Diversity and Inclusion Disclosure
Information Requested | Nielsen Disclosure |
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Diversity and nondiscrimination policies and grievance mechanisms |
Nielsen is committed to reflecting, within our own workforce, the diversity of the clients, communities and markets we measure. We exist to count everyone, so we embed inclusion and diversity not only into our workforce, but into all aspects of our measurement and products. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer, making decisions without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability status, age, marital status, protected veteran status or any other protected class. Our Global Nondiscrimination Policy covers these protected classes in every market in which we do business worldwide. Additionally, Nielsen is committed to maintaining a work environment that is free of discrimination and harassment. In keeping with this commitment, we prohibit conduct having the purpose or effect of interfering with an employee’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment on the basis of an employee’s race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other characteristic protected by law. This commitment to maintaining a work environment that is free of discrimination and harassment is outlined in our publicly available Code of Conduct. All employees are required to certify compliance with the Code annually. Nielsen offers several methods for associates to raise concerns about harassment or discrimination, including an online webform, a Helpline, and by speaking with Integrity Leaders in our business. Nielsen will not tolerate punishment or unfair treatment of any employee who reports concerns in good faith or who participates in an investigation of any such reports. Retaliation against an individual for reporting in good faith any violation or for participating in any such investigation is a serious violation of the Code of Conduct that will subject the violator to appropriate disciplinary action, including the possible termination of employment. |
Overall approach and programs to improve workforce diversity |
A strong commitment to diversity and inclusion (D&I) has long been central to our measurement, our products, our people and the marketplace. We believe that diversity in people and ideas allows us—and our clients—to be successful. At Nielsen, we define “inclusion” as valuing and leveraging differences to achieve superior business results. Inclusion is about seeking input from all, mitigating biases, ensuring fairness and creating a safe space for everyone to reach their full potential. D&I are incredibly important to Nielsen—so important that the topic is one of Nielsen’s key material issues. We also maintain a D&I page on our website and regularly publish diversity-focused news stories. Nielsen’s diversity and inclusion vision is to build a better business through D&I and to use the company’s influence and resources to do good. To achieve this vision, Nielsen’s strategy focuses on ensuring inclusive talent processes; fostering a culture that supports diversity and inclusion; and driving accountability for all employees, especially managers. Ensuring inclusive talent processes: We are increasing diverse representation among associates at all levels through inclusive hiring and promotions, utilizing diverse slates, hiring from diverse talent pools, expanding our inclusive hiring practices, and systematically mitigating the impact of unconscious biases in all the decisions we make with help from an internally developed professional development module called Breaking Through Bias. Since 2016, we have required diverse slates of candidates for open positions. (See more on diversity recruiting in the rows below.) We are also growing our in-house diverse talent through global mentoring opportunities and the Diverse Leadership Network (DLN), a 15-month leadership development program designed to strengthen and diversify the leadership pipeline at Nielsen by identifying, developing and accelerating a more diverse group of top talent. The DLN is Nielsen’s leadership and career development platform for mid-career, high-potential talent. It is our most diverse program, by design, with at least 50% gender diversity and a target of equal representation of African-American, Hispanic/Latinx, Asian Pacific Islander and White participants. The program—which resembles a “mini-MBA”—is designed to identify, develop, accelerate and retain high-performing, high-potential associates using a curriculum of customized executive education, challenging case studies and one-on-one coaching from senior leaders who help participants develop in their leadership styles. Since its launch in 2013, the program has reached 134 associates from the U.S., Canada and Mexico. In late 2017, we launched a DLN alumni program to support the continued development and engagement of the program’s alumni network. In 2018, Nielsen launched an all-inclusive mentoring program, myMentor, which we expanded globally in 2019. As of year-end 2019, 5,000 associates from 90 countries were actively participating in the program. Our goal is to reach 10,000 participants by July 2020. Building a culture of diversity and inclusion: We work to strengthen our culture of diversity and inclusion through three primary programs: Inclusion Impact Teams (an expansion of our Employee Resource Groups or ERGs), Diversity Dialogues, and ongoing inclusion