Years: 2019

Celebrating International Literacy Day with Worldreader

Since 2010, Penguin Random House has donated more than 550,000 digital books to Worldreader to help children read in underserved schools across Sub-Saharan Africa. To celebrate International Literacy Day in 2020, we encouraged our readers to help bring more books to children. With every book purchased on our website, we donated $1 to Worldreader.

In these pictures, a classroom full of students in Kibera, Kenya eagerly reads. In their hands they’re holding a library of thousands of books – including lots of favorite Penguin Random House books. The ability to read and learn gives these students a chance to improve their lives. And that ripples through to their families and their communities. As Worldreader’s largest global publishing partner, we are proud to help advance literacy around the world.  We have donated hundreds of licenses for Worldreader e-reader programs in sub-Saharan Africa, linking literature of all reading levels and age groups to schools and libraries throughout the region.

We proudly partner with Worldreader to help create a world where everyone is a reader.

Our Approach to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

As Penguin Random House, we hold a collective belief that diverse voices need to be elevated and heard. Externally, we are committed to using our platform to amplify an even broader range of voices. Internally, we are working to build an equitable, inclusive, and psychologically safe work environment for all employees.

We are guided by five core pillars that shape our DE&I efforts across the business.

Leadership Investment in DE&I: Effective leadership is at the core of systemic change and we are investing in that change through unconscious bias, antiracism, and inclusivity training. We hold leaders accountable for implementing our s DE&I vision, setting goals, achieving results, and being role models.

Diversity & Representation: We are committed to making our employee population more representative of our society by ensuring that attraction, sourcing, and recruitment is done through a DE&I lens.

Career Growth: Diversity, equity and inclusion is crucial to the development of all employees to ensure they are prepared, supported, and well-situated in how to advocate for their career paths. We integrate DE&I into talent development, performance management, advancement, and retention efforts.

Psychological Safety and Belonging: We seek to create a more psychologically safe, inclusive environment that allows employees to bring their full selves to work and voice their ideas and opinions openly.

Content & Marketplace: We are committed to increasing the number of books we publish, promote, and sell by people of color with the ultimate goal of publishing books that reflect the world we live in.

While these pillars have advanced our progress in establishing more inclusive business practices, there is still much more important work to do. Together with our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Councils, Employee Resource Groups, and leadership teams, we will continue our ongoing and evolving plan for action to achieve our aspiration of creating a more equitable company and publishing community.

Employee-Driven Action to Combat Climate Change

Our employees across the territories are leading teams, such as the Sustainability Subcommittee in the United States and the Environment Team in Australia/New Zealand, to make grassroots efforts to combat climate change. In the United States, the Sustainability Subcommittee is an employee-led group of engaged colleagues who are dedicated to positively affecting the environment. In tandem with our corporate efforts, through awareness campaigns and events, the Subcommittee aims to have a positive impact in our communities and the environment where we work and live.

United Fight Against Climate Change

Our Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial team in Miami kicked off its first year of corporate volunteering in 2019 with hands-on activities at main community organizations, including Miami-Dade County parks. Our employees planted 200 native plants at a county park to attract butterflies and other important pollinators, and also decorated a rainwater barrel with characters from our most popular children’s books to capture rainwater to irrigate the plants.

To further our efforts in the fight against climate change, the team in Miami collaborated to pack and sort donations for United Miami Way of Miami-Dade following the destruction Hurricane Dorian inflicted on the Bahamas.

Dinner on the House

Dinner on the House is an annual employee volunteer experience designed to serve those who may need a helping hand during the holiday season. For the past twelve years, Penguin Random House volunteers have joined City Harvest at their Food Rescue Center to help repack food items into family-sized portions for distribution to New Yorkers in need.