Promoting Inclusion and Diversity in Our Workforce and Beyond
As featured in Qualcomm's 2021 Corporate Responsibility Report
We expect every employee to help create and maintain a work environment that is inclusive, respectful and free of harassment, discrimination and retaliation.
All U.S.-based employees are required to complete harassment prevention training at their time of hire and thereafter every two years. We conduct mandatory training for new hires on inclusion and diversity as part of the employee onboarding process. We also provide access to hundreds of online and in-person trainings on interpersonal topics ranging from soliciting feedback to creating an inclusive work environment.
Our collaborations with organizations that champion inclusion and diversity in the workplace and beyond are vital to our success in providing additional training and capacity-building around diversity.
- We partnered with the Network of Executive Women Leadership, Better Up Coaching and Athena Leadership Academy to provide unique training and development opportunities for women employees.
- The Equal Justice Initiative, McKinsey Management Accelerator, McKinsey Black Executive Leadership Program and Mana de San Diego provided training and development opportunities for underrepresented minority employees.
- Four Block, Out and Equal, Disability:IN and the ACLU provided training and development opportunities for other protected groups.
- Qualcomm donated over $1 million to racial justice causes including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Asian American Advancing Justice and Community Advocates for Just and Moral Governance.
- Qualcomm Treasury invested $200 million in Empowering Change, a government money market fund distributed by four banks that serve minority communities.
We increased global awareness and understanding of our Company’s inclusive and diverse culture by hosting diversity events all over the world and by expanding our inclusion and diversity programming and activities. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of these events – including the large events that we normally hold to celebrate Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, International Women’s Day, Pride, Memorial Day and other heritage months and days of remembrance and achievement – moved to a virtual format in 2020/2021. The new format allowed us to engage more employees worldwide and increase attendance for these events. For example, attendance at our Black History Month events increased by over 700% in 2021.
Our Global Inclusion and Diversity (GID) team organizes, hosts and encourages employees to participate in community events that align with our initiatives focused on racial/ethnic diversity; gender equity; and people with disabilities, gender identity and veteran status. In 2021, GID invited employees to participate in the Virtual Disability:IN Inclusion Works meeting and an Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) event in which IWPR and Invent Together presented new research on the challenges inventors face based on gender and race and how to overcome them.
In response to increasing violence against Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) and #stopasianhate, we hosted “A Community Conversation to Counter Anti-Asian Sentiment and Violence.” More than 1,300 employees attended our company-wide forum to discuss some of the roots of anti-Asian sentiment and how we can all work together to build more cohesive communities, strengthen inclusion and address racism. Additionally, Qualcomm Ventures partnered with other venture capital firms (in an effort led by GGV Capital) to support the fight against anti-Asian violence and hate crimes, with over 180 firms donating more than $5 million.
In 2021, our Qualcomm Women employee network partnered with the GID team to present Qualcomm’s first-ever Women’s Conference. More than 1,000 employees globally participated in this exciting and inspiring two-day virtual event. More than 60 speakers – including members of Qualcomm’s Board of Directors, Company executives, industry experts and colleagues – shared insights and their personal experiences. Session topics covered fostering innovation, male allyship, encouraging empowerment and navigating non-linear careers, among other things.
We also used social media and traditional media to raise awareness of Qualcomm’s impact in historically underserved communities, particularly in relation to mentoring, academic support and scholarships. For example, we reach students and educators by highlighting our Thinkabit Lab programming which is designed to inspire female and URM students to explore careers in engineering and other STEM-related fields.
Learn more in Qualcomm's 2021 Corporate Responsibility Report