training, each of which are described in more detail in the rows below. In 2019, we made changes to further incorporate this commitment systemically across our company by adding an operating principle of Engage, Include & Decide, which reminds us of our daily commitment to seek diversity in people and input. Driving accountability: We ensure leadership accountability for diversity and inclusion through scorecard transparency, pledge goals and action plans. In early 2019, we added the expectation that all employees will advance diversity and inclusion in their everyday work as a formal part of our annual performance review process for all Nielsen associates globally. In 2019, we implemented a quantitative benchmark to measure inclusion, using Gallup’s inclusion index, derived from the annual employee engagement survey. The inclusion index gives Nielsen the ability to measure associate sentiment in regard to fairness, trust and acceptance of diverse opinions and ideas by individual supervisors as well as the general company culture. Managers with sufficiently large teams, together with those teams, receive a team-level inclusion index along with resources to create team action plans. |
Diversity and antiharassment training |
As part of our systemic approach to mitigate the impact of unconscious biases, we developed a Breaking Through Bias framework that includes training available to all people managers and associates. The framework includes in-the-moment tools to address unconscious biases and resources to help people managers provide more fair and objective performance assessments; it also outlines changes to any talent processes that are at risk for unconscious biases. We developed the curriculum based on peer-reviewed research. Since launching this training in 2019, we have trained 30% of our people managers. We are now working on expanding the curriculum to include the feedback and hiring processes. To help build a globally inclusive and impactful culture in which everyone can reach their full potential, we continually challenge ourselves to have bolder and more candid conversations about issues that are important in building a more inclusive culture. Our objective is to open the door to talk about what we are not talking about—but should. To that end, we have hosted a series of Diversity Dialogues, conversations structured to help break down stigmas and barriers to foster honest conversations. In 2019, we held three sessions attended by roughly 2,000 associates from seven regions. Nielsen prohibits all forms of harassment and discrimination. This means we avoid any behavior that could make other people feel demeaned or intimidated or could interfere with their ability to do their jobs. Harassment does not have to be sexual in nature and can include any action that interferes with an employee’s work performance or creates an environment that is offensive, intimidating or hostile to work in. We expand on our commitment to prohibiting all forms of harassment and discrimination in our Code of Conduct, and we require that associates recertify to the Code annually, thus ensuring that our associates benefit from antiharassment training each year. |
Diversity leadership and management goals |
Nielsen’s CEO and Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) David Kenny ensures that diversity and inclusion are core to the way we operate as a business. Every C-suite leader has received a goal toward this broader company objective, which is being consistently measured and discussed during executive committee meetings. To help us reach our goal to increase the representation of women in senior leadership roles by seven percentage points by 2021, each executive committee member has clear goals for increasing the representation of women in senior leadership in their respective organizations. Each executive committee member also has a clear goal to personally engage in diversity and inclusion initiatives as the executive sponsor of one of our nine global Employee Resource Groups. Diversity and inclusion objectives are qualitative factors that influence the CEO’s recommendations for executive compensation, which are approved by the Compensation Committee of our Board of Directors. |
Additional diversity targets and goals |
To further drive diversity and inclusion across the company and throughout our supply chain, we have set a range of goals and targets, including the following:
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Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) |
Employee Resource Groups are employee-led, volunteer organizations that promote open dialogue, engagement, community development and leadership development. Our nine ERGs make up a significant part of our overall Inclusion Impact Team structure, which aligns our ERGs, Nielsen Cares and Nielsen Green platforms on the local level for greater cohesion and impact. Our ERGs in particular have five main focus areas:
In the spirit of challenging ourselves to improve our practices, in 2019 we re-imagined our Employee Resource Groups into broader Inclusion Impact Teams in all of our major offices around the world. We hold all people managers accountable for participating in our ERGs. ERGs are also part of associates’ core responsibilities; hence in 2019, Nielsen incorporated a section in the annual performance feedback form where associates and managers can document and discuss the individual’s contributions to growing and driving an inclusive and impactful culture at Nielsen, whether that’s through our ERGs or otherwise. All C-suite executives are aligned with an Employee Resource Group affinity as Executive Committee Sponsors. The Sponsors work with the ERG Leaders and Business Sponsors to develop the affinity strategy, remove roadblocks, advocate for the ERG’s position on signature issues and provide support in accomplishing goals and priorities. |
