Marriott issues its 2020 CSR Report

For decades Trillium has been encouraging companies to provide comprehensive workforce diversity disclosures (ideally the EEO-1 table), because (1) the evidence shows that companies with diverse workforces are significantly more likely to be better financial performers and (2) diverse and inclusive workplaces are important to individuals, families, communities, and society. In 2019, because Marriott was not disclosing comprehensive workforce diversity data Trillium filed a shareholder proposal to encourage a change at the company. Our position was widely supported and when it went to a vote in the spring of 2020, it received 30% of the vote (and more than 42% when family insider shares were subtracted). In July and December 2020, Trillium followed up with the company pressing the point and seeking more information about how they were addressing racial equity. We were therefore pleased when later in December, Marriott issued its 2020 CSR Report that for the first time reports the diversity of its total U.S. workforce and the diversity of employees in managerial roles across all EEO-1 race/ethnicity categories. The company also reports the breakdown of its total U.S. and total global workforce by gender; the percentage of women in the U.S. in executive, mid-level, and entry level manager positions and the percentage of women and percentage of people of color who report directly to the CEO. Marriott employed 136,000 in the U.S. in 2019. While the company still has significant room for improvement, this is a positive step in response to our concerns.

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