One of PPG's greatest strengths is the diversity of our people.
A diverse workforce and inclusive culture promote employee well-being and are intrinsically linked to stronger company performance. PPG is consistently working to find new ways to amplify the voices of our underrepresented employees and help all of our employees bring their best selves to work.
Our diversity, equity and inclusion highlights in 2022
30,000
global participants in Employee Resource Network (ERN) events in 2022+1.80
point improvement in global non-frontline female representation5,279
people managers and employees trained on unconscious bias since 2020$20MM
committed by 2025 to advance racial equityIn 2022, we continued to cultivate a sense of belonging for all of our employees. Our commitments and key highlights from the past year are summarized below (all achievement figures as of December 2022 unless otherwise noted). This section focuses on performance during 2022. For more information about our approach to DE&I, see our approach to diversity, equity and inclusion.
| 2025 Commitments | 2022 Progress |
| Achieve 34% to 36% representation of non-frontline global female professionals by 2025. | Achieved 31% representation of non-frontline global female professionals. |
| Increase the headcount of Black, Latino and Asian employees by 45% to 55% across our non-frontline, U.S.-based employee population (using January 1, 2021, as our baseline). | Achieved a 19% increase of our non-frontline headcount for Black employees, 16% increase in non-frontline Latino employees and 8% increase in non-frontline Asian employees. |
| Reach total global employee resource network and DE&I capability-building participation of 50% by 2025. | Achieved 34% employee participation, including more than 7,500 PPG employees that are members of the global Employee Resource Networks. |
Black + Latino Employee Network Day
Our Employee Resource Networks (ERNs) organize flagship events for their members throughout the year, and come together with other ERNs to network, build connections and learn from one another. Last year, our Latino Employee Network and our Black Employee Network worked together to host a Black + Latino Employee Network Day (BLEND). The event, which took place at PPG's Aerospace plant in Mojave, California, highlighted the importance of building new connections among PPG's employees and the broader community. BLEND brought together more than 300 employees and several local businesses to share their experiences and explore similarities between Black and Latino cultures. Events like BLEND help employees, especially those in manufacturing plants and distribution centers, celebrate diversity and create stronger understanding of each other's lived experiences.
"The event exceeded all expectations, as it was the perfect blend of company, culture and community," said Edith Hayes, PPG plant manager, Aerospace, Mojave, and Black ERN cultural awareness pillar lead. "I'm proud of how our employees displayed their pride and embraced learning about others."
"Partnering with other ERNs, like BLEND, help employees, especially those in our manufacturing plants and distribution centers, celebrate diversity and create a stronger appreciation for each other," said Mariana Molinolo, PPG customer service manager, Aerospace, and Latino ERN co-chair.
In support of our DE&I strategy and commitments, our eight Employee Resource Networks (ERNs) are designed to be a catalyst where diverse employees throughout the world will realize their full potential at PPG. The ERNs empower all employees to shape their careers, strengthen their communities, make an impact to PPG's business strategies while celebrating their diverse culture, background and experiences. Highlights from the past year are included below.
The Abilities First Network aims to provide individuals with special abilities opportunities to reach their full potential by creating educational experiences and fostering an inclusive environment. In 2022, the ERN made available the PPG Autism Color Palette, a guide for selecting colors that help reduce stimulation and create calm spaces for autistic persons. In addition, the network achieved a 100 rating on the Disability:IN Equality Index and was recognized as a "Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion."
The Black Employee Network works to enhance the personal and professional development of Black employees, represent PPG through community outreach and serve as a key resource in driving business growth for the company. Last year the network hosted a fireside chat with Dr. Bernice A. King, daughter of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and an African Ancestry reveal event "Unlocking the Power of our African roots" to celebrate Juneteenth.
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ+) Network works to create an environment that recognizes and supports LGBTQ+ employees, assists in PPG's efforts to promote diversity and inclusion, and helps identify best practices in a variety of areas affecting LGBTQ+ team members. This year, the network raised awareness of the importance of pronouns in the workplace, helped launch a template to make it easy for employees to add pronouns to their email signatures, and featured influential advocates of the LGBTQ+ Community, including Tegan & Sara from the Tegan & Sara Foundation and Judy Shepard, the mother of the late Matthew Shepard.
The Women's Leadership Network fosters an appreciation of the value of women in the workplace and creates an inclusive work environment that attracts, retains and advances women. The network continued their work on the Men as Allies campaign, encouraging men to support women’s careers in the workplace, and organized a "50 ways to Break the Bias" workshop.