Diversity recruiting |
Nielsen has designed an inclusive hiring process that embeds consideration of diversity and inclusion in all aspects of the process. We require consideration of diverse slates of candidates across our global operations. In the U.S. we define “diverse slates” as including at least two ethnically diverse candidates and at least two female candidates. Globally, diverse slates focus on having at least two female candidates in the slate. We use a targeted recruiting strategy to increase gender representation, including insights from external partners to help us locate and reach qualified diverse candidates. We also track diverse candidates with a pipeline management program. For certain roles within the organization, candidates are interviewed by a diverse panel of leaders who receive an inclusive interviewer training. |
Gender equality measures |
In 2018, we conducted two internal studies to understand the state of women in leadership at Nielsen. The research looked at the issue quantitatively and through focus groups and surveys. We learned that we have equality for women in advancement/promotions, career movement, bonuses and performance reviews. We repeated elements of these studies in 2019 and found the same results in key measures. In addition to the overall diversity programs described throughout this section, we are fostering gender equality through several other initiatives. For example, in March 2019, on International Women’s Day, Nielsen’s CEO & CDO David Kenny signed an external pledge with the international organization Leading Executives Advancing Diversity (LEAD). We are founding partners of LEAD alongside several client companies committed to attracting, retaining and advancing women in the retail and consumer goods industry. The LEAD CEO pledge that Nielsen signed places us alongside many of our clients in a commitment to increase representation and take meaningful action toward gender parity. We have also made a commitment to increase women in leadership from 39% to 46% (an increase of seven percentage points) by the end of 2021. Additionally, we’ve set an internal goal to reach 50-50 parity of women in leadership roles by the end of 2023. To achieve our goals, we are working to add 145 women in senior leadership positions by 2021. To meet this pledge, we have created specific business-level targets for each member of the executive team. |
Integration of people with disabilities |
Nielsen tracks the representation of people with disabilities in our workforce through the Self Identification tool provided in our human resources software. The Self Identification tool is used in our new hire onboarding, and quarterly campaigns are deployed to reinforce the availability of self-identification. In 2019, Nielsen earned a 100% Disability Equality Index (DEI) score from Disability:IN for the first time. The DEI, a joint effort of Disability:IN and the American Association of People with Disabilities, measures the sustainable progress that participating companies have made toward achieving equality and inclusion for associates with disabilities on the basis of workplace culture, leadership, accessibility, employment, community engagement, support services and supplier diversity. Additionally, we launched a pilot program called Autism @ Nielsen through which we partner with a local university for the sourcing of candidates and leverage manager and peer training and a buddy system to socialize and onboard associates with autism. In terms of community, Nielsen launched our Abled and Disabled Employees Partnering Together (ADEPT) ERG in 2008 to build an inclusive culture for associates with disabilities. ADEPT leads education sessions and provides a network of support to associates on a variety of topics. |
Incidents of discrimination and actions taken, including process for handling harassment allegations |
We encourage all associates to report any and all concerns through our anonymous and confidential Speak Up Helpline. We provide a number of different mechanisms through which employees and others can report claims, as explained in detail in our Code of Conduct. Any and all allegations of harassment or discrimination are thoroughly investigated. Responsive action is taken as appropriate. Allegations are reported and tracked by our Compliance & Integrity function, which regularly reports to the Audit Committee of the Board. Nielsen does not require employees to take sexual harassment claims to private arbitration. |
Fines or legal actions related to discrimination from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or U.S. Department of Justice |
During the reporting period, Nielsen has not had any litigation involving claims of sexual harassment. Also, we have not had any fines from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. |
Information Requested | Nielsen Disclosure |
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Supplier diversity policy and approach |
