SAIC's Commitment: Building an Inclusive Culture, Empowering Talent and Driving Innovation

by Jeff Raver, Vice President of Environmental, Social and Governance, SAIC
Sep 4, 2024 8:15 AM ET
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SAIC has a long history of delivering innovative solutions to our customers, creating a career-destination workplace for employees, being a good steward of the environment, and doing it all with an unwavering commitment to the right thing.   

We deliver on these elements through our exceptional workforce. As we seek to advance the power of technology and innovation to serve and protect our world, a critical part of our business strategy is attracting, continually developing and retaining top talent — advancing new engineering, science and IT solutions cannot happen without it. To deliver these solutions and bring value to shareholders, customers and employees, we provide meaningful work and purpose, as we:

  • Develop solutions for our customers’ most challenging problems
  • Deliver value to our business through meaningful diversity, equity and inclusion efforts
  • Nurture people throughout the talent lifecycle through upskilling and job rotation to improve retention and fill critical skill gaps
  • Create a culture of empowerment where people can be their authentic selves and do their best work for our customers
  • Provide benefits and programs that enhance employees’ experiences and their well-being

Creating a Culture of Exceptional Value

Our vision for diversity, equity and inclusion at SAIC is straightforward:

  • We commit to creating a workplace where we value, respect and empower everyone to reach their full potential.
  • We foster a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion that celebrates our differences and promotes collaboration, innovation and growth. 
  • We strive to create leadership teams that reflect the diversity of the teams they lead and that reflect the diversity of the customers they serve.
  • We work every day to be a company that is diverse, inclusive and a leader in promoting the business value of DE&I in our industry and beyond.

Why It Matters

At SAIC, we know diverse teams deliver better solutions to our customers toughest problems. We also know that when employees see a reflection of themselves in their leadership, and our customers see a reflection of themselves in our workforce, we are more likely to attract and retain the top talent we need to deliver on our commitments.  

To this end, our focus in FY24 was employee engagement, employee development and talent acquisition.

In FY21, we set goals to achieve parity in the representation of women and people of color between leader and non-leader roles by the end of FY26.  In FY23, we achieved our parity goal for women in leadership, and in FY24, we sustained it at 28%. In FY24, we continued our progress improving parity for people of color in leadership by 2% for a total of 25% of leaders being people of color. Also notable from FY24, based on our population of full-time, non-executive employees, our gender pay gap continues to be approximately 1% for the compensation of women relative to men.

We are committed to filling every role within SAIC with the most qualified candidates. We develop a diverse leadership team from our existing workforce by fostering diverse candidate slates for leadership roles; ensuring our job descriptions, recruiting tools and processes help eliminate the potential for bias; and providing training, educational resources and leadership development programs for all our employees, including our AcceleratHER Women’s Leadership Academy, Leadership 365 for Aspiring Leaders, Developing Frontline Leaders, McKinsey Leadership Essentials, Management Accelerator and Executive Leadership Program and Connected Leaders academy for Asian, Black, Hispanic and Latino cohorts. 

To ensure equitable access to opportunities, we train leadership, hiring managers and recruiters on the benefits of improved parity and inclusion; we use diverse talent communities and sourcing tools; and we leverage our advertising and marketing efforts to make sure we reach a diverse pool of candidates. Through these efforts, women make up 32% and people of color make up 57% of our job candidates. 

Our Employee Resource Groups are the cornerstone of our employee engagement initiatives. To date, just under 13% of our workforce belongs to one of the seven affinity groups, providing opportunity, content, engagement and resources specifically focused on the unique needs of their membership. All employees are welcome to join any of these employee-led organizations where allyship is fostered and encouraged.  

At SAIC, we believe small and diverse businesses are essential for maintaining a robust, dynamic contractor ecosystem, and play an integral role in the types of supply chain efforts required to meet the unique needs of our government customers. We work to expand our partnerships with diverse small businesses and suppliers, hosting outreach sessions, and mentoring and providing contract opportunities to those that drive innovation. The company’s small business outreach program tracks its’ spend with small business diverse-owned suppliers in several categories such as Disadvantaged, Women-Owned, Veteran-Owned, Service-Disabled Veteran Owned, HUBZone, Alaskan Native Corporations and Indian Tribes. In FY24, we spent over $420 million with these small, diverse-owned businesses. 

SAIC + DIVERSITY

We create a culture where everyone has opportunity and can thrive in an environment where they can be their authentic selves. Third parties consistently acknowledge SAIC’s inclusive workforce:

  • Forbes list of 500 Best Employers for Diversity
  • Forbes America’s Best Employers for Women 2024
  • LATINA Style’s Top 50 Best Companies for Latinas
  • Newsweek America’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity
  • Newsweek America’s Greatest Workplaces for Women 2024
  • Fair360 Noteworthy Companies for 2024

Learn more about SAIC's commitments in the SAIC's 2024 Corporate Responsibility Report.