Trailblazer PACESETTER Late Bloomer
Company Narrative
Pepsico, a global leader in convenient food and beverages, has been ranked as PACESETTER based on the criteria used for the Women’s Power and Influence Index.
As part of their Pep+ (Pepsico Plus) program, Pepsico has attained pay parity by focusing on racial and gender equity in the workplace and beyond. Specifically, Pepsico signed the 2016 White House Equal Pay Pledge and has focused on making this initiative come to fruition.
In 2022, Pepsico had 37% of its leadership positions fulfilled by women.
Although Pepsico has a clear statement of harassment policy for all employees, information on specific harassment and discrimination training is unavailable.
Workforce Profile
Equitable Pay
✓ Does the company demonstrate a clear and transparent commitment to equal pay?
“We strive to provide consistent and fair compensation based on legitimate drivers of pay (such as job level, geographic location and performance ratings), not race or gender or any other protected characteristic. There are many ways to evaluate pay across different employee groups, and the way we do this at PepsiCo is by focusing on pay equity. Achieving and sustaining pay equity is a key performance metric for our sustainability agenda and supports our Racial Equality Journey by helping our company attract and retain talent.
Ensuring pay equity is a necessary step to embedding racial and gender equity in the workplace and beyond.”
Ref: Pepsico Pay Equity
✓ Does the company perform an annual analysis of gender pay equity and pay disparities?
“Achieving and sustaining pay equity is a critical step to embedding racial and gender equity in the workplace and beyond. As part of our pep+ (PepsiCo Positive) ambition, we are working towards this goal by maintaining a robust, long-standing and comprehensive global pay equity process for managing pay programs that ensures pay equity across employee groups. Building on that history, we have increased the rigor of our pay equity review processes, which is managed and tracked centrally by PepsiCo’s Total Rewards and People Analytics teams. The teams work together to analyze demographic and geographic cohorts to evaluate pay equity.
Our pay equity ambitions are in line with the statement we made in 2016, when we signed the White House Equal Pay Pledge. As part of this pledge, we set a goal to implement a comprehensive, global annual review process to support pay equity for women. As a Fortune 50 company, we felt it was important to add our voice to this conversation and take a leadership position in regards to pay equity.”
Ref: Pepsico Pay Equity
✓ Do female employees earn at least 95% of what their male counterparts earn?
“As of 2022, we had implemented this process in 72 countries that collectively make up more than 99% of our salaried employee population. Our results show that in this population, women and men are paid within 1%1 of each other and in the U.S. people of color2 are paid within 1%1 of non-minorities, after controlling for legitimate drivers of pay such as job level, geographic location and performance ratings. This gives us confidence that our efforts to achieve pay equity are producing good results. Importantly, we are also gaining insights into how we can advance pay equity in markets in which we operate”.
Ref: Pepsico Pay Equity
Career Growth
✓ Does the company demonstrate a commitment to actively attracting, retaining, and/or promoting women within the organization?
“Gender equality is a fundamental human right. Too often, laws and societal norms prevent women from participating at all levels of leadership. Ensuring that women have equal access to employment and promotion is essential for a prosperous and sustainable society.
As part of our Positive Value Chain ambition, we aim to achieve 50% women in managerial roles globally by 2025. The key to achieving our goal is supporting women to build successful and fulfilling careers, while providing continued support through different stages of their lives and career paths”
Ref: Pepsico Gender Parity (Website)
✓ Does the company provide professional development programs designed specifically for female employees?
“Pinnacle Group is a program designed to increase retention of female sales talent, while strengthening and diversifying our future leadership pipeline. The program selects female sales associates with strong performance records and provides them with career development, leadership training and mentoring opportunities with senior sales leaders.”
Ref: Pepsico Gender Parity (Website)
✓ Does the company provide professional development programs designed specifically for diverse employees?
“Pinnacle Group is a program designed to increase retention of female sales talent, while strengthening and diversifying our future leadership pipeline. The program selects female sales associates with strong performance records and provides them with career development, leadership training and mentoring opportunities with senior sales leaders.”
Ref: Pepsico Gender Parity (Website)
✘ Does the company offer a formal mentoring program to support the career advancement of all female employees?
Information regarding this criterion was unavailable or incomplete.
✓ Does the company offer a formal mentoring program to support the career advancement of diverse employees?
“Founded in 2014 in partnership with PepsiCo, Million Women Mentors is a program that leverages mentorship as a means of inspiring, developing and retaining women who seek to work in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields. PepsiCo STEM employees have pledged many hours of mentoring since 2014 across global chapters, including in Texas, New York, Illinois, Florida, Canada, Ireland, U.K., Mexico, Turkey and Hyderabad.”
Ref: Pepsico Gender Parity (Website)
✓ Does the company have policies and programs in place to actively recruit female candidates?
“Today, PepsiCo Beverages North America (PBNA) announced the company’s She Is PepsiCo campaign, which aims to celebrate and empower women, showcase their transformative abilities, and help recruit even more into frontline roles.
The program honors 28 associates from 20 different cities across the U.S. and Canada who exemplify leadership and dedication to their teams and communities. Each She is PepsiCo honoree will be celebrated with a personalized delivery truck wrap that shows the women in their work setting. ”
✓ Does the company have policies and programs in place to actively recruit diverse candidates?