By purchasing from diverse-owned businesses, we give diverse suppliers opportunities and also indirectly help to support diverse families and communities. Nielsen has a national supplier diversity program that follows best practices for the inclusion of diverse suppliers in our supply base. We track and report our spending with minority- and women-owned businesses, and we have multiple policies and processes in place to support an overall corporate goal of increasing our diverse spend 5% year-over-year. We define diverse suppliers as U.S.-headquartered companies that are 51% owned, operated and controlled by minorities, women, veterans, the disabled and/or lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) persons. Our Global Procurement team manages our supplier diversity efforts, integrating supplier diversity into upcoming bids and contracts and working to create a supply chain reflective of our company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, specifically economic inclusion. We advance the diversity of suppliers through the following efforts: Selection and contracting requirements: Nielsen’s procurement policies include specific request for proposal (RFP) language addressing supplier diversity; these policies also give considerable weight to the ability of prospective suppliers to contribute to our corporate diverse spend goals. In 2019, we added contractual language to our Master Supplier Agreement requiring Tier 2 diverse spend reporting for all suppliers with formal supplier diversity programs and best efforts at reporting for suppliers without formal supplier diversity programs. Prior to 2019, Nielsen contracts contained “best effort” language only. This requirement was communicated multiple times, with multiple media and at multiple levels to our suppliers during the second and third quarters of 2019, beginning with a letter from our Chief Procurement Officer. Business reviews and supplier engagement: Our Global Procurement team reviews and evaluates strategic suppliers’ contributions to supplier diversity. When major suppliers are not contributing to supplier diversity, our Global Procurement team engages the supplier to address the importance of supplier diversity to Nielsen; recommends action steps for the supplier to consider in order to contribute more impactfully to our supplier diversity goals; agrees on action steps between Nielsen and the supplier; and agrees on a cadence of regular communication (usually monthly or quarterly) to collaborate on the agreed-upon action steps and track progress. In 2018, Nielsen initiated this engagement process with six of our top 100 suppliers, resulting in approximately $2 million in increased Tier 2 diverse spend from this group in 2019. In 2019, Nielsen continued this engagement with the initial group of six suppliers and added another supplier, which resulted in an additional $1.5 million of Tier 2 diverse spend from the seventh supplier for 2019. Supplier development: In 2018, we added supplier development to our program activities, actively developing two minority-owned businesses in the technology segment of our supply chain. We continued supplier development activity with these two suppliers in 2019, resulting in a multiyear, multimillion-dollar contract for one of the two suppliers in January 2019. National affiliations: Nielsen is a corporate member of the National Minority Supplier Development Council and the Women’s Business Enterprise Council, and we attend events and conferences throughout the year to continuously identify, qualify and include diverse suppliers in sourcing events and the final awarding of business. This activity in 2019 resulted in a significant increase of diverse supplier participation in three major RFPs, totaling 30% of RFP respondents. Client reporting: Nielsen reports our supplier diversity spend regularly to clients that request it. Accountability, governance and staffing: We have a director in Global Procurement who leads both Supply Chain Sustainability and Supplier Diversity; 95% of this role’s time is dedicated to supplier diversity. We also have a manager in Global Procurement who supports supplier diversity, and approximately 50% of this role’s time is dedicated to supplier diversity. The Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) owns the performance of the supplier diversity program, and achievement of the diverse spend goal annually is tied to the CPO’s performance evaluation and bonus, as well as to the performance evaluations and bonuses of the CPO’s 12 direct reports. Nielsen’s supplier diversity program is tied closely to corporate goals such as those of the Diversity and Inclusion and Global Responsibility & Sustainability platforms of the company. The Supplier Diversity Subcommittee of our three External Advisory Councils approves our supplier diversity goals and targets. |
Supplier diversity goals and progress |
We strive to annually purchase at least 10% of our U.S. sourceable spend with diverse suppliers. In 2018, we achieved more than 9% spend with diverse businesses, totaling $98 million in Tier 1 and Tier 2 spend with businesses owned by minorities, women, veterans, LGBT or disabled individuals. In 2019, Nielsen achieved $111 million spend with diverse businesses in our Tier 1 and Tier 2 programs. This is the largest dollar amount of diverse spend that Nielsen has reported in the history of our program, and we exceeded our 2019 diverse spend goal by $8 million. However, because our overall supplier spend increased from 2018 to 2019, the percentage of diverse spend decreased to 8%.
