American Airlines Champions Diversity and Talent Development, Fostering a Culture of Inclusion and Pay Equity for Over 140,000 Team Members
Originally published in American Airlines' 2023 Sustainability Report
American is a people business, working to deliver, connect and care for people on life’s journey. The talent and dedication of our more than 140,000 team members are the most important drivers of our success.
Our culture is American’s competitive advantage, and it is centered on attracting the best and brightest talent and investing in their development and well-being. American is also dedicated to fostering an inclusive environment where people from all backgrounds feel welcome and valued. We believe this is critical to our success both today and in the future. We have accomplished much and continue to identify opportunities for further enhancing the team member experience.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Our strength lies in having a team that effectively serves the communities we represent. We are proud to be a place where people of diverse generations, races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, religions and other backgrounds are genuinely included and valued, strengthening our ability to better serve and connect with our customer base and the communities in which we operate.
Leading the charge on inclusion
American is committed to advancing inclusion at all levels. We’re doing this by holding leaders more accountable for creating a workplace that is truly welcoming. Through ongoing training and open dialogue, we’re equipping our leaders with the skills they need to champion inclusion. This includes building their cultural competence, which allows them to understand, value and collaborate effectively with people from all backgrounds.
That is why our 2023 incentive compensation plan for company leaders included diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) engagement and education goals. For 2023, these goals were included in the compensation plan. For engagement, the goal was for 93% of leaders at the manager level or above to participate in at least two DEI-related engagement activities or events. (For managing directors and above, the goal was to participate in a leadership capacity.) For education, the goal was for 93% of the company to complete DEI training. We surpassed both thresholds, with 99% of leaders participating in or leading two or more events to develop cultural competence and 98% of team members completing “The Power of Inclusion — Winning Together” training.
Education for all team members is an important part of our journey to realizing the full power of inclusion — from implicit bias training to our web-based inclusion education series that equips team members with the skills to speak up on behalf of others. Many of our other development programs, such as the Women’s Leadership Program, help recruit and retain leaders throughout our company.
American recognizes that every leader shares a responsibility for hiring and developing the best talent while also championing diversity. To select the top candidates and include all perspectives in the process, we seek to interview a diverse slate of qualified individuals for all management-level positions. We also strive to have diverse interview panels for all leadership positions so that we can select the most qualified candidates.
Connecting team members through our Employee Business Resource Groups
Creating a more inclusive environment by engaging team members is a top priority. One way we do this is through our Employee Business Resource Groups (EBRGs), networks for team members to connect, foster professional and personal development, learn through cultural engagement activities, serve our communities and help support American’s business objectives.
American currently has 20 EBRGs with 165 local chapters, and they represent a range of communities with different beliefs, genders, ethnicities and life experiences. They include the Black Professional Network, Professional Women in Aviation, PRIDE (for LGBTQ team members and allies) and Veteran Military, to name just a few. All team members are welcome to join any EBRG.
Achieving recognition for our DEI accomplishments
Several leading organizations and publications that monitor DEI performance recognized American for our work in this area over the past year. We received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index for the 21st consecutive year since this index’s inception. We also received a perfect score on the 2023 Disability Equality Index for the eighth straight year. Additionally, our DEI efforts have received the highest scores on the Seramount Inclusion Index, and we were honored to have the Dallas Business Journal recognize American’s Chief Diversity Officer with a 2023 Leader in Diversity award.
Promoting fairness through a commitment to pay equity
American has long championed pay equity, and we are committed to pay parity for the same job regardless of gender, race or ethnicity. Our team members covered by collective bargaining agreements have built-in pay equity as part of those agreements. Therefore, we have focused our pay equity efforts on the remaining portion of our workforce — made up of management and support staff — who do not belong to unions.
American uses Syndio’s workplace equity platform, which helps us analyze and address pay gaps in our workforce. Our approach begins by placing each team member in one of approximately 50 “similarly situated groups” (SSGs) across American based on the type of work they do. We then identify factors that can drive compensation variation within each SSG, such as an individual’s specific pay scale, seniority or experience.
In 2021, American became the first airline to receive Fair Pay Workplace’s inaugural pay equity certification, which is based on a company’s identification and remediation of pay equity issues. This Seattle-based organization is working to dismantle pay disparities based on gender, race and ethnicity to create sustained fair pay. It is backed by an independent alliance of equity experts from academia, business and technology. American was recertified in both 2022 and 2023, and we remain one of only a handful of large U.S. companies in any industry to be certified. The Rules and Standards for Certification are available to the public.
Among the certification requirements, American regularly undergoes a seven-point review of our remediation plan by Fair Pay Workplace. We have also pledged not to ask job candidates about their prior compensation or expectations for starting pay, which Fair Pay Workplace has identified as among the largest sources of pay gaps.
