News
Yum! Brands again one of Black Enterprise's 40 Best in Diversity
June 24, 2008
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — For the fourth consecutive year, Yum! Brands Inc., parent company of A&W All-American Food, KFC, Long John Silver's, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, has been named one of Black Enterprise Magazine's "40 Best Companies for Diversity" for its comprehensive results across key diversity measures.
Black Enterprise's fourth annual list of the best companies for diversity is featured in the July 2008 edition. The magazine evaluated diversity programs, consulted with diversity experts and surveyed more than 1,000 of the country's largest public companies and more than 50 leading global companies with significant U.S. operations.
The magazine made its selection based on the number of African-Americans and members of other ethnic minority groups in four categories including supplier diversity, senior management, board of directors and total workforce diversity.
Black Enterprise reported that supplier diversity and total workforce diversity are two areas in which Yum! Brands is particularly strong.
"Yum!'s supplier diversity spend has grown from 1 percent to 8 percent in the last 10 years. The company also has a rigorous succession planning process that examines diversity gaps in each function and sets action plans to achieve those goals," the magazine reported in its July issue.
"It is vitally important to us to hire, retain and develop the right people, with diverse backgrounds and styles, who have the ability and attitude to be Customer Maniacs," said David C. Novak, chairman and CEO, Yum! Brands.
More than 50 percent of Yum!'s U.S. workforce are minorities, as well as more than 50 percent of the company's new hires.
Yum! Brands has been recognized for its workplace opportunities in multiple categories: the company has been named one of Fortune magazine's "Top 50 Employers for Minorities" for the past four years, one of Fortune's "Top 50 Employers for Women," one of Black Enterprise's "30 Hottest Franchises for 2006," one of the "Corporate 100 Companies Providing Opportunities for Hispanics" by Hispanic Magazine and one of the "Top 50 Corporations for Supplier Diversity" by Hispanic Enterprise Magazine, and by BusinessWeek as one of the "Top 15 Companies for In-Kind Corporate Philanthropy."
Yum!'s strategy for leveraging diversity includes franchising and supplier diversity. Yum! supports minority entrepreneurship through its sponsorship of national minority business groups.
In addition to franchising and supplier diversity, Yum!'s diversity strategy includes employment, leadership development and community involvement. Over 25 percent of Yum!'s annual corporate giving goes to support predominantly minority communities. Each year Yum! partners with programs such as College Black Expos and the Hispanic Enterprise Hispana Leadership Summit.
Many of Yum! Brands' philanthropic efforts are focused on minority community giving and employee volunteerism. The Yum! Brands Foundation has committed approximately $1 million to the Louisville-based Muhammad Ali Center, an international cultural and educational institution, for the advancement of humanity worldwide, and $250,000 for the creation of the Children's Educational Center as part of the Kentucky Center for African-American Heritage.
Yum! and its brands also have been committed to fighting hunger for more than a decade by donating $50 million of prepared food annually to the underprivileged in the United States. In addition, last year Yum! Brands launched the world's largest private sector hunger relief effort, in partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme and other hunger relief agencies. This effort raised $16 million for the World Food Programme and other hunger relief organizations and helped save over 1.6 million people from starvation in remote corners of the world, where hunger is most prevalent.
Yum! Brands is the world's largest restaurant company in terms of system restaurants, with more than 35,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries and territories. The company consistently has been recognized for its reward and recognition culture, diversity leadership, community giving and consistent shareholder returns.
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