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Local sourcing policy |
In 2017, we launched a program called Buy Local, Grow Global, to find ways to increase our spend with local diverse businesses in major U.S. markets. To do this, we conducted “lunch and learns” in seven targeted markets where Nielsen has a major presence (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Cincinnati, Tampa, and Columbia, Md.). The sessions helped to identify existing or future business opportunities in which local diverse suppliers’ services could be used. Attendees were provided with a database to make it easier for associates to source local diverse businesses. Also as part of our Buy Local effort, JLL—our real estate vendor—confirmed they will use supplier diversity as a criteria for consideration in 100% of our facilities management contracts going forward. |
Proportion of spending on local suppliers |
In 2016, Nielsen identified facilities management services as an opportunity to intentionally direct spend to diverse and local suppliers. We conducted a survey in 2017 to understand the current state of our local purchasing for facility management services—such as janitorial, landscaping and security services—at each of our largest Nielsen offices in the U.S.: New York City, Wilton, Conn., Chicago, Los Angeles, Tampa and Cincinnati. We found that diverse spend in those offices overall was negligible (less than 1%), and 59% of the suppliers servicing those largest offices were local/regional to the area, defined as being headquartered within 250 miles of the office. We then began actively working with our real estate services supplier partner to increase diverse spend, with a target of 15% diverse spend in 2018 and 20% diverse spend in 2019. In 2018, we exceeded our 15% goal and achieved 16% diverse spend, and in 2019, 42% of our facility management spend was diverse, exceeding our goal for the second year in a row. In 2019, we used spend data to calculate that 30% of our spend was local, again defined as being headquartered within 250 miles of that office. Going forward, we will continue to track and manage our facilities management services to increase diverse and local purchasing. |
Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment in South Africa |
In South Africa, a region where significant economic disparities still exist among racial groups, we’re seeking to improve diversity and inclusion in our workforce as well as in our supply chain. Specifically, we are complying with the requirements of the South African government’s Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) program, which seeks to redress the inequalities of apartheid by providing previously disadvantaged citizens with access to economic opportunities previously not available to them. The program has five elements: business ownership; management control; skills development; enterprise and supplier development; and socioeconomic development. We have initiatives in progress in all of these areas. In the area of ownership, for example, we are in the process of selling shares of both AC Nielsen and AGB Nielsen to an empowerment trust made up of previously disadvantaged Nielsen associates. In skills development, we have created training programs for employees that develop their management skills and other capabilities, so that we can promote from within as positions become available. We’ve also provided skills training to unemployed residents in local communities, to help them become more employable. In enterprise and supplier development, we partnered with a business coaching firm to help young entrepreneurs in the area to grow their businesses, so they might become suppliers to Nielsen. We have also provided office space and other support to qualifying businesses that are already a part of our supply chain, such as the company that provides cafeteria services to our associates in Johannesburg. With all of these activities, our aim is to help create further economic opportunity and a more secure future for communities of color in South Africa. |
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Diversity by gender, age and ethnic minority |
Please note that for the purposes of our 10-K reporting, we use full-time equivalents, whereas for this more detailed reporting on our workforce, we have used total headcount. Percentages may not sum to 100 due to rounding. |
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Equal pay audit results |
We’ve shared the results of our equal pay audit in our Human Capital Detailed Disclosure section, with additional information about our broader commitment to providing appropriate pay and benefits for all our associates. Gender pay equity is fundamental to Nielsen’s compensation philosophy and practices. We have robust employee data on gender globally, and we conduct regular audits to ensure that our pay outcomes reflect our commitment to pay equity. All of our compensation decisions take gender equity into consideration, and with each of our annual compensation planning processes, we review associate pay for gender balance and fairness. Additionally, we conduct our detailed pay equity analysis annually, including a review with our Board of Directors. To do this, we developed a scientific and statistically driven analytic method to assess the gender pay gap. The method controls for variables that may influence pay (such as performance, experience, location, tenure and other factors) and is applied consistently and globally. The results from the 2019 assessment show that, on average, across all countries measured, we have a global pay gap of less than 1%. We prioritize individual level reviews for countries where we have a pay gap above 2%. Should we find specific instances of pay inequity for individuals in similar jobs, we develop action plans to close gaps. We are fully committed to gender pay equity, and we continue to review and refine our methodology and drill down by country and job to ensure pay equity is continuously addressed across the organization. As the business continues to evolve and population shifts, we are focused on equality across the employee lifecycle, and gender pay equity is an ongoing process and a constant goal. |