People
Celebrating diversity
Building stories at WorldPride in Copenhagen
Everyone is Awesome
To celebrate the diversity of the world around us and especially the LGBTQIA+ community, we released LEGO Everyone is Awesome. The set was designed by VP of Design, Matthew Ashton, a member of the LEGO Group’s LGBTQIA+ community and released to coincide with Pride month in June.Read more
Partners for diversity
In May 2021, we partnered with three LGBTQIA+ NGOs to strengthen our efforts to become a more diverse and inclusive workplace: Stonewall, Workplace Pride and Open for Business. We proudly partner with UK-based charity, Diversity Role Models, which works to educate children about inclusivity, and with U.S.-based GLSEN to ensure educators have resources to foster safe and inclusive classrooms.Read more
Inclusive play and gender norms
Ready for Girls
On International Day of The Girl, we celebrated girls everywhere who are rebuilding the world through creative problem-solving. We conducted research showing girls feel increasingly confident to take on all types of play and creative activities but are being held back by societal gender stereotypes. That’s why we wanted to play our part in getting the world ready for girls’ awesome creative power.Read more
Future Builders
We marked International Women’s Day by celebrating the female leaders of tomorrow. We invited girls around the world to recreate a famous LEGO magazine advertisement which celebrates girls’ creativity and equality. Hundreds of girls from around the world shared their inspiring builds.Read more
Partnership with UN Women
LEGO® Employee Advocacy
Empowering everybody to develop at the LEGO Group
In the past year, we published our new Gender Balance Policy, outlining our commitment to ensuring equitable practices in hiring, promoting and developing all talent, thereby improving diversity and gender balance at all organizational levels.
We introduced Conscious Inclusion training to raise the level of awareness and help all employees build the necessary skills. The training is grounded in our leadership behaviors of being curious, brave and focused. We expect all employees to have completed the training by 2022.
Creating a safe and family-friendly workplace
Parental and caregiver leave
In 2020, we launched an extended parental leave policy globally. By the end of 2022, all employees, no matter their location, will receive a minimum of 26 weeks’ paid childcare leave for the primary caregiver and 8 weeks’ paid leave for the secondary caregiver. As we continued to deploy the scheme in 2021, employees around the globe benefited from the extended parental leave, spending more time with their children at an important stage in their early childhood development.
Also introduced in 2020, employees around the world now benefit from two weeks of caregiver leave (four weeks by the end of 2022 globally), to make it easier for LEGO® employees to take care of loved ones, and a fully deployed global safety net to ensure financial security for colleagues and their families in case of death or permanent disability.
No compromise on safety
Helping our colleagues thrive
To ensure progress, we set targets for employee motivation and satisfaction, which we track through our annual employee engagement survey – the LEGO Group People Pulse. In the survey, we set specific questions related to belonging, inclusion and psychological safety, which we monitor and work with as part of our Inclusion Index. We believe that building positive team dynamics that make the most of differences and encourage the best contributions from everyone are critical to creating a truly diverse and inclusive workplace.
In 2021, we exceeded our target with a score of 83 points, 9 points above the external benchmark score of 74. This result achieved Ennova’s ‘Top in class’ category, which represents the top quartile of all multinational companies measured.
During 2021, we continued to take steps to ensure the health, safety and mental wellbeing of all colleagues working in our offices, factories and stores and to provide support for those working from home for extended periods.
We hosted COVID-19 vaccination clinics for employees, families and local communities at three of our factories.
Introducing Best of Both
In the first half of 2021, we launched Best of Both, a flexible hybrid way of working which offers colleagues who are able to the opportunity to work from home if they need to focus or come into the office and enjoy the benefits of face-to-face collaboration. Our rule of thumb is three days in office and two days away from the office, at home.
All offices are introducing Best of Both as local government guidance allows.
Inspiring the builders of tomorrow means caring for the workers of today
As a company that cares deeply about children’s development, we understand the critical roles parents and caregivers play during a child’s formative years. Many people who work in factories in China are from rural areas and spend extended periods of time away from their children.
To bridge this separation, we launched a Summer Camp program in China in 2018 for children of factory employees in the LEGO Group and selected suppliers. These camps are held close to employees’ factories and aim to give the children a fun summer break close to their parents.
In collaboration with Save the Children, we have developed a curriculum based around Learning through Play, which is both fun and provides long-term benefit to children who participate.
In 2021, we welcomed 227 children to camps held at our Jiaxing factory and five supplier factory sites. This is fewer than last year due to COVID restrictions at a number of sites.
Human rights
We collaborate closely with our suppliers to ensure they uphold our Responsible Business Principles. These 12 principles reinforce our ethical way of working and how we relate to children, our planet and our colleagues. Their primary purpose is to ensure all workers involved in making LEGO® products have fair and decent working conditions and that the environment is protected for future generations.
We regularly assess our human rights risks and impacts through a combination of third-party audits, internal assessments and consultation with external stakeholders.
If a supplier shows non-conformities with our Responsible Business Principles, we work in partnership with them to identify the root causes and ensure they are corrected. Our aim is to create long-term, sustainable solutions which benefit everyone.
Building capabilities
Modern Slavery
The LEGO Group does not accept any form of modern slavery or forced labor.
As part of our efforts and responsibility to uphold due diligence in human rights, we continuously monitor modern slavery risks and take steps to mitigate them in our supply chain.
Modern slavery is the term used to describe situations where coercion, threats or deception are used to exploit individuals and undermine or deprive them of their freedom. Modern slavery is a growing issue, in part due to the rapid increase in global migration.
In the past year, we have assessed the actual and potential risks of modern slavery in our supply chain, with the highest risks found to be related to migrant workers, both within our direct and indirect suppliers. Although supplier assessments in 2021 did not find any instances of modern slavery to be present in our supply chain, in 2022, we will develop robust mitigation plans to proactively address these identified risks. We are taking steps in the coming years to further strengthen our efforts to assess and mitigate against modern slavery risks across our entire supply chain, including strengthening the LEGO Group audit program, further assessment development for indirect suppliers and exploring how involvement in wider initiatives can drive systemic change.
