This week, Edgewell Personal Care is proud to have received a B score for our 2022 Climate Change impact report from CDP, a global non-profit that runs the world’s leading environmental disclosure platform. This score demonstrates our commitment to continuous improvement and transparency, and reflects our company’s ongoing efforts to operate responsibly and sustainably, all while producing innovative and high-quality products for our customers and consumers.

Our sustainability mission at Edgewell is to create products that people love to use to take care of themselves, with careful consideration of our planet and everyone who shares it. Our Sustainable Care 2030 strategy provides a roadmap for delivering on our ambitions and guides us to ensure that we are a successful and responsible business not just today, but for generations to come.

Part of executing on this strategy is our focus on reducing our environmental footprint. More specifically, in our disclosure to the CDP this year – and following the advice of leading climate science to align to a 1.5°C pathway – we’ve shared our commitment to reduce our absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels, which is more aggressive than our previously stated goal to reduce GHG emissions by 10% compared to 2019 levels. Edgewell's ambition is to go beyond this goal, to achieve carbon neutrality across our global operations for Scopes 1 and 2.

We are proud to join over 20,000 businesses around the world who also disclose data to CDP and believe that through measurement we can drive better performance. We recognize the importance of being transparent with our stakeholders and remain committed to taking action on climate change.

To learn more about Edgewell’s approach and sustainability commitments, please visit our 2021 Sustainability Report. I look forward to sharing more updates on our progress in the coming year when we release our 2022 Sustainability Report!

The biggest and most interesting challenge I’ve faced since joining Edgewell as a Global HR Leader is the transition to a more flexible hybrid working model.

Flexibility has always been a part of the culture at Edgewell. On our annual teammate experience survey, ‘Flexibility’ always surfaces as one of our top three strengths (along with ‘Empowerment’ and ‘Collaboration’). Before the pandemic, it was seen as a way to help people find a balance when they needed it, rather than a standard working model. Now, both our teammates and Edgewell as an organization have experienced the benefits of more radical flexibility, so we’ve focused on developing a hybrid working model, rooted in our core values, so our teams can have more choice when it comes to how, when, and where they work.

1. From Flexible Working to a Hybrid Working Model, we put People First

We’ve always adopted a flexible view of how work can be completed. We understand that not all appointments can be outside of work hours and that many of our teammates have families, so we have a natural understanding within our teams that flexibility is necessary to do our best work. We encouraged our teams to use their office spaces as a place to get work done, meet their colleagues, and feel connected to their teams. This hasn’t changed since the pandemic; it’s just evolved more than anyone could have expected.

Recently, as we began our global launch of hybrid ways of working, we’ve doubled down on this approach to flexibility. As more organizations begin to mandate that their employees to return to the office, we have instead chosen to deploy a team-based approach, which gives the power to our teams so they can choose the ways of working that best suit each individual team. While a remote environment helps many teammates to stay productive, increase their work/life balance, and bring more joy to their lives, there is also a need for in-person collaboration. Things like brainstorming, onboarding a new teammate, team building, and professional development are not well-suited for remote work. Because of this, we have deemed Wednesdays as Collaboration Days where our teammates can come into the office to work together.

Even as we move from remote to hybrid, we strongly believe in the power of flexibility and promoting a healthy balance between work and life. We understand that teammates may not be able to join a collaboration Wednesday from time-to-time or that work hours may need to be adjusted. This understanding is adopted at the highest levels, so our teams can be confident in their choice to work remotely without ever thinking that it might negatively impact their careers. Even our our CEO, Rod Little, and our Global Leadership Team split their time between remote work and the office, acting as role models for our teams across the globe so they can have confidence to make their own decisions about hybrid working.

Just as we want our teams to be confident and comfortable working in a hybrid environment, we know this can only be effective if they feel heard. We believe that the key to successfully adopting a hybrid working model is by speaking to teams across all levels of the business. As I mentioned earlier, ‘flexibility’ the most important quality that teammates say they need from Edgewell. When we dug a little deeper, this need for flexibility came from a desire to have a choice. Giving our teammates a choice about where and how they work, without any preferential treatment or expectations, means they will be able to achieve better work-life integration, productivity and, most importantly, joy in their work. For anyone looking to create their own hybrid working plan, the most important advice I have is to listen.

2. Hybrid Works Better When We Listen Before Taking Action

By talking to our teammates, we found that there were those who wanted the flexibility to work remotely, but others who missed the office or didn’t have home environments conducive to work. By listening to what our teammates needed and wanted, we were able to create a plan that allowed them to have a choice. This choice supports them to do their best work while also living their most joyful lives.

