Earning Trust Every Day

Accelerating Our Approach

Belonging is a fundamental human need, and to cultivate belonging, we must actively focus on three key elements: diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). When those three areas are properly recognized and respected, we start to foster a sense of belonging and create a culture where everyone feels that they are part of the Ford family.

In the wake of social and racial injustice following the murder of George Floyd, we spent time listening deeply to our employees to better understand their experiences inside and outside of Ford. We learned that not all employees felt they belonged, and some experienced unique barriers in the employee journey that we needed to investigate. As a result, starting in the U.S., we embarked on a DEI employee audit, the most comprehensive assessment of DEI we have ever undertaken.

The results showed that while we have some bright spots, including our listening strategy and the impact made by our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and diversity councils, we also have opportunities to ensure all employees feel like they belong. We will expand our efforts to understand the employee experience by conducting additional audits.

Employee Information Report

Our EEO-1 report (PDF, 182KB) provides a snapshot of our U.S. demographics as of 2020, based on occupational categories prescribed by the federal government. These government-defined categories aggregate jobs with widely varying skill requirements.

Approximately 95 percent of all U.S. hourly and salaried positions fall into just four of the 10 categories. The usefulness of this data for measuring diversity success, and for making direct comparisons to the workforces of other companies or other industries with different job structures, is therefore extremely limited.

To address these shortcomings, we have developed a more robust U.S. supplemental diversity report (PDF, 33KB) that disaggregates technical jobs in fields such as engineering and information technology, which pose recruiting challenges that are very distinct from non-technical roles. The U.S. supplemental diversity report also provides more nuanced breakdowns of diversity at various managerial levels.

Salaried Pay Ratio

While ratios provide a rough measure of pay equity, they do not account for individual circumstances. We continually monitor our compensation structure to ensure that all employees are paid appropriately. Our reviews confirm that factors such as job titles, education and experience largely explain the differences between the average salaries reflected in these ratios and that there are not significant pay differences by gender or race across the company.

We are committed to fairly compensating all our employees and providing transparency on how well we are doing.

Getting The Best On Board

After identifying and hiring the right people, a strong onboarding experience is essential. During 2020, we had to pivot quickly to bring the entire process online. Thanks to a heroic effort by several departments, particularly our IT team, the switch from in-person to virtual induction was completed overnight and without interruption. More than 1,600 U.S. salaried employees have now been digitally onboarded, with an average satisfaction score of 91 percent and an engagement score of 95 percent.

Bringing Internships Online

Ford’s summer internship program is core to our early career talent acquisition process. When COVID-19 struck, we worked quickly to craft a virtual solution that would enable us to honor our commitment to the more than 600 interns in 2020, and we plan to host our interns virtually once again in 2021.

This new virtual program, a first in the history of Ford, offered college students eight weeks of experience in a real-life work environment. Regular check-ins with supervisors and skills teams, as well as a whole host of virtual social events, meant interns still received the face-to-face support they needed to develop. This dedication to intern experience didn’t go unnoticed, with the program receiving a 20-percentage point increase in Net Promotor Score (NPS) compared to our 2019 intern survey data. The improved NPS rating indicates that interns are more likely to refer others to employment opportunities within Ford.

Protecting Human Rights

Our commitment to respect human rights and achieve positive outcomes is embodied in our new We Are Committed to Protecting Human Rights and the Environment Policy (PDF, 215KB). The policy commits Ford to drive human progress by enhancing the health and well-being of the communities that surround us, respecting the rights of the people who live there and protecting the environment.

Addressing our salient human rights issues (PDF, 1MB) starts with our employees and extends to our suppliers and business partners. We strive to maintain a safe and healthy work environment, do not tolerate harassment and discrimination, safeguard against the threat of forced labor, child labor and human trafficking, and follow ethical recruitment practices.

In addition to our policies and procedures, Ford has signed an International Framework Agreement (IFA) with IndustriALL Global Union that reiterates our commitments to our global labor community.

Ford works with 42 unions globally, representing approximately 72 percent of our global workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements.

Human Rights Within Our Supply Chain

Our commitment to human rights continues with our supply chain. We work with our suppliers to develop policies, build capacity and foster transparency to support the human rights of their employees and the employees in their supply chains.

We published a Supplier Code of Conduct (PDF, 418KB) in early 2021, outlining the requirements of our supply chain partners regarding human rights, the environment, responsibly sourcing materials and responsible business practices. The Code was reviewed by external stakeholders, including supplier groups in both North America and Europe, socially responsible investor organizations and human rights experts.

Supply Chain Risk Assessments

Our work to address our salient human rights issues extends throughout our complex supply chain and requires all production suppliers to know and follow the Supplier Code of Conduct, enforce a similar code of practice and require that subcontractors do the same.

Our 2020 supplier risk assessments included data from suppliers representing over 85 percent of our production global spend. The risk assessment supports our audit selection processes and provides key insights into how we can improve our human rights program. See our UNGPRF Index (PDF, 1MB) for more details, including information on how we’re shifting to online training to build capacity in our supply chain.

We also conduct Self-Assessment Questionnaires (SAQs) with our global suppliers. Managed through our partnership with Drive Sustainability, the SAQ is used to assess supplier sustainability and to help us identify social and environmental risks throughout our supply base.

