Here's how Adobe is changing the game as a leading workplace for women

As Adobe is awarded a place on the 2021 UK’s Best Workplaces™ for Women list for the third consecutive year, we look at how the industry leader is shaping the future...

Gender inequality is still extremely prevalent in the workplace, particularly in STEM where women make up just 21% of the UK workforce. And it’s not just breaking into the industry that’s a challenge but reaching the top, with just 10% of UK tech leaders being women.

Adobe is one of the businesses leading the tech industry in positive change, not only actively encouraging women into STEM, but also supporting its female employees and helping them pursue leadership roles.

It's for reasons like this that Adobe has been awarded a place on the 2021 UK’s Best Workplaces™ for Women list for the third consecutive year.

The award celebrates exceptional, high performing workplaces where female employees feel trusted and valued. And Adobe with its impressive development programmes, gender-inclusive talent recruitment and generous wellbeing benefits is that in a nutshell.

As an industry leader, Adobe is actively pipelining for the future, ‘generating the next generation’ with its Java Development Camp for girls, encouraging women into coding and engineering from a young age. Not to mention, its partnerships with Your Future, Your Ambition and the Bright Network, raising awareness around STEM careers for school children and university students, respectively.

In order to encourage and support its female employees into leadership roles, the company provides mentorship and training through programmes including its Leadership Circles community and Women’s Executive Shadowing Programme (WESP).

It’s Adobe’s community building, benefits programme and focus on building an inclusive workplace culture however, that really sets it apart as a leading workplace. In fact, it outperformed all other large category organisations on the Women’s list when surveyed by Great Place to Work® UK, with 94% of female employees at Adobe agreeing that the company’s benefits are ‘special and unique’.

‘Our ethos at Adobe is that we don’t want to just protect your work, we want your entire life to be looked after,’ explained Tania Garrett, Vice President of International Employee Experience at Adobe. ‘We really believe that if all aspects of your life are as well looked after as they can be, you’re going to be more productive, feel much more comfortable coming to work and you’re going to want to stay with the company.’

The maternity leave (26 weeks at full pay), enhanced partner leave (16 weeks at full pay), adoption leave & allowance and pregnancy loss leave are competitive, with Adobe applying the highest benefit they have anywhere across the board.

‘It’s a massive decision for a woman to step out of her career, to be a mum and then return to work,’ insisted Tania. ‘We want them to go away knowing that they don’t need to worry about finances or their job being safe. They don’t even have to worry about getting a pay increase or getting promoted because we keep doing all those things while they’re off.’

The Women at Adobe employee network plays a huge role in its community building, bringing together women and male allies to learn, elevate and support each other. The masterclasses hosted by the network enables female employees to share their experiences and hear from speakers about issues such as how to lift each other up and the affects of menopause. Chiefly however, the employee-run network comes together to make positive change and social impact.

‘We want Adobe to be an environment where women feel empowered and safe,’ Tania explained. ‘We want them to feel that they have flexibility, that they are able to bring their whole selves to work and that they can keep up with their male counterparts, who don’t often shoulder the same things that women do.’

Sponsoring the Women in Tech Forum and partnering with IBM for their new ‘Women Rising’ pilot program, Adobe’s influence far surpasses its own company. In fact, it is keen to share best practices and drive progress across the whole tech industry.

‘It’s about continuing to create the environment of inclusion for women,’ explained Tania Garrett. ‘The best thing we can do as an industry is to continue to create this environment where women can come to work and have successful careers, while being mothers and partners and whatever they choose to do in their personal life.’

She continued: ‘We’ve got to be an environment where women feel that they can excel, that they can have a career, that they’ve got females around them that are going to lift them up and that they can create real change. Every business should be creating an environment where women can be agents of change, and that’s what we’re here to do.’

Learn more about Adobe’s award-winning workplace culture here.