After lots of research, surveys, focus groups, and discussions with our teammates, we uncovered the following insights that have helped us to successfully execute our hybrid working plan:

• Accountability for deliverables and results is what matters, not how much time is spent in person (presenteeism) vs. remote
• Trust is the foundation to build empowerment and hybrid working
• Many of us have been working ‘remotely’ successfully for some time- across different locations, countries, time zones and functions of the business
• We strongly believe in the power of in-person collaboration and personal learning and development, and the positive impact they have on culture and team dynamics.

There’s no ‘one size fits all’ solution that works, so our managers:

• Meet one-to-one with each of their team members to learn their individual needs and preferences, as well as what support they need to be set up for success in a hybrid environment. Flexibility means different things to different people.
• Bring the team together to put a ‘Team Agreement’ in place. This ensures the whole team can input and then commit to ways of working
• Build the Team Agreement around Wednesday collaboration days
• Review the Team Agreement at least every three months, making changes to continually improve

As you can see, flexibility, choice, and trust are crucial to adopting a long-term hybrid working plan at Edgewell. Based on everything I knew from my years in Human Resources, and the culture of our organization, we could not devise and implement this plan without listening to understand our teammates and effectively owning the plan together.

3. Successful Integration and Adaption Happens When We Own It Together

To own it together, we must balance individual ownership with teamwork and collaboration, and that means ensuring teams are in the office at the right moments. Everything we developed and actioned during the process of developing our hybrid ways of working was created to drive team alignment. We wanted to give our teams the choice they needed, while providing some structure.

As a global organization, we needed to consider three different types of team structures:

• A team based mostly in the same location
• A team where there are different functions in one location working on the same goals
• A team where the members work in many different locations

While the example scenarios may seem quite different, we believe that asking the right questions can help ensure each individual team has a plan for hybrid that works for them and their needs.

For us at Edgewell, this is achieved by teams coming together and discussing the following questions:

• For what and when will we work together in person, other than the collaboration day (e.g., in the office)?
• For what and when will we work together apart (e.g., virtual meetings)?
• Are there any times when we need to work alone and in-person? When is the best time for this?
• What times will we reserve for no meetings to ensure we have time to focus?
• How can we communicate better as a hybrid team?
• How can we better share information as a hybrid team?

These questions, as simple as they may be, allow each team to be on the same page, know what is expected of them, and have their say to feel engaged in this journey toward the future of working at Edgewell.

4. What Hybrid Working Looks Like at Edgewell as we Move Forward

At the end of the day, myself and the HR team have seen that our teammates feel more productive when they are in control and when they have flexibility. We’ve known and appreciated this for some time, but now our eyes have been opened to just how much control we can give our teams while still maintaining productivity. It may have taken over a year of forced remote working to help us develop our hybrid ways of working, but the reason why a hybrid working model comes so naturally to our leadership and our teams is because we’ve always put people first, listened, and worked collaboratively.

As COVID rates improve in many regions around the world, including in the U.S., we are excited to be leading the charge as a people-driven employer that not only makes useful things joyful for our consumers, customers, and investors, but also for our teammates.

I hope this insight into Edgewell’s approach to hybrid working has been useful, and perhaps better enables you to think about, craft, and develop a hybrid working plan for your own organization. If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear them. Feel free to comment below to let me know your thoughts or to share what you’re doing to bring a hybrid working approach to your organization. Alternatively, if you’re looking to join a company that puts your needs, development, and joy first, we are hiring across a number of functions at Edgewell. You can head to our Careers page to learn more about the exciting opportunities available.

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After nearly five years in my role on the eCommerce team at Edgewell as Senior Vice President, I’ve seen our team grow from 5 people to nearly 50. It’s been an exciting journey, and the work we’re doing is becoming more impactful and increasingly necessary as digital evolves. While teams across the globe at Edgewell unite to make useful things joyful, we help the business move forward toward our digital transformation ambitions. It hasn’t been a straightforward journey, but it has been an exciting one filled with purpose, learning and growth. As the world moves faster than ever and our need to keep focused on what lies ahead, it’s important to reflect on how far the eCommerce team has come and how we’ve gotten here so we can understand how best to move forward for the future.

What it takes to move eCommerce forward

What I’ve learned throughout my time at Edgewell has been instrumental in helping me create a thriving team focused on our goal of moving forward. Not only have I learned a lot personally, but I’ve also learned so much about what it takes to build a talented team, especially when what we do requires such specialized capabilities.

We’ve worked hard to ensure that everyone on the team is passionate about the same goal, without necessarily having the same background or expertise. Over the years we’ve found that it’s our combined skillset that really makes the magic happen in eCommerce. As a management team, we dedicate time to finding the right candidate for a role and don’t set any boundaries for ourselves. We keep our eyes and ears open for talent with the right skillset we need, whether they’re already part of the Edgewell team and are looking for a new challenge, or they’re on the other side of the world but have the skillset we’re looking for. We prioritize finding the right people who will help us grow and accomplish our goals.

