Workforce Diversity Report

Resolution Text

WHEREAS: Union Pacific is required to furnish an EEO-1 report - a comprehensive breakdown of its workforce by race and gender according to 10 employment categories – to the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Council annually.

As intangible assets increasingly drive corporate value creation, investors seek a better understanding of human capital management strategy and performance. A lack of consistent disclosure of human capital practices makes it difficult for investors to evaluate corporate performance.

Detailed workforce diversity data is one critical component of transparency regarding human capital management. Diverse and inclusive teams are associated with greater employee engagement, increased attraction and retention of talent, and a sense of purpose in the workforce.

Disclosure of the EEO-1 report would enable the company to provide a more complete picture of its workforce without additional burdens on the company to collect data. Such disclosure would provide a platform for the company to describe the connection between human capital management and corporate strategy and facilitate informed engagement with investors.

Information about the effectiveness of a company’s diversity investments must be complete, comparable, and consistent. Investors need annual disclosure of granular demographic data in order to know whether investments in diversity have paid off through changes in the numbers of people by race and gender at different levels of the company.

Annual EEO-1 disclosure enables an evaluation of the company’s strengths and opportunities for improvement and performance trend, and facilitates comparison across firms.

Union Pacific does not provide this fundamental information to shareholders, though it describes a commitment to diversity and states that it invests in diversity and inclusion initiatives.

RESOLVED: Shareholders request that the Board of Directors adopt a policy requiring Union Pacific to disclose on its website the annual Consolidated EEO-1 Report. The company shall disclose its EEO-1 Report no later than 60 days after the date of its submission to the EEOC.

Supporting Statement: The global coronavirus pandemic and police brutality against African-Americans have heightened public concern about racial equity. Rising expectations of employees and other stakeholders that companies will make a meaningful commitment to racial equity in the workplace have strengthened the longstanding case for prioritizing diversity in the workplace. In particular, companies that signal their commitment to racial diversity through workforce transparency may be better positioned to attract and retain talent.

Underscoring the link between diversity and inclusion and human capital management, research from The Conference Boards’ DNA of Engagement initiative argues that the synergy between employee engagement and inclusion is a key component of overall employee productivity and Deloitte highlights diversity as an important element in building and sustaining a strong sense of corporate purpose.

A May 2020 report from McKinsey Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters found “that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25 percent more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile.”

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Lead Filer

Stu Dalheim
Calvert Research and Management

Co-filer

Tim Brennan
Unitarian Universalist Association