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In February 2021, Alaska Airlines unveiled its 2025 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion goals, with the goal of fostering a more inclusive workplace. As of our most recent update in March 2023, our initiatives focus on increasing representation, elevating overall leadership, and cultivating an inclusive culture.
With approximately 18 months remaining, we are seeing varying degrees of progress across different sectors, and we are constantly learning and identifying new areas to focus on to better align with our goals. Here is an overview of our current status and our efforts to accelerate progress:
the acting
We saw a small but steady improvement in racial diversity among our frontline employees, increasing 0.1 percentage points year over year. Leadership diversity also showed more significant growth, increasing 1.9 percentage points. Our talent pipeline has also expanded significantly in supervisory/management roles and among individual contributors preparing for director-level positions or above. Our leadership of color at the director-level or above has increased by 44% since 2021.
Key actions to enhance our diverse talent pipeline include analyzing and expanding effective pipeline programs, focusing on leader accountability, improving our Affirmative Action Plans (AAP) to address disparities in representation, and enhancing mentorship and professional development opportunities.
Overview of current progress:
- Leader Academy has graduated 200 individuals, 40% of whom are BIPOC and 49% of participants are female.
- We have expanded the True North Pilot Development Program to include more diverse educational institutions, greatly enhancing the diversity of student pilots.
- The ELEVATE program has been launched, enhancing growth opportunities for Business Resource Group (BRG) leaders.
- Ascend Pilot Academy welcomed 125 new students, with noteworthy diversity statistics.
Gender, Veteran and Disability Representation:
- Increase BIPOC representation at most stages of the career, except for entry-level/frontline and officer levels.
- Modest changes in gender diversity, with female representation stable, except at officer and managing director levels.
- Veteran representation increased by 2.8%.
- Self-identification rates for people with disabilities have remained stable.
culture
Our employee engagement surveys now include eight inclusion-focused questions to derive our “Inclusion Index Score,” which recently decreased from +7 to +4.
To foster a sense of belonging, we implement several initiatives:
- Forming a DEI Council to advocate for inclusive policies.
- Enhance interactions with business groups to gather feedback and extract actionable insights.
- Provide targeted diversity and inclusion training and review policies to better support diversity and inclusion across the organization.
Recent cultural initiatives:
- A new BRG for young professionals has been launched.
- More comprehensive resources for staff and facilities have been provided.
- Improving guest services to meet diverse needs, including offering expanded gender options and accessibility features.
General Command
We continue to support education as a fundamental path to equality, and actively support educational endeavors through collaboration and sponsorship.
Educational Initiatives and Community Engagement:
- Company-sponsored educational tours and events, utilizing our fleet for educational purposes, including HBCU college tours.
- Partnering with organizations that align with our educational and equality goals.
- Programs such as the Student Talent and Exploration Partnership (STEP) have been developed, which provides comprehensive industry exposure to high school students.
Our journey towards 2025 continues as we aim to not only meet but exceed our diversity, equity and inclusion goals, and take significant steps towards creating a just workplace.
The post Leading the Way: Alaska Airlines’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Journey from 2021 to 2025 was first published on Travel And Tour World.