One of the best ways we move eCommerce in Edgewell forward is by recognizing potential talent and ensuring we put plans in place to give our teammates the training they need to grow and develop. This people-first mentality flows from the broader Edgewell values into the vision for our eCommerce team.

I take pride in being an approachable leader for my team so everyone can run their area of the business and I can play a supporting role where and when I’m needed. I make sure my team are comfortable and confident in the skills required to help a global brand like Edgewell find their place in this growing digital world. When I first started at the business, our eCommerce was done through Amazon alone—now we’re finding ways to bring our portfolio of brands to more people in more places, so it takes a lot of organization and ambition to get the job done. Ensuring our teams can build relationships, work successfully with different people and have the confidence to own what they do so we can all move forward together is hugely important. I’m there in a supportive capacity to remove any roadblocks, but its each member of the eCommerce team that drives our division of the business forward. It really is a privilege to see this diverse and multi-talented group do the work they do and do it so successfully.

To move forward we need that specialized skillset, and we’re fortunate to have the flexibility to find those perfect candidates. While we’ve been lucky enough to share our team with talented individuals from across the globe for some time, the beauty of the Hybrid Working model at Edgewell means that we have even more scope to find the right person wherever they may be located. Right now, our team includes people from across the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific but can come from anywhere. By fostering a collaborative and diverse team, we’re ready for whatever lies ahead.

Finding your feet in eCommerce at Edgewell

As I mentioned before, the rate at which our team is expanding is a testament to the incredible work the team is doing. They bring their all to work every day, whether that’s through their commitment, their ideas or their ambitions to help us drive our digital transformation ambitions forward. While we’re a diverse team, we do have a few things in common. The biggest commonality we all share is certain behaviors that embody the culture we have here at Edgewell.

Firstly, we take being decisive seriously.

Just as we’re open to making the right call on the right candidate regardless of where they’re located, we take making the right call in our day-to-day seriously as well. This is all part of how we own it together. When we make a decision, we’re confident in it. Whether it turns out to be the right one or not in the long-term, we know that in the moment it was the right decision for us. Things change so quickly that we need to think fast, decide fast, and adapt fast. So far, this is something which has helped us grow and really make an impact to how people across the globe find those useful Edgewell products that bring them joy.

Next, we make sure to create a supportive environment so we can try, create and learn.

Just like making the right decision in the moment may not lead to the best outcome down the line, this is never something we worry about. When we make a mistake, or the decision doesn’t go the way we thought it would somewhere down the line, we take it as a learning. It’s just another opportunity to learn and grow. Personally, I don’t think we’d have gotten to the place we are now, or we’d have had the successes we’ve had as a team, without that safe environment to try something new, experiment and learn as we go. No one has all the answers, but we try our best to give the best answer we can and work together to do the right thing—for ourselves as individuals, our team and the broader businesses at Edgewell.

Moving forward together to make eCommerce matter

Just like the ever-changing digital world we all experience in our day-to-day lives, our role on the eCommerce team at Edgewell is never the same day after day. As we strive for transforming the business digitally, as a team we’re flexible and ready to tackle whatever a new day brings. This flexibility is key, and our team needs to be able to color outside the lines because a lot of times things are so new to us and there’s so much to be done.

This is where doing the right thing comes into play, it’s a huge part of how we move forward toward our digital transformation ambitions. By focusing on the behaviors that unite us both in the eCommerce team like being decisive and a willingness to try and learn, we can move forward to make eCommerce matter at Edgewell. We know we’re never going to have the perfect strategy, so that’s where the whole team can come together to make an impact.

The next step for us as an eCommerce team at Edgewell is to be a little disruptive within a traditional organization. We’re trying to challenge. We ask questions, like how can we do this quicker, or is there a benefit to positioning this to a digital-first approach? In order to move forward we have to think about how we play a digital role in this traditional world by working with other teams at Edgewell to ensure we’re making things work for every team along the production and distribution chain. There’s a big role to play for the eCommerce team at Edgewell with a lot of opportunities on the horizon, and as we make a bigger impact quarter by quarter, we’re looking for the right people to help us do it.

I hope this has given you an insight into the team here at Edgewell—what we do, why we do it and how we’re moving not only our team forward, but also the impact Edgewell has across the globe too. I am so proud of my team and all they’ve accomplished, and I’m excited to see where we go.

Whether you’re placed in a role with another team at Edgewell and have a real interest in eCommerce and digital transformation, or you’re already working in the space and want to bring your talents to Edgewell, we always want to hear from you.

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