Sharpening Our Focus on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

A Message to Our Valued Members and Employers

At CalPERS, we take our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) seriously. It’s a guiding light for the policies and processes we have in place to honor the people we serve, those who work at CalPERS, and the partners with whom we do business. We’ve seen the difference our DEI work has on our culture, workforce, customer service, and the health and pension programs we provide to our members and their families.

True inclusion isn’t easy; therefore, we’ve been refining our practices and enhancing our knowledge for over two decades. With the development and continued progress in implementing the CalPERS DEI Framework, we enhance our culture of belonging. The DEI initiatives are woven into our five-year strategic plan and support the five pillars of Culture, Talent Management, Health Equity, Supplier Diversity, and Investments. Through our framework, we actively engage with initiatives and provide a transparent account of our progress toward our goal of belonging.

That’s the purpose of this report, to share the DEI goals we’ve established and the work we’re doing to deliver results.

We’ve made progress in five priority areas that closely align with our mission, vision, and core values. Some of the highlights include:

• Culture: Developed a CalPERS DEI Certificate Program to increase proficiency and to equip team members to become DEI Ambassadors.
• Talent Management: Provided training to new team members and managers on CalPERS’ DEI philosophy and fundamental concepts, equal employment opportunity (EEO) policy and resources, and team member opportunities for engagement with DEI.
• Health Equity: Asked health plan members to self-identify important demographic information to help us identify whether changes need to be made in the way we provide access and treatment. We also improved our updated health plan benefit design and contracting requirements to ensure more equitable care. Lastly, we continue collaborating with other large healthcare purchasers to strengthen our health equity commitment.
• Supplier Diversity: Updated the Voluntary Statistic Data Sheet (VSDS) to ensure the language on the form was straightforward and accessible. These efforts led to a 200% increase in participation over the previous fiscal year.
• Investments: Held directors at the companies we invest in accountable for lack of progress on improving corporate board diversity, including voting against 133 corporate board directors at companies where our engagement with them did not result in constructive outcomes.

As a global leader with a fiduciary duty to deliver pension and health benefits to the millions of public employees who serve California, we have a role and a responsibility to champion DEI policies that can help balance the scales — to create equitable opportunities, to improve financial performance, and carve a path for others to follow.

This is highly collaborative work that can’t be done alone. We share our work with you to keep you informed of our progress, to take accountability for our commitments, and encourage your ongoing support of our initiatives to further DEI.

Sincerely,
 

• Next Section: CalPERS Workplace Demographics