People & Culture
People & Culture
62,035 Employees worldwide
Our continued focus on people and culture is reflected in our priorities around ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ (‘DEI’), leadership, and performance. These pillars seek to focus our efforts on people and culture through:
CREATING A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD FOR EVERYONE
DEI means valuing and leveraging the differences of our talents, consumers, and partners, while ensuring they are treated fairly and respectfully to enhance performance and unleash creativity. By creating a level playing field for everyone, we ensure that every individual has an equal opportunity to thrive and unleash high performance. By recruiting talent with diverse backgrounds and fostering a welcoming environment, we create a workplace where everyone commits and contributes at their full potential.
ATTRACTING, DEVELOPING, AND RETAINING KEY TALENT
adidas is recognized as one of the best companies to work for, with our ‘employer of choice’ status continuing to receive global recognition in 2024, as we are ranked second best in our category in Forbes’ ‘World’s Best Employers’ list. We were also listed once again in Universum’s ‘World’s Most Attractive Employers’ rankings in 2024 for business students worldwide. In addition, we were ranked second in ‘Stern Germany’s Best Employers,’ which is three positions higher than in the previous year. According to Stern, we are ranked as the third most attractive company in Germany for female employees. Also in 2024, adidas was ranked first in TextilWirtschaft’s ’Working in Fashion’ study, which identifies Germany’s most popular employers in the fashion industry. Among other awards, adidas also won the ‘Employee Experience Breakthrough Artist Award’ for empowering its employee experience with AI-powered solutions. Finally, adidas received a perfect score of 100 from the ‘Human Rights Campaign’ for creating an inclusive workplace for our LGBTQIA team members.
IT STARTS WITH YOU
JOIN USBUILDING ROLE-MODEL LEADERS WHO EMPOWER PEOPLE
Our development offerings focus on growing leadership behaviors and the essential skills needed to ensure our continued success, across all different seniorities. In addition, our leaders receive inclusive leadership training through our ‘Leading with Inclusion’ program. Our ambition is to inspire and nurture talented and diverse leaders who exemplify our leadership behaviors in their day-to-day work. Through our new leadership framework, we aim to establish a language that can support our people in embedding these behaviors in all moments and hold each other accountable to the highest standards. We undertake different initiatives to elevate and enhance our leadership pipeline.
CREATING A PREMIER EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE
Ensuring a positive and impactful employee experience is a key focus for us. We do this through listening to feedback from our employees, offering opportunities for flexibility, and focusing on well-being. To support a healthy lifestyle and mental well-being, our employees have access to a wide range of sports activities, events, and facilities. We have corporate gyms at many locations worldwide, including Herzogenaurach, Portland, Gurgaon, Shanghai, Dubai, and Manchester. Many of our office buildings have lockers and showers, allowing employees to include sports in their working day or cycle to work. To meet employee needs in a hybrid work set-up, programs are both local and virtual to support teamwork and a healthy lifestyle. Offerings include hybrid sports classes, medical and psychosocial consultations (in-person and virtual), tools for digital disconnection, and carefully curated sessions on life topics.
INSTILLING A MINDSET OF CONTINUOUS LEARNING
We continue to promote a high-performance culture by developing our employees and rewarding performance. We offer a wide range of learning and development opportunities, including online learning resources and interactive learning experiences that provide personal and professional growth opportunities for our workforce. Our investments in digital learning and development opportunities offer equitable access to learning content and just-intime upskilling and/or reskilling.
RECOGNIZING AND REWARDING BOTH INDIVIDUAL AND TEAM PERFORMANCE
The key focus of our rewards approach is to attract, retain, and motivate individuals through remuneration and benefits that are inclusive, fit for purpose, and competitive in the marketplace – thus enabling us to achieve our strategic objectives. To promote a high-performance culture, it is essential that we focus on performance management to ensure fair and equitable reward and recognition.