The Asian Employee Network works to connect Asian employees across the globe, inspire Asian and Asian-descent employees to share their unique heritages, educate non-Asian employees, help employees grow and give back to those in need. In one example of their work over the last year, the network hosted a session with Dr. Russell Jeung, founder of Stop AAPI Hate.
The Latino Employee Network works to create an environment that celebrates and embraces the diversity of the Latino community, generates additional career development opportunities for members and empowers members to leverage and demonstrate their insights and passions. In 2022, the network organized an English as Second Language mentoring program to help increase confidence in speaking English in the workplace.
The Veterans Employee Network aims to provide veterans with support and networking opportunities, such as mentoring, community outreach, career development and cultural awareness activities. Among their other activities in 2022, the network organized veteran recruiting events and guest speakers featuring Charles McCaffrey from Paralyzed Veterans of America and singer and Army veteran Keni Thomas. In addition, PPG was ranked #72 among the best 200 U.S. companies on Forbes Top Places to Work for Veterans.
The Young Professional Network is focused on driving improved engagement and retention of PPG employees with a focus on those who are new to PPG and/or early in their careers by organizing events that align with four strategic pillars: careers for career advancement, commerce to accelerate business growth, community to strengthen community presence and culture to increase engagement. The network hosted an event with Ryan Jenkins, bestselling author and speaker, focused on reducing isolation and loneliness in the workplace.
Data highlights
Our DE&I strategy was developed using a data-driven approach, and we will continue to rely on data to understand our performance and progress over time. Our actions work toward achieving a comprehensive set of aspirational goals, and we continue to evolve to address gaps and capture emerging opportunities.
This data does not include all employees who joined our company through recent acquisitions. Numbers may vary in past and future reports as we continue to integrate new employees into our human resource systems and as employees continue to provide or update their self-identification status. Additional fields have been added for U.S. employees to self-identify their gender identify and sexual orientation in 2022.
Employee Designations: Frontline and select support employees encompass a wide range of critical operational roles. These include plant and manufacturing employees, store employees, custodial employees, clerks, assistants, customer service representatives, electricians, technicians, drivers and color matchers. Non-frontline employees cover a variety of roles, including chemists, engineers, corporate function employees, managers, directors and executives. Management team comprises employees who are vice presidents and above.
2022 U.S. Employee Race and Ethnicity Representation
Percent
"Other" category includes employees who are two or more races, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and Native American or Native Alaskan.
Frontline and select support employees encompass a wide range of critical operational roles. These include plant and manufacturing employees, store employees, custodial employees, clerks, assistants, customer service representatives, electricians, technicians, drivers, color matchers, among others.
Non-frontline employees cover a variety of roles, including chemists, engineers, corporate function employees, managers, directors, executives, among others.
Management team comprises employees who are vice presidents and above.
2022 Total Global Gender Representation
As of December 31, 2022
2022 U.S. Non-Frontline Black, Latino and Asian Employee Headcount Changes
As of December 31, 2022
2022 Total Global Generational Overview
As of December 31, 2022
U.S. EEO-1 Reporting
While we do not use the Federal Employer Information Report EEO-1 to guide our progress, our 2020 and 2021 U.S. EEO-1 reports are available.
Our approach to diversity, equity and inclusion
Our DE&I efforts are guided by our DE&I Vision Statement:
At PPG, we aim to champion all employees, empowering them to show up as their authentic selves, and allowing everyone to reach their full potential. We know that diverse teams perform better – period. Providing equitable experiences for all our people results in better engagement, increased business performance and more opportunities for all. We will continue to elevate and celebrate underrepresented communities while combating intolerance in all forms, both inside and outside of our workplaces. We do so with a spirit of humility, authenticity and vulnerability. We may not always get it right, but we aim to do better today than yesterday – every day.
Our DE&I Strategy
Serving as both a roadmap and means to measure our performance, our DE&I commitments and strategy extend across our colleagues, value chain and communities.
We approach DE&I as we do any other business opportunity. We leveraged a data-driven approach to develop our strategy, analyzing company data to better understand demographic and cultural gaps and opportunities across our workforce. We benchmark against best-in-class processes, programs and partnerships to help accelerate our impact. Our holistic DE&I strategy ties directly to the commitments detailed earlier in this report.
Colleagues
We work to embed DE&I throughout every aspect of PPG.
- Continue updating our DE&I scorecard and embed accountability mechanisms to drive results. We assign people managers and employees throughout PPG DE&I responsibilities and measure progress against key performance indicators over time.
- Enhance our recruiting processes with a DE&I lens, including scaling our diverse-slates process globally for non-frontline roles.
- Foster partnerships with external organizations that will diversify our talent pool.
