include surrogacy, adoption, and paternity leave?

“Who it’s for: If you’ve recently become a new parent, you can take time off after your child’s birth, adoption or foster care placement. You must be a regular full-time employee, and you’ll need to provide proof of your child’s birth or placement.

How much time you can take: If you’re eligible for Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave, you can take up to 16 weeks of FMLA-qualifying paid parental leave, taken within 6 months of the birth/placement of your baby. This is separate from any physician-certified FMLA or medical leave resulting from pregnancy or childbirth-related disabilities. If you’re not FMLA-eligible or you’ve exhausted your FMLA allotment as of the birth or placement of your child you can take up to four weeks of non-FMLA-qualifying paid parental leave within one year of the birth or placement of your child.

If you’re eligible for the maximum medical leave and parental leave benefits, you can take up to a combined total of 26 weeks of fully paid leave during and after pregnancy.” Ref: Adobe Timeoff Policy (Website)

✓ Does the company demonstrate a commitment to supporting the health benefits of its female employees?

“Adobe provides access to benefits including fertility drugs, imaging, labs and assisted reproductive technology services for Aetna and Kaiser Permanente medical plan members.” Ref: Adobe Health Benefits (Website)

✓ Does the company offer women-specific health benefits for female employees?

“Adobe provides access to benefits including fertility drugs, imaging, labs and assisted reproductive technology services for Aetna and Kaiser Permanente medical plan members.” Ref: Adobe Health Benefits (Website)

✓ Does the company have a policy listing prohibited behaviors, such as harassment and retaliation?

“This policy applies to complaints and investigations of all forms of unlawful harassment or discrimination. This policy applies to all forms of conduct by, and contact between, Adobe employees including, but not limited to, on and off site meetings, and e-mail, voicemail and all other types of verbal and written communication.

Unlawful harassment includes any conduct that is based upon a person’s race, sex, religion, disability or other protected status, which conduct has the purpose or effect of (i) unreasonably interfering with that person’s work performance, or (ii) creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment for that person.

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors or other verbal or physical conduct that is sexual in nature or directed at a person because of his/her gender constitutes sexual harassment if:

• the person is explicitly or implicitly pressured to submit to the unwelcome conduct as a condition of employment (e.g., “go out with me or you’ll be fired…”) or any employment benefit (e.g., “if you don’t go out with me, you won’t get that pay increase/promotion”); or
• it creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment for the person

Harassment may also include:

• touching someone in a manner that is unwelcome to that person

·       making sexual comments, jokes or innuendoes, vulgar or obscene remarks

• displaying or transmitting offensive pictures, calendars, bitmaps or cartoons either verbal or in writing, including by e-mail”

 Ref: Pg 4, Adobe Harassment and Discrimination Prevention Report

✘ Does the company mandate all employees to undergo harassment and discrimination training?

Information regarding this criterion was unavailable or incomplete.

✓ Does the company have a defined harassment policy that includes promptly addressing reported incidents?

“Unlawful harassment of any employee (including temporary agency personnel who are not Adobe employees) will not be tolerated by Adobe.

a) Complaints of harassment will be promptly investigated, and Adobe will take reasonable steps to maintain the confidentiality of the investigation and its findings.

b) At the conclusion of the investigation, Adobe will advise the complaining employee of its findings.

c) To the extent warranted by those findings, Adobe will take immediate and appropriate action (up to and including termination of employment) against any employee who is found to have violated this policy.” Ref: pg.2, Adobe Harassment and Discrimination Prevention Report

✓ Does the company demonstrate a commitment to helping external stakeholders address gender equality issues?

“In 2022, we made progress across diversity, equity and inclusion by building a more diverse workforce, fostering an inclusive workplace and mobilizing our ecosystem of partners to make an impact outside the company. We also furthered our global network of partners and collaborators to foster racial and social justice around the world.” Ref: Pg 9, Adobe Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2022

✓ Does the company offer and support initiatives that promote gender equality in the community?

✓ Does the company demonstrate a commitment to helping internal stakeholders/employees address gender equality issues?

“At Adobe, we believe that everyone deserves equal treatment, and we are committed to making people feel accepted, valued and respected in the workplace. ” Ref: Adobe Blog: 5 Ways Adobe Supports Women in the Workplace

✓ Does the company offer equity-focused trainings, speaker programs, or events for employees?

“Adobe connects employees with similar interests and passions, promotes inclusion, and creates a healthy, fun, and collaborative workplace with the help of our employee networks. Our Women at Adobe Employee Network, for example, drives numerous networking opportunities for women across the globe and helps offer career development programs for female employees. The group meets for lunch every month to discuss different issues facing women and to celebrate each other’s achievements, organizes guest speakers and panel discussions with leaders, and participates in non-profit volunteer activities.” Ref: Adobe Blog: 5 Ways Adobe Supports Women in the Workplace

*Our Index utilizes binary measurements, where ✓ represents a score of 1, and ✘ represents a score of 0.

*All links are valid as of April 2024