“Today, PepsiCo Beverages North America (PBNA) announced the company’s She Is PepsiCo campaign, which aims to celebrate and empower women, showcase their transformative abilities, and help recruit even more into frontline roles.
The program honors 28 associates from 20 different cities across the U.S. and Canada who exemplify leadership and dedication to their teams and communities. Each She is PepsiCo honoree will be celebrated with a personalized delivery truck wrap that shows the women in their work setting.”
Work-Life Balance
✓ Does the company demonstrate a commitment to providing support and/or time off for women with children?
“Balancing work and life isn’t easy. We know it all too well! That’s why we offer a wide selection of programs that can save you time, money and hassle.”
Ref: Pg no 8, Pepsico Total Rewards
✓ Does the company provide child care support for employees?
“We offer onsite child care at our Purchase, New York headquarters and near-site childcare for employees at our Frito-Lay North America headquarters in Plano, Texas. Care at these centers is provided by highly-trained and reputable third party providers.”
Ref: Pepsico Employee Well-being
✘ 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?
“Finally, PepsiCo provides a minimum 16 weeks of parental maternity leave to employees in the U.S. to allow parents time to bond with their child. The short-term disability plan covers 10 full weeks and the final six weeks are paid under the parental leave policy.”
Ref: Pepsico Employee Well-being
✓ Does the company provide paid parental leave that extends beyond birthing parents to include surrogacy, adoption, and paternity leave?
“Six weeks paid leave for mothers and fathers within the first six months of birth or adoption. For birth mothers, this is in addition to the six weeks of short-term disability leave (eight weeks for a C-section).”
Ref: Pg no 9, Pepsico Total Rewards
✓ Does the company demonstrate a commitment to supporting the health benefits of its female employees?
“We’re committed to helping you and your family live a healthy lifestyle. It starts with access to quality, affordable health care.”
Ref: Pg no 1, Pepsico Total Rewards
✓ Does the company offer women-specific health benefits for female employees?
“Both medical options cover the following:
- Preventive care including annual physicals, well-woman exams and cancer screening
- Prescription drugs
- Maternity care, including access to Cleo, a family support system from pregnancy until your child’s first birthday
- Fertility benefits (including IVF and surrogacy assistance) up to a $35,000 lifetime maximum benefit
- Well-baby care including immunizations”
Ref: Pg no 1, Pepsico Total Rewards
Workplace Standards
✓ Does the company have a policy listing prohibited behaviors, such as harassment and retaliation?
“Our Code prohibits harassment of any kind in the workplace or any other offensive or disrespectful conduct. PepsiCo also complies with all country and local laws prohibiting harassment. You must never engage in workplace harassment, which includes unwelcome verbal, visual, physical or other conduct of any kind that causes others to feel uncomfortable or creates an intimidating, offensive or hostile work environment. While the legal definition of harassment may vary by jurisdiction, we consider the following non-exhaustive list to be unacceptable behavior:
• Sexual harassment.
• Offensive language, jokes or degrading comments.
• Racial, ethnic, gender or religious slurs.
• Intimidating or threatening behavior”
Ref: Pg 15, Pepsico Code of Conduct
✘ 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?
“As an employee of PepsiCo, you must follow our Code and comply with our policies and the law while conducting business on behalf of the company. If you violate our Code, our policies or the law, it may result in:
Disciplinary action, ranging from additional training and coaching to employment consequences, including termination of employment.
Civil and/or criminal penalties imposed by a governmental agency or a court.”
Ref: Pg 11, Pepsico Code of Conduct
Stakeholder Engagement
✓ Does the company demonstrate a commitment to helping external stakeholders address gender equality issues?
“Gender parity is a cornerstone of our robust Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) agenda. Bringing together unique experiences, perspectives and skills helps fuel our innovation, strengthen our reputation and drive positive change in the communities we serve.”
✓ Does the company offer and support initiatives that promote gender equality in the community?
- PepsiCo sponsors The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council pitch competition, which gives women-owned business enterprises a stage to pitch for funding and highly-valued mentorship with PepsiCo leaders.
- Staying true to the roots as a female-founded brand, Stacy’s Pita Chips has committed to empowering and supporting women entrepreneurs on their paths to establishing a successful business. To further its mission, Stacy’s launched the Rise Project, a program dedicated to helping women grow their businesses through funding, mentorship and community. To date, Stacy’s has invested more than $1 million to #HelpWomenRise.
✓ Does the company demonstrate a commitment to helping internal stakeholders/employees address gender equality issues?
“We created a Global Female Sponsorship Taskforce with an aim to build a framework and toolkit that will enable our global leadership teams to accelerate key female talent. It will also enable leaders to better identify and remove bias to deliver organizational change.”
✓ Does the company offer equity-focused trainings, speaker programs, or events for employees?
“In 2020, the DEI team launched a mandatory Inclusive Leadership and Unconscious Bias Training for our U.S. executives — the first digital learning installment under the Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Team’s Inclusive Leadership training suite. The training offers lessons about the science behind unconscious bias, bias awareness, as well as mitigation tips, strategies, and success stories. As of January 2022, 100% of the required population completed the Inclusive Leadership and Unconscious Bias program.”