Healthy lives

Employee rights, safety & well-being

Employee rights, safety & well-being

We prioritize the rights, safety and well-being of our teammates and their families. Our benefits, programs and resources are designed to support their physical, mental and financial well-being.

Respecting worker rights

Respecting worker rights

Employee safety, health and human rights are foundational to how we operate. We comply with government regulations around the world and have systems to help us identify, track, report, and improve workplace issues and minimize hazardous conditions. We also have mandatory training on business ethics and employee safety, health and the environment. This includes hazard awareness, ergonomics, code of conduct and other compliance programs. 

Our enterprisewide crisis management program supports emergency response, employee and community safety, disaster recovery, and business continuity. And we have workgroup-based plans to help us resume disrupted operations, emergency response teams to directly address certain emergencies, and corporate crisis management team to make critical strategy decisions as well as coordinate and allocate resources in a time of crisis. 

Clorox prohibits the use of forced, bonded or otherwise illegal labor. We meet, and often exceed, wage requirements and local family leave laws worldwide. We recognize workers’ freedom to associate with each other and organize. We encourage constructive communications among team members at all levels, without fear of reprisal, regarding issues that impact their jobs or the company. Anyone can report suspected illegal, unethical or unsafe activity confidentially and anonymously through an independently operated compliance hotline. 

Clorox teammates are welcome to engage in political activities, and we offer paid time to support their right to vote. In personal civic and political affairs, however, employees must be clear that their views and actions are their own and not those of Clorox. 

Promoting safety at work every day

Promoting safety at work every day

We put people at the center of everything we do, which is why safety is a core value for us.  

Our ongoing focus on safety is led by every person in our company, including our Global Safety and Environmental team, with executive oversight by our chief supply chain officer. We encourage all teammates globally to identify, control or eliminate physical risk, and we reinforce this with internal safety audits conducted at all our facilities every two years. We also offer safety training for managers, have systems in place to enable an ongoing assessment of workplace risks and hazards, and track key safety metrics, including the recordable incident rate and lost-time injury frequency rate.  

Our balanced behavior and process-based approach to safety has helped us achieve a fiscal year 2023 recordable incident rate of 0.55 — well below our ongoing goal of 1.0 and an average 3.3 RIR for goods-producing manufacturing companies in 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. As part of our commitment to continuous improvement in our safety approach, here are initiatives we have taken in recent years:

  • Following the increased digitization of our safety metrics, we began piloting new artificial intelligence tools to collect and correlate near misses to help teams prioritize work and review the effectiveness of applied remedies and preventive actions. 
  • We expanded our U.S. monthly safety education program internationally, offering the program in four languages. 
  • We introduced the Clorox Cup, a three-month global contest that helped us identify how teammates at every level of our organization are driving safety and environmental processes. We then shared the best practices collected through the contest with audiences at Clorox and beyond to help improve engagement for all.  

With everyone’s leadership, ownership and commitment to safety, well continue to drive workplace safety. 

Enhancing total employee well-being

Enhancing total employee well-being

As we continue to navigate through uncertainty, one of the things our people can count on is our ongoing support of their well-being journey. We know everyone’s needs change, and we’re always looking for ways to evolve our programs and benefits to help our teammates and their loved ones be well and thrive. 

As part of our ongoing commitment to our teammates’ health and well-being, we set a target to measure and encourage employee utilization of preventive screenings to contribute to improved health outcomes. 

In 2022 our composite score for U.S.-based teammates enrolled in our UnitedHealthcare medical plans was 29%, exceeding the consumer packaged goods company benchmark of 26%. We continue to work toward our target of 33%.

Recognizing the prolonged effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve increased our focus on and support for mental health. 

  • We provide employee assistance programs globally, offering supportive resources such as no-cost therapy sessions with counselors and trained clinicians to help with life transitions and family, legal, financial and work issues. 
  • We offer a range of app-based resources — such as mindfulness training, one-on-one coaching and concierge services for finding therapists or counselors — that meet people where they are and help them manage stress, anxiety and depression. 
  • We also think it’s important to reduce the stigma and support mental health conversations at work and society at large. Our Mental Health Champions employee resource group provides resources and support and hosts events to raise awareness and help teammates understand and care for their mental health. 
  • To support our parents and their unique mental well-being needs, we provide caregiving resources including subsidized back-up care and have a Parents employee resource group that shares resources and ideas. 
  • We schedule monthly Quiet Days, “no meetings, no email” days that help people have focused, heads-down work time or flexibility in their schedules to take time off to recharge. 
  • We transitioned to a flexible time off policy, offering most U.S. nonproduction teammates the ability to take the time off they need during the year, and introduced Recharge Weeks, allowing teammates to take vacation at the same time so everyone can truly disconnect and return to work refreshed. To ensure production teammates can also take the time off they need, we added additional flex days to their time-off policy. 
  • We also know that giving to others and supporting important causes brings joy. That’s why Clorox matches donations by U.S. and Canada teammates up to $2,500 a year to the nonprofits of their choice. Learn more about how we support communities on our Supporting Healthy Communities page. 

Having a sense of financial security — or a plan to get there — is another piece in the well-being puzzle.  

We continue to advance our goal of enhancing financial literacy to enable better planning and superior retirement readiness, as measured by the income replacement ratio. In fiscal year 2023, all of our employee groups met or exceeded Vanguard’s 401(k) client average income replacement ratio of 56%. We continue to work toward our 75% target. As part of our commitment to this goal, we offer third-party financial planning service and a 401(k) plan that’s above market relative to the industry average, with the company contributing up to 10% of an employee’s annual salary. 

Additional ways we enhance financial well-being include the following: 

  • Since 2005, our salary-based health insurance premiums have helped keep medical coverage affordable, with Clorox paying more of the premiums for those in lower salary bands. We also offer tailored online wellness programs that encourage employees to adopt healthy habits while earning quarterly financial rewards.  
  • We’re proud to offer an above-market U.S. and Puerto Rico 401(k) plan, with a 4% biweekly match and 6% annual contribution. With a 94% employee participation rate, we feel good helping our people plan ahead for their retirement. 
  • We offer free financial planning services to U.S. employees. 
  • We offer comprehensive and inclusive family-forming benefits, provide 12 weeks of paid parental leave in the U.S., subsidize caregiving support for children and adult dependents, and offer up to $20,000 for adoption costs, inclusive of family-forming benefits. 
  • We introduced supplemental health benefits beginning in the 2023 calendar year for our U.S. teammates as a way to provide financial assistance to cover unexpected medical expenses experienced by employees and their families. 
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