Inclusion and Diversity at R1

In July of 2019, R1 took a moment to reflect on the company we were and the company we wanted to become. A part of that honest reflection was understanding that we had not taken the steps required to be a more inclusive and diverse company. At that time, we launched an executive Inclusion & Diversity Council to examine our processes, policies and culture further and help us build a strategy to begin to make progress.

With recent events calling attention to the United States’ ongoing struggle with race and equality, we again are reflecting on how we can be a better company by acknowledging where we are on our Inclusion & Diversity journey, and what more we can do to ensure all our associates feel included and have equal opportunity to succeed at R1. In that honest assessment, we know we are not where we want to be, but we also believe that by sharing our commitments, we start to create more transparency and dialogue that can help us improve.  

1. We want to be better at creating long-term opportunities for all associates to have successful careers at R1, including:

• Building a more diverse leadership team by assessing the diversity present in the succession plans for our senior leadership roles, identifying where we have gaps and developing a plan to address those gaps.
• Implementing processes to create more transparent and equitable access to career opportunities by requiring the posting of all open positions, starting this year with our VP and above roles. Additionally, we are working to provide our hiring managers with more support to attract more diverse talent to open roles, being aware of a diverse candidate pool, and selecting a diverse interviewing panel.

2. We want to improve our ability to recognize, acknowledge and mitigate bias and its impact on our associates. To grow in this area we:

• Launched an Inclusive Teams eLearning to all associates in November of 2019 build awareness of the six types of unconscious bias and how they show up in the workplace.
• Launched a bi-monthly “Bias Awareness Campaign” in June of 2020 that invites associates to practice concepts covered in our Inclusive Teams training.
• Will deliver bi-monthly People Leader Bias Discussion Guides to our managers in July help them hold team discussions on unconscious biases.

3. We want to support organizations that are working to create more inclusive and safe communities where our associates, customers, and the patients they serve live by:

• Making corporate donations to the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund and the National Urban League, two organizations that are at the forefront of the fight to eliminate race-based discrimination.

We will continue to review, deepen and accelerate our strategy over the next few years with the goal of leadership that is more representative of our workforce and a culture that fully embraces the diversity of that workforce. We look forward to an ongoing dialogue with our associates, board, partners, and clients to ensure we make progress.