Raytheon and United Technologies Merger: Stronger Together

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

The 2020 merger of Raytheon Company and the United Technologies Corporation aerospace businesses brought together two companies with distinctive legacies of developing and deploying advanced technologies to solve some of the world’s most pressing and complex challenges. As a newly merged company, Raytheon Technologies is building on this rich heritage of innovation, integrity and excellence.

We know – without a doubt – that our people are the key to our long-term success. No matter how transformative our technologies are today, our company’s future success depends on our ability to engage, retain and develop the best and brightest minds in the aerospace and defense industry. After all, it’s our people’s skills, expertise and ingenuity that will allow us to continue to exceed customer expectations and deliver breakthrough solutions that stretch the boundaries of what’s possible.

To realize our full potential, Raytheon Technologies is committed to creating a company where all employees are respected, valued and supported in the pursuit of their goals. We know that companies that embrace diversity in all its forms – such as race, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity, veteran status, ability, experience and thinking – not only deliver stronger business results, but also become a force for good, fueling stronger business performance and greater opportunity for employees, partners, investors and communities to succeed.

Both of our legacy companies had long-standing commitments to advancing diversity by recognizing the value in unique viewpoints, experiences and backgrounds. Both championed inclusion by bringing different voices together to learn from each other and inspire action. Now, as a unified company, we’re also addressing equity. We define this as ensuring equality of opportunity for all in our policies, practices and behaviors. Success is when every employee feels there is nothing stopping them from realizing their full potential. 

In June 2020, CEO Greg Hayes challenged leaders across the company to identify ways to accelerate efforts to make Raytheon Technologies and its businesses more diverse and inclusive, and to advance racial equity. Senior leaders engaged in a series of open, honest and difficult conversations with employees of color and other diverse backgrounds about their experiences and perspectives. 

As a result of this work, Raytheon Technologies recently launched a major multi-year plan to create meaningful and measurable progress advancing diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) across the company and beyond. The action plan includes four distinct DE&I focus areas of talent management, community engagement, public policy and supplier diversity. Highlights include:

Talent management

• Setting specific DE&I goals and metrics that ensure gender parity in senior leadership roles globally by 2030; addressing under-representation of People of Color in senior roles;
• Reviewing our talent management practices for opportunities to attract a broader, more diverse talent pool;
• Assessing how we evaluate performance, including what we reward and how people are promoted, and ensuring diversity in our succession plans.

Community engagement 

• Committing to donate $25 million over five years to address education and food insecurity in racially and ethnically marginalized communities;
• Sponsoring and/or participating in scholarship, mentorship and fellowship programs to help build our pipeline of diverse leaders;
• Promoting employee volunteerism initiatives (including virtual) in support of education and mentorship.

Public policy

• Using data about underrepresented communities to inform our advocacy for local education reform and where we choose to locate our business operations;
• Leading a consortium in aerospace and defense to lobby for increased programs to support Black and Hispanic students in STEM education; and establishing defense fellowships with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation to encourage Black representation in aerospace and defense policy fields;
• Expanding our support of the Faith & Politics Institute and the Equal Justice Initiative to advance understanding and discourse around issues of race.

Supply chain 

• Committing to direct more spending toward minority-owned suppliers;
• Sharing our plans to incorporate DE&I practices into our supply chain with more than 350 aerospace and defense suppliers;
• Launching a supplier mentorship program for women and minority-owned suppliers.

These are just a sampling of the many initiatives to advance diversity, equity and inclusion across our company and beyond. Similar to other critical business objectives, we’ll measure progress against specific goals for each of the four pillars of our DE&I strategy. We've set short- and long-term goals and metrics at the overall company and business unit levels, and will provide regular updates to help our global workforce understand the progress we’re making.

Advancing diversity, equity and inclusion is a business and social imperative. When we bring together people of different backgrounds and experiences, we benefit from broad perspectives, creative problem-solving styles and better decisions. And when our employees feel included, respected and empowered to do great work, they turn their passion and creativity into innovation that helps us push the limits of known science and redefine how we connect and protect our world.