Campbell Soup Company – Winning in the Workplace, Winning in the Marketplace, Winning With Women (Practices)

Campbell Soup Company’s comprehensive initiative, Winning in the Workplace, Winning in the Marketplace, Winning With Women, has utilized employee engagement, knowledge sharing, and innovation to develop a culture of diversity and inclusion and support the company’s overall plan to transform its workplace and marketplace performance. Since 2005, the company has sustained a strategic focus on increasing all employees’ engagement, and promoting and developing women and people of color, improving Campbell’s stagnant sales and some of the lowest Gallup engagement scores of any Fortune 500 company to world-class employee engagement and the achievement of Gallup’s “Great Workplace Award” in 2008 and 2009. This strategy is also aligned with business objectives designed to ensure the makeup of Campbell’s workforce mirrors its diverse audience of consumers, 80 percent of whom are women.

The initiative features unique components that support all employees: a robust diversity and inclusion strategy utilizes staff across office and manufacturing plant sites for both internal efforts and marketplace development. Campbell’s Leadership Model is linked to business strategies, driving both how work is accomplished and what results are achieved. In addition, the development of a company-wide culture of mentoring and inclusion was supported by unique affinity networks and events. These included the Women of Campbell’s Network, whose model was used as a basis for a diverse set of affinity networks.  For example, Campbell’s BRIDGE Network was designed to bridge the various generations in the workplace. Affinity events featured communications programs such as an OPEN Network (for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender employees) celebration of diverse families, where employees across the company were invited to submit photos or video of their families to display at workplace entrances, and panel discussions with Campbell’s senior women. Accountability is embedded into performance reviews and affects compensation, with diversity learning goals required as part of all employee development plans.

Winning in the Workplace, Winning in the Marketplace, Winning With Women has achieved strong results: from 2005 to 2009, women in executive roles increased from 21 percent to 25 percent. In manufacturing roles, the percentage of women and women of color plant directors and managers increased from 14 percent to 21 percent, and from 1 percent to 3 percent, respectively. Through five years of women running business lines that contribute to a majority of the company’s U.S. profit and a strategic focus on embedding women’s contributions in product development, Campbell has delivered cumulative total shareowner returns above the company’s peer group average.