Sustainability report 2024
Our people and human rights
Next: Empowering communities
To tackle the tough challenges of today and tomorrow, we draw upon the world’s greatest minds and create an inclusive culture that generates innovation and ingenuity.
Our commitment to our people and human rights, including gender equality and equity, diversity, and inclusion, is fundamental to our mission. By fostering a diverse workplace, we create an inclusive environment that encourages fresh perspectives and new ideas. We attract, retain, and develop a workforce rich in diverse ideas, knowledge, skills, and experience. This strengthens our organization as a whole, enhances our ability to serve our clients and communities, and ensures our long-term sustainability.
Investing in our people and development
Our focus is on developing the leaders of tomorrow and empowering our people to achieve their full potential by coordinating, supporting, and deploying career development and leadership programs.
From the day a new hire is onboarded, we ensure they are immersed in our culture and continue to receive the support they need to enhance their professional skills and competencies.
Among the development opportunities we provide are:
- Manifesto-driven leadership
- Manifesto day
- Mentor circles
- Experiential learning
- People leader essentials
- Engagement delivery foundations
- Professional development
- Education assistance program.
Manifesto-driven Leadership (MDL)
In 2022, we introduced our MDL program to all employees after the first three months. The program, a progressive journey through seven interactive online courses and two associate-led virtual live sessions, gives employees the tools to be more self-aware, empathetic, and effective leaders.
Every Hatch employee is expected to drive positive change within our organization, with clients, and in the communities we serve. The MDL program helps ensure our staff is equipped to showcase MDL behaviors in their daily thinking, actions, and decisions.
Our Manifesto includes our values, which guide everything that we do.
Manifesto day: Each year, we come together to reconnect with one another and share our common vision. The inspirational day begins with a Global Town Hall, simultaneously attended in person in each region and virtually via a global platform. We celebrate our accomplishments as a community fueled by the forward-thinking attitude of our people, who, together, bring about the innovative solutions the world needs. We also invest the time for all employees to gather in small Manifesto workshops, aimed at reconnecting and recommitting to our mission, vision, and values.
One Young World Summit
We proudly sponsored the global gathering of young leaders at the One World Summit in Montréal, Canada. In July 2024, our own Zahraa Elshabasy, Thomas Specht, Charlotte-Skye Fullerton, and Karen Perry were among the best and brightest from over 190 countries who engaged in workshops and networking sessions guided by influential leaders and experts.
Promoting equality and inclusivity at all levels
Our vision for diversity and inclusion (D&I) builds on our core values, including the belief that we are entrepreneurs with a technical soul. A diverse workforce allows us to unlock the complete potential of our team to improve our business and our clients’ businesses, thereby shaping the future of the world we live in, contributing to society’s advancement in a meaningful way, and creating positive change.
We are proud that our organization is home to more than 10,000 employees who—regardless of gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, disability, and way of thinking—are celebrated and their unique strengths harnessed to create outcomes that leave a positive legacy in the communities we serve and call home.
Meaningful metrics
To establish a baseline and track our performance, we introduced an interactive, on-demand D&I dashboard a few years ago. Updated monthly, this tool helps to increase transparency, monitor progress, and encourage consistency in our conversations.
We track gender diversity, age diversity, and interview slate. This data and other D&I-related metrics are reported monthly to our board of directors and global management team. If there are concerning patterns, then proactive actions are taken to address them.
We maintain our goal to achieve 40% women. From the beginning of tracking our performance, we have increased women at Hatch from 27% to 33.4%.
Exploring the benefits of inclusive design
“Inclusive design, unfortunately, is often not prioritized in projects because of tight deadlines, unconscious biases, and general misconceptions that these designs are more expensive or complex than conventional ones,” shared Andrea. “Educating design teams on what inclusion looks like and why it’s important is the first step to making a cultural shift within the industry.”
In addition to her project work, Andrea is a member of the D&I Design Taskforce, which enables all aspects of a project to be more inclusive.
Educating design teams on what inclusion looks like and why it’s important is the first step to making a cultural shift within the industry.
Andrea led the development and global launch of an educational course and workshop within Hatch that helps employees familiarize themselves with inclusive design concepts, best practices for implementation, and explores the benefits of inclusive design for clients and stakeholders.
Positive change awards
We launched our annual Positive Change Awards in 2022 to recognize those in our organization who continually contribute to our goal of being a fully diverse and inclusive company. The awards, for Inspirational Woman and Inspirational Ally, are presented to individuals nominated by their fellow employees. Nominees exemplify our corporate values, support and mentor others, and nurture and promote an inclusive culture among colleagues and clients; two winners are selected in each of our seven regions. Response to the awards program has grown significantly each year. There were 175 nominees in 2002, 520 in 2023, and 638 in 2024.
In 2025, we are adding a third award to the program: the Diverse and Inclusive Design Award. The award will recognize a global project team that has created an innovative and inclusive solution for an engagement using our D&I Design principles.
Read our positive change winner profiles here.
A people person and mechanical engineer, passionate about diversity and inclusion
“To me, it’s important to be able to understand people on a very human level,” shared Ashley. “We work on jobs together all the time. Everyone, from our managers to our interns, should feel a kinship while building relationships. None of us are perfect. We should feel we are in a safe space to speak up without fear. I think that sometimes scares people away from speaking about diversity and inclusion. We’re afraid of saying something wrong. I want us to have a comfortable environment to be able to have those discussions. We should lean into it as a learning opportunity.”
To me, it’s important to be able to understand people on a very human level.
Ashley has been deeply involved in D&I initiatives ever since. In 2022, she was recognized as our Positive Change Award’s first-ever Inspirational Woman for fostering an inclusive, welcoming environment in and out of the workplace. She co-chaired the US D&I committee from 2020–2024 and helped create eight volunteer-led employee resource groups (ERGs) that remain active on a global level, including the Women’s ERG and Pride ERG.
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