A group of 83 employees has called for an investigation into HR chief Karen Parkin’s handing of racial issues in the workplace. A reopened Adidas store in Portsmouth, England, on Tuesday.
Photo: adrian dennis/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesSome employees at Adidas AG are calling on the company’s supervisory board to investigate its chief human-resources officer and create an anonymous public platform to submit complaints about racism, after the sportswear giant promised to hire more people of color and invest in black communities.
A group of 83 employees asked the supervisory board to investigate whether Karen Parkin, the company’s global head of human resources, has taken the right approach to address racial issues in the workplace, according to a letter dated June 15 that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The letter also asked for a system to voice allegations of racism and for protection against retaliation for speaking up.
“We welcome the commitment of our people to stand against racism,” Adidas said in a statement. “Our Black employees have led the response that we will continue to implement together and that we have committed to as a company. We are now concentrating our efforts on making progress and creating real change immediately.”
“We strongly reject all statements made in the letter to the supervisory board,” the company said. Adidas said it has a hotline and email address that employees can use to file complaints. The company said it has a zero-tolerance policy for abuse or retaliation, and that it recently hired a third-party investigator to monitor that policy.
At an all-employee meeting last year at the Boston headquarters of Reebok, which is owned by Adidas, Ms. Parkin said racism was “noise” that is only discussed in America, and that she didn’t believe the brand had an issue with racism, the Journal has reported.
On June 12, Ms. Parkin said she “should have chosen a better word” at the Reebok meeting, according to a message she posted on an internal Adidas communications network that was reviewed by the Journal. She added, “it was my responsibility to make clear our definitive stance against discrimination, and this I did not. Should I have offended anyone, I apologize.”
“My team and I are fully committed to improve our company culture to ensure equity, diversity and opportunity. That’s a promise. That is my promise,” Ms. Parkin wrote.
Dozens of employees have since commented on the network, calling Ms. Parkin to issue a more sincere apology, according to employees who have seen the posts. Some referred to Ms. Parkin’s statement as a “non-apology apology,” with one posting a Wikipedia link to the term, the people said.
Ms. Parkin didn’t respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman said that Ms. Parkin wasn’t available and that the company doesn’t comment on internal communications.
Following the police killing of George Floyd last month, Adidas was among the many brands that took to social media to speak out against racism. Yet some black employees at the company’s U.S. offices told the Journal the corporate culture at the German company is far from equitable and that it was profiting from black communities.
A group of employees sent a presentation to executives, calling for the company to increase representation of black and Latino employees and give more to U.S. black communities. In response, the company said it would invest $120 million in black communities and hire black and Latino people in 30% of all new positions in the U.S. at Adidas and Reebok.
“We recognize the immense contribution of the Black community to our success and that of others,” the Adidas board said in a statement last week.
Since speaking with the Journal about the Reebok meeting, Aaron Ture, a manager of fashion footwear collaborations, received a message from one of Ms. Parkin’s direct reports asking him “to find a path forward,” according to an Instagram post Mr. Ture published.
“As all my fellow brave colleagues here have pointed out, we need to address the past, before we can build something for the future,” he wrote in the post.
Write to Khadeeja Safdar at khadeeja.safdar@wsj.com
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