Approach to Diversity & Inclusion
Equitrans celebrates our differences, as we believe diversity propels our Company toward innovation and long-term, sustainable success. Equitrans values and respects the well-being and work ethic of all employees involved with our business, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or status as a disabled veteran or veteran of the Vietnam Era. As we recognize and celebrate the value of all employee voices, we lead our diversity and inclusion efforts to empower and provide equitable opportunities for minority groups. We hold diversity and inclusion as a top priority throughout all aspects of our business. To reinforce our collective commitment, in early 2021 Tom Karam, Equitrans’ Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, signed the Action for Diversity and Inclusion Coalition’s CEO Pledge to reiterate Equitrans’ dedication to inclusiveness. The pledge outlines actions we believe CEOs across all industries take to strengthen diversity and inclusion in their organizations.
Additionally, Equitrans focuses on recruiting, developing, and advancing employees from a range of backgrounds including minorities, females, LGBTQ+, veterans, and persons with physical or mental disabilities. In July 2020, Equitrans formally launched a new Inclusion Program with the commitment of cultivating an inclusive, respectful work environment that values differing perspectives and encourages the power of teamwork and accountability. The Program is being used to advance our recruitment processes, leadership education, employee engagement, facility accessibility, and inclusion-related policies. The goal of our formalized Inclusion Program is to aid Equitrans in being a diverse organization where all employees feel included and are engaged to do their best work each day.
Immediately following the Program’s launch, we began working to build awareness around Inclusion by providing employees with various learning opportunities, including access to Blue Ocean Brain, a micro-eLearning platform in which inclusion-related content is emailed to employees and managers bi-weekly. We also conducted manager training sessions regarding how to conduct courageous and often difficult conversations around diversity and inclusion topics. In addition, Equitrans completed a thorough policy review to ensure that the Equitrans policies support an inclusive environment. In 2021, we expanded our Program to include monthly inclusion topics, guest speakers, and other diversity and inclusion educational programs, as well as an inclusion scorecard and metrics that is reviewed with our Board of Directors on a regular basis.
We recognize there is always room for improvement and continually work to identify new programs, processes, and training opportunities to improve our diversity efforts. We manage and measure our improvement through the demographical representation of our workforce, including gender and race/ethnicity representation; number of promotions of women and minorities; number of women and minorities in leadership positions; attendance at inclusion-related educational sessions; and participation in online learning content and live inclusion trainings. During 2021, all employees and managers will be required to complete unconscious bias training and we will also be offering disability awareness training.
Pay & Equity
We understand that fairly compensating our employees is essential for attracting and retaining talent that is critical to our Company’s continued success. We evaluate market trends on at least an annual basis to ensure we are offering competitive pay to all of our employees. We also collect detailed pay data to understand pay equity across Equitrans’ various levels and job categories. We support the need for pay equity and reviewing our gender pay data allows us to evaluate our performance and identify any gaps to ensure equitable pay across our organization.
Supplier Diversity
With regards to supplier diversity, we believe the perspectives obtained through the inclusion of companies of varying backgrounds in our supply chain position the organization as a more effective business, capable of impacting a wider range of communities. Similar to our employees, we strive to give voice and value to minority and locally owned businesses. When recruiting a third-party vendor, Equitrans places high value on hiring from Minority-Owned Business Enterprises (MBE), Veteran-Owned Businesses (VOB), and Women-Owned Business Enterprises (WBE), and we continuously identify ways to support and celebrate minority vendors by seeking a more diverse supply base. More information is available on the Supply Chain & Human Rights section of this report.
Evaluating Our Approach to Diversity & Inclusion
Equitrans celebrates the progress we made over the past year. Our new Inclusion Program helps us establish and track meaningful metrics and educate employees on diversity and inclusion. Equitrans’ Chief Human Resources Officer, Manager of Human Resources and People Systems, and leadership team oversee diversity and inclusion throughout our business. We believe our diversity and inclusion program and policies cultivate an inclusive, respectful work environment that values differing perspectives and encourages the power of teamwork. Equitrans’ success relies on the ability for each employee to feel included, respected, and proud of our business. We prepare a quarterly Human Resources Scorecard for our Board members that tracks diversity and inclusion metrics, such as gender, ethnicity, and age of our employees, and includes our diversity initiatives. One of our 2020 inclusion initiatives included the enhancement of our remote work policy. We conducted a Workplace Modernization Survey in June 2020 and began the process of creating “workplace personas” (anchor, flex, remote) for employees. Workplace personas are expected to improve employee satisfaction and retention, expand our talent pool, and create additional opportunities for employment. Many of our roles do not require employees to be confined to our physical office locations, allowing work to be done from anywhere, virtually. Employee selection and implementation of workplace personas is expected to be finalized by year-end 2021.