Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

We empower curiosity to drive deeper understanding and build greater respect and support throughout our organization. We do this through continuous learning opportunities, foundational DE&I courses, celebrating our cultural differences, and by actively supporting each other through listening, empathy, respect, and compassion. Our accomplishments include:

• Becoming a CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion signatory.
• Hosting annual Days of Understanding.
• Celebrating global heritage months including Black History Month, Pride Month, and Hispanic Heritage Month by featuring our employees in roundtables, interviews with our CEO, articles, and blog posts.
• Developing monthly I Belong at Charles River panel discussions to raise awareness of DE&I topics.
• Launching dedicated DE&I learning paths for employees and people leaders.
• Engaging with employees across the globe and regularly soliciting feedback to guide our DE&I strategy.

We know that an inclusive culture where everyone can be their authentic selves, be appreciated for their differences, and share their unique perspectives is key to our employees’ engagement and our company’s success. To achieve this sense of belonging, we are focused on educating all people leaders to mitigate their unconscious biases and empowering all employees to take individual actions to create an inclusive environment for all. We are committed to expanding employee resource groups (ERGs) to support and develop our employees across spectrums of diversity, educate allies, and to highlight ways in which we can continually improve. Our accomplishments include:

• Establishing nine global Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), each paired with an Executive Sponsor from our senior leadership team. Our ERGs have partnered with the Company on a DE&I calendar, including a new holiday for U.S. and other initiatives like all-gender restrooms, new policies, and inclusion of pronouns on business cards and email signatures.
• Launching Tackling Bias and Creating Inclusion workshops which were piloted in 2020 by the CEO and our Executive Team and are now being rolled out to our people leaders.
• Incorporating inclusion and belonging into our employee engagement pulse surveys to measure our progress.

We remain committed to attracting, developing, and retaining diverse talent by forging key partnerships, strengthening our sourcing channels, creating pipelines for early talent through internship and apprenticeship opportunities, mandating diverse interview panels, and mitigating unconscious bias at every step in the employee lifecycle. Diverse representation is reviewed regularly as part of our CEO business reviews. Our accomplishments include:

• Regularly reviewing our gender, race/ethnicity, and generational representation as part of our CEO business reviews to ensure appropriate representation at every level.
• Launching a career sponsorship program focused on increasing diversity at management levels.
• Implementing diverse interview panels with on-going reporting and tracking; training our recruiting teams to mitigate unconscious bias; and preparing our hiring managers to conduct objective, behavioral-based interviewing.
• Developing a dedicated diversity sourcing function to help drive diverse talent attraction and hiring.
• Supporting programs to increase diversity such as our Cristo Rey internship program and our UK scientific and leadership apprenticeship programs.

We are committed to providing opportunities for everyone to realize their full potential. Our approach to gender and racial equity, and other diversity dimensions, focuses on ensuring employees’ ability to progress at every level of our organization. We regularly review our practices and metrics to ensure equitable outcomes in areas such as pay, total rewards, engagement, performance, promotion, development, and talent reviews. Additionally, we have a robust supplier diversity program to ensure economic development opportunities for diverse business enterprises. Our accomplishments include:

• Conducting bi-annual global pay equity review for gender and a U.S.-based pay equity review for race and ethnicity, which results in swift remediation if there are anomalies.
• Highlighting diversity as part of the annual talent review process and succession slates.
• Offering a generous tuition benefit in the U.S., to address the high cost of college and help our employees continue to grow and develop in their careers.
• Providing company-paid sabbaticals to provide employees opportunities for self-growth, professional development, or community impact.
• Being recognized as the 2021 Merck Supplier Partner of the Year for Supplier Diversity Engagement.

Our commitment to diversity extends beyond our workplace to the communities in which we live and work. We partner with organizations globally to ensure thriving communities, increase awareness of disease and health outcomes, and create better access to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education for today’s youth, inspiring the next generation of diverse scientists and technicians. We also provide support for Charles River employees facing challenges (personal illness/injury, family death, or natural disasters) through our Employee Relief Fund. Our accomplishments include:

• Launching the Charles River Employee Relief Fund and disbursing funds to employees facing hardships.
• Establishing an online Matching Gift program to maximize our employees’ donations.
• Recognizing STEM Day across our locations and regularly volunteering with STEM initiatives in our communities.
• Creating global food bank partnerships to address food insecurity in regions where our employees live and work.
• Donating to local community organizations that are addressing the needs of under-served groups.