Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Edison International Shares Detailed Information on the Diversity of Its Workforce and Business Partners, as Well as the Status of Its Community Investment

ROSEMEAD, Calif. /3BL Media/ - This note was recently sent to our teams across Edison International and Southern California Edison. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are core areas of focus for Edison, and it is important that we are transparent about where we are and where we are going.

As you heard in our company meetings, the Edison leadership team is unwavering in our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Our goal is to create a positive, equitable and inclusive work environment for all team members and build increased opportunities in the diverse communities we serve.

We thank those of you who joined the livestreams, where we shared with you detailed data on our workforce and the status of our business partners and our community investment, which adds to the information we already make public, such as the data derived from our annual SCE EEO-1 report (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) and Supplier Diversity Report.

Being transparent about where we are is a critical step in creating greater accountability and identifying those areas where we can improve. While we are not aware of other companies that have shared this new level of detailed information about their workforce and hiring, we believe it is the right thing to do.

We recognize the progress we’ve made to date and remain committed to making even more meaningful change. Going forward, and as part of our broader diversity, equity and inclusion initiative, we will initially focus on supporting our Black colleagues to improve their employee experience. Likewise, we will place added attention on the Black communities we serve. We are confident that improving the employee experience for our Black team members will ultimately benefit our entire workforce and our communities.

To create our path forward, we took a simple and purposeful “listen, understand and act” approach.

Listen to our employees, business partners and communities.

Over the past year, we gained a greater understanding of the experiences of our Black team members through a series of facilitated discussions with Networkers, our employee Business Resource Group dedicated to our Black employee experience. In addition, through our internal survey, we track employee sentiment on trust, engagement, the work itself, growth and development and inclusion.

We also listen to our communities through employee participation on local nonprofit boards as well as government boards and engagement with our philanthropic partners.

Understand and gain insights from the data and what we heard from employees’ personal experiences and our broader community.

We sought to understand several key areas.

Representation: We are a diverse workforce. Of the more than 13,000 women and men of Edison International and Southern California Edison, nearly 70% are female and/or racially diverse. We continue to see improvement over the last three years in female and racially diverse representation at all levels of the company. More can be done to increase female representation in leader roles. We are at or above labor market availability (based on the most recent 2010 census) for all levels of the company. In addition to labor market availability, we also look at the composition of the communities we serve. Over the long run, our efforts can contribute to changes in labor market availability that better reflect the communities we serve.

Pay: Generally, employees in the same roles receive equal pay for equal work. As in broader society, group-wide average pay for female, Black and Hispanic employees is less, due to lower representation in higher-paying jobs.

Access: Our hiring decision-makers (recruiters, hiring managers and interview panels) are diverse. Because of low turnover and a robust competition for open positions, there are limited opportunities for job promotions.

Culture and Employee Sentiment: We have a strong culture and positive work environment. We have identified a need to improve our team members’ overall experience, particularly as it relates to our leaders’ ability to prioritize, communicate and focus on growth and development.

For the last three years, our employee sentiment survey results generally show positive trends for all employees, except in inclusion for Black employees, which also was confirmed in our listening sessions.

Community Building: After more than 130 years, we are deeply embedded in the communities we serve. Last year, our shareholders invested $23 million to support nonprofits, predominantly in SCE’s service area, with 80% focused on programs for diverse and underserved communities. SCE also spent more than $2 billion with more than 650 diverse suppliers, representing 40% of total annual corporate spend of $5.5 billion.

Act by focusing our resources on the areas that will provide the greatest impact

We also shared a series of actions we will take, in addition to the programs we already have in place, to address multiple aspects of diversity, equity and inclusion.

To help make the employee experience better for all team members, beginning with an emphasis on supporting our Black coworkers, we will create a dashboard for officers to provide greater accountability. In addition, we will offer programs to enhance cultural literacy through additional training; talent acceleration for high-potential employees by pairing them with officers; talent pipeline building with expanded scholarships and internships; career counseling and a third-party audit of our HR/Ethics policies and processes will inform the development of the programs.

To advance racial and economic equity in our communities, we will provide additional transparency about our charitable contributions and supplier diversity spending; pilot a new, four-year $1 million ($250,000 annually) scholarship program to increase diversity in the skilled craft workforce pipeline initially focused on attracting Black participants; commit $1 million in charitable funds over the next five years to advance racial equity in our communities; and undertake a study of diverse businesses that are available to provide goods or services to SCE.

This work to better understand diversity, equity and inclusion at Edison and in our communities will serve as a catalyst for further change and discussion around this critically important topic, which is key to our collective future success. Recognizing that transparency is a foundation we can continue to build on, we plan to share this information externally and with all of you every year through our Sustainability Report or other vehicles.

We encourage you to review the detailed information we shared with you here.

Thank you for your commitment to each other and our communities as One Edison.

Pedro J. Pizarro, Edison International President and Chief Executive Officer
Kevin Payne, SCE President and Chief Executive Officer
Jacqueline Trapp, Edison International and SCE Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer

Contact
Jeff Monford, 626-476-8120, Jeffrey.T.Monford@EdisonIntl.com