Responsible Sourcing of Raw Materials

With our complex supply chain comprising around 1,200 Tier 1 production suppliers, sourcing the 1,000 different materials we use is an important human rights issue. We aspire to source only raw materials that are responsibly produced and monitor our supply chains to ensure our materials are safe, responsibly sourced and conflict-free.

Needing to source nickel, lithium, cobalt and copper for our battery electric vehicles, we are implementing a responsible material sourcing strategy that expands our material due diligence program beyond conflict minerals.

In early 2021, we joined the Copper Mark’s Advisory Council and also became the first U.S. automaker in the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), a global group that promotes ecologically and socially responsible mining in large-scale operations.

Our Safety Commitment

The health, safety and security of our people, and the safety and quality of our vehicles, are salient human rights issues and key priorities for Ford. That’s why our sustainability aspiration is to work toward a future free from vehicle crashes and workplace injuries.

We maintain a robust safety culture to reduce workplace injuries. Through continued focus on our safety operating system, risk reduction actions and performance indicators, we work hard to achieve world-class levels of occupational safety year after year.

Our customers also trust us with their safety, and that of their loved ones, when they use a Ford vehicle. We design and build safe vehicles, and continuously seek to innovate and improve the safety of our products, utilizing technologies available today and participating in those being developed for the future.*

Occupational Health and Safety

Our health and safety commitment is the basis of our safety culture and applies to all employees, contractors and visitors performing work at our locations globally. Employees at every level are responsible and accountable for our safety initiatives and performance. We continually monitor workplace safety and measure performance with leading and lagging indicators.

Any loss of life or serious injury in the workplace is unacceptable and deeply regretted. 2020 marked the second consecutive year without a fatal incident. The circumstances of all workplace incidents are analyzed in detail, with actions taken to prevent reoccurrence. Our lost-time case rate (LTCR) improved from 0.39 to 0.31 in 2020.

Vehicle Safety

Ford customers trust us with their safety, and that of their loved ones. That is why we prioritize the safety and quality of our vehicles. We pride ourselves on designing and building vehicles that meet the highest standards in a range of real-world conditions. We are continuously innovating to improve vehicle safety, utilizing driver assist technologies available today and developing new features for the future, and we continue to receive recognition in public and private crash-testing assessments.

Having set the benchmark with factory-installed safety belts six decades ago, we continue to develop new, innovative driver assist technologies that enhance vehicle safety. Our Ford and Lincoln Co-Pilot360™ Technologies use a combination of radar, sonar and cameras to sense and interpret the environment, helping customers around the world to drive confidently, alerting them of potential collisions, protecting pedestrians and cyclists, and making routine tasks easier.

Product Quality

To measure product quality, we have transitioned to a new primary source of information, the Quality Net Promoter Score (QNPS), which will measure the ownership experience at 3, 12 and 36 months in service. QNPS provides a more holistic view of quality by capturing both customers’ dislikes and likes, and not just “Things Gone Wrong.”

This new tool will give us more timely, actionable insights in line with industry performance indicators of quality, such as the annual studies conducted by J.D. Power and Associates.

We are revamping our processes and leveraging cutting-edge technologies to ensure quality, customer satisfaction and recall actions have more visibility and support at all levels of the company. We have started to see a reduction in the number of field service actions and affected units, with global passenger vehicles recalled falling from 11.05 million in 2019 to 7.48 million in 2020, and U.S. passenger vehicles recalled falling from 7.09 million in 2019 to 4.79 million in 2020.

We are also increasing our use of advanced data analytics and machine learning to help with the earlier detection of potential issues across our vehicle portfolio, even before delivering the vehicle to the customer.

Community Investment and Engagement

By leveraging the power and expertise of the Ford Motor Company network – our employees, Ford dealers and community partners – our philanthropic arm, Ford Motor Company Fund (Ford Fund), provides resources and opportunities people need to overcome obstacles that limit upward mobility.

2020 was a year like no other, and the COVID-19 pandemic made the work the Ford Fund does to strengthen communities more important than ever. Concentrating on the most pressing issues in local communities – those surrounding hunger relief, shelter, access to mobility and other critical needs – Ford Fund directed more than $3 million in funding to support nonprofits battling the impacts of COVID-19.

Learn more by reading the 2020 Ford Fund Annual Report.

Employees Giving Back

Giving back is one of our key values, and never has our commitment to this been so marked as throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We received hundreds of questions from employees wanting to know how they could help. Stay-home orders, physical restrictions and the cancellation of many in-person events and services completely shifted both community needs and the way in which we support nonprofits. However, our donation match program gave employees a way to safely support the relief efforts of 47 community organizations in 20 countries.

During Global Caring Month in September, our annual 30-day focus on community service, employees rallied once again – performing acts of kindness for friends, family and neighbors in need and nominating local community organizations to receive grants in support of the work they are doing to address COVID-19.

Responding to COVID-19

To keep our own people safe when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, we supported employees working remotely with webinars, resources, learning solutions and tools and quickly shifted to a virtual model for internships, recruiting and onboarding.

Our employees at Ford quickly rallied to help others, working with UAW union partners to use our design and manufacturing expertise, and existing vehicle parts, to support the production of vital medical equipment such as ventilators.

In 2020 alone, our Project Apollo team has produced more than 140 million face masks*, 20 million face shields, 1.6 million washable gowns, 50,000 ventilators and more than 32,000 powered air-purifying respirators, in partnership with 3M™.

We have now pivoted production, throwing our efforts into producing 120 million American-made medical-grade masks to at-risk communities in all 50 states by mid-2021.