The Hershey Co. has earned the sixth spot on DiversityInc's Top 50 Companies for Diversity list, reflecting an advancement over the past several years from No. 33 in 2018.

This recognition reinforces the company's progress against its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) commitments. Hershey's DEI efforts can be seen through The Pathways Project, the company's five-year DEI engagement plan, as well as its global #HerforShe campaign, in which the company used its platform to elevate and support women and girls worldwide.

"Being recognized on DiversityInc's Top 50 Companies for Diversity list amongst such prestigious peers reaffirms that our commitments to DEI go beyond words and promises, and our actions create measurable change," said Alicia Petross, chief diversity officer, The Hershey Co. "That change is felt in our workplace and communities, and we're not stopping here."

Hershey employees strive to foster an inclusive environment where employees around the world can bring their whole selves to work each day. Highlights of Hershey's DEI strategy include:

• Representation and Leadership: Hershey is committed to including diverse perspectives across the organization, with a goal of increasing representation of its employee base to be 30 to 40 percent people of color (POC), and 15 to 22 percent of people leader roles occupied by POC by 2025.
• Recruitment Diversity: Hershey makes it a priority to assemble candidate slates that are 50 percent diverse for every externally sourced role. To that end, it has expanded its relationship with diverse-owned talent search firms to 30 percent of all volume to help ensure this goal is achieved. In 2021, more than 40 percent of all talent acquisition search volume was led by diverse-owned firms.
• Supplier Diversity: By 2030, Hershey will increase spend with diverse suppliers to $400 million, helping to promote economic equality and opportunity for diverse-owned businesses. This is a four-times increase versus its baseline year of 2020.
• Pay Equity: By 2025, Hershey aims to achieve pay equity for similar job categories across its global salaried workforce. In 2019, Hershey achieved 1:1 aggregate gender pay equity, and in 2021, 1:1 aggregate POC pay equity for salaried employees in the U.S.

Hershey was also named to numerous DiversityInc's Top Companies specialty lists, including:

• Top Companies for Asian American Executives
• Top Companies for Black Executives
• Top Companies for Employee Resource Groups
• Top Companies for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)
• Top Companies for Executive Diversity Councils
• Top Companies for Latino Executives
• Top Companies for People with Disabilities (PWD)
• Top Companies for Sponsorship
• Top Companies for Talent Acquisition for Women of Color
• Top Companies for Veterans

Launched in 2001, the DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list is empirically driven and based on 2021 company-submitted data in six key areas: Leadership Accountability, Human Capital Diversity Metrics, Talent Programs, Workforce Practices, Supplier Diversity, and Philanthropy.