- Nurture a DE&I ambassador group composed of senior leaders who serve as change agents for our strategic business units and functions.
- Build and execute a strategy to grow DE&I capabilities for all employees globally. Learn more about how we develop DE&I capabilities in our employees in the Learning and Leadership Development section.
- Grow and elevate our ERNs to support career development and provide business value.
- Build and launch site-activation kits to allow our frontline employees to participate in global ERN events.
- Develop and deploy a mentoring circle program for our ERN members.
- Scale a sponsorship program for women, Black, Latino and Asian non-frontline top talent to build a more diverse leadership pipeline.
- Engage in regular global employee self-identification campaigns to validate employee representation data, identify gaps and inform future tactics.
- Develop and share DE&I data and an impact summary internally and externally on an annual basis.
Customers and Suppliers
We combat intolerance in all forms while we elevate and celebrate underrepresented communities throughout our value chain.
- Further embed DE&I into our environmental, social and governance and stakeholder engagement strategies.
- Share and collaborate with our suppliers and customers on our respective DE&I journeys, including our ERN events to celebrate diversity and respective community outreach efforts.
- Review and enhance our Supplier Diversity Program on a regular basis.
Communities
We work with a wide variety of stakeholders to advance racial equity in the U.S.
- Execute a community engagement strategy to advance racial equity by helping to address the race and gender gaps in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and career paths. Learn more about how we support our communities and neighbors.
- Continue our global Colorful Communities program to unite the power of our paint products and our employee volunteers to brighten neighborhoods and transform the way people think and feel about their surroundings and experiences. See more on how we transform diverse communities around the world.
- Leverage PPG's Risk and Reputation Committee (RRC), a cross-functional team that convenes to proactively address external events that intersect with PPG's commitment to DE&I. The RRC uses a data-driven approach to assess options for PPG to act and respond to, with the support of PPG leadership.
DE&I Governance and Leadership
Our DE&I efforts are championed by our president and chief executive officer and have full and complete support from our Board of Directors and Operating Committee. We report our DE&I progress and metrics to the PPG Board of Directors at least once per year. Our global head of DE&I is responsible for designing, leading and executing our global DE&I vision and strategy and leveraging data-driven insights to accelerate our agenda. This position is supported by our DE&I team, which reflects the diversity in gender, race, age, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and more that we aim to achieve across our workforce. We hold biannual DE&I scorecard discussions with each of our strategic business units and functions to identify trends and develop solutions to address any gaps. Our most senior business leaders are held accountable to initiating real, demonstrated progress, and their results are a consideration in their year-end performance evaluations.
Our 26 DE&I Ambassadors act as change agents across the company. Ambassadors are members of our strategic business unit and function leadership teams. They are charged with helping to embed a sense of belonging for all throughout PPG, and encourage participation in optional DE&I efforts throughout the company. Ambassadors and human resource business partners are provided with scorecards and metrics on a regular basis to evaluate current performance and continue to drive DE&I efforts in their organizations.
DE&I Programming
We host a range of programs for our employees that support the implementation of our DE&I strategy. We host active listening sessions, global town halls and regular surveys to learn how to better support our employees and create a more inclusive organization.
We offer ongoing training on unconscious bias for employees, with a primary focus on management. The program supports our inclusion efforts and helps employees learn and unlearn social stereotypes that are formed outside of their own conscious awareness.
We also provide DE&I Listen and Learn toolkits on an ongoing basis to support leaders and managers in having authentic conversations around bias, discrimination and inclusion. These conversations support a culture of belonging in our teams. Our vice presidents and above host sessions quarterly within their respective business units and functions.
Our eight global employee resource networks (ERNs) are a cornerstone of our DE&I strategy. They provide employees of diverse backgrounds with a greater voice and more pathways for connection and understanding. Members can participate in ERN events or lead efforts to drive career advancement, foster empathy through personal storytelling, organize volunteer events in their local communities or offer solutions on PPG’s business challenges. Just as important, they provide an opportunity for all our employees to step up as allies, gain cultural dexterity, and build and strengthen relationships. Our ERNs also aim to harness our employees' creativity and innovation to drive business value. Membership and participation in the ERNs are open to all employees in all countries and at all levels. Members are offered opportunities to participate in ERN events or lead efforts to drive career advancement, foster empathy through personal storytelling, organize volunteer events in their local communities or offer solutions on PPG’s business challenges.
We recognize that the expectations of our employees and other stakeholders are constantly evolving. As we work toward meeting the near-term DE&I goals we have set for our colleagues, value chain and communities, we are committed to continuously improving our approach to making PPG a more diverse, equitable and inclusive company.