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Nintendo has just shared an updated version of their Corporate Social Responsibility report, and it includes a very detailed section on the Big N’s diversity efforts within the company. This includes a number of different Employee Resource Groups, all of which aim to make employees feel welcome, heard, and included.

One such ERG is Black at Nintendo Dialogue (B@ND). This ERG works to champion inclusivity through community outreach, employee engagement and talent acquisition. B@ND researches and creates volunteer opportunities for Nintendo of America and its employees to engage with the Black community and raise awareness of the company’s DEI commitment.

You can see some of B@ND’s 2021 efforts below.

In FY 2021, B@ND engaged in a variety of activities, including sponsoring charitable giving campaigns that featured the Northwest African American Museum (Seattle), Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (New York) and Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco). In 2021, complementing the Black History Month campaign theme of “Mind, Body and Soul,” B@ND focused on total wellness through activities that included boxing, dancing, cooking and health screenings offered in partnership with the onsite employee clinic. The month’s activities also featured a webinar discussion with Look, Listen and Learn, an organization that produces television programming aimed at elevating the importance of diverse representation in education.

Another ERG under Nintendo’s umbrella is Nintendo Women and Allies, which supports female employees by offering a variety of empowering opportunities to, by and for women. You can see more about Nintendo Women and Allies’ achievements in 2021 below.

In 2021, professional development and wellness were key areas of focus for Nintendo Women and Allies. Beginning with Women’s History Month, the group embarked on a four-step learning journey inspired by the theme “Challenge Your Development.” Participants were encouraged to consider their future career goals, identify the skills and experience they need to be ready for opportunities, create a vision and action plan, and connect with others for feedback, mentoring and support. Development areas explored by the group were supported by women in management positions. Nintendo Women and Allies also partnered with fitness and nutrition experts to inspire healthy habits during a wellness campaign week for all employees. This included virtual exercise classes, mindfulness practices and cooking classes. The group also promoted a Women in Government (WIG) panel discussion on Building the Next Generation of STEAM Leaders that was sponsored by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA).

Finally, Nintendo shared a company statement on their mission to bring in more female employees overall, and promote them to higher positions. You can see the full statement below.

Based on the Act on Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancement in the Workplace enacted in April 2016 in Japan, Nintendo Co., Ltd. (Japan) achieved its goal in FY 2020 of increasing by 5% the cumulative percentage of female hires from the prior five years (FY 2011 to FY 2015, roughly 20%) in the following five years, which started in FY 2016. With the revised Act on Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancement in the Workplace that was enacted in April 2020, we are starting new initiatives to increase the total percentage of female full-time employees hired or promoted to at least 30% over five years, starting in FY 2021.

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Comments (14)

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bfx9

I'm all for diversity, but not at the expense of pandering to agendas and discarding the merits of brilliant, hard working, deserving people.
People could rememeber to be grateful for what men and only men are doing right now, building this world doing hazardous, physical, difficult occupations that we must celebrate them for.
Men have been doing this since the beginning of time.
Thank a linemen thats risking his making sure you have an electric grid that works.

joeshabadoo

1+ y ago

They also need to stop hiring so many uncles.

(No but for real this is encouraging while also feeling compulsory and required following some less than great PR earlier this year)


noxide

1+ y ago

I have a similar program at the studio I work for, thankfully everyone can ignore this stuff as all it amounts to are a bombardment of emails a few months out of the year.

The real thing I'm worried about is hiring female employees not out of merit but because they are female. That's sexist and goes against equality no matter how you look at it. People need to start standing up to this, when that hiring process was brought up at our work we all got together and demanded it be removed as everyone in our studio regardless of gender knew it was a terrible idea.


bfx9

1+ y ago

I'm all for diversity, but not at the expense of pandering to agendas and discarding the merits of brilliant, hard working, deserving people.
People could rememeber to be grateful for what men and only men are doing right now, building this world doing hazardous, physical, difficult occupations that we must celebrate them for.
Men have been doing this since the beginning of time.
Thank a linemen thats risking his making sure you have an electric grid that works.


mereel

1+ y ago

Don’t be surprised as Big N’s game quality begins a declining trend which tracks nicely with the rise of this nonsense. Quotas over merit. Undeserved promotions. I’ll never understand it.


joeshabadoo

1+ y ago

@bfx9

I don’t think people are un-celebrating the work you’re describing, and those occupations still receive adequate compensation based on risk levels (in most all cases). I would also keep in focus the fact that a 30% increase in female FTEs over 5 years isn’t exactly substantial and won’t drastically disturb Nintendo’s workforce. They wouldn’t allow that. This is about shifting systemic inequality at some level, undeniably. It’s not all pandering and PR


noxide

1+ y ago

@mereel

If we are lucky Nintendo will properly vet their HR teams. It’s HR where a lot of the stuff usually goes downhill.

Edited 1 time

People keep using words like “systematic inequality” like we are just supposed to accept that is a real thing. I can’t wait for more people to realize it’s just another excuse to insert ideologies into the workforce and that we stop giving into the people that push for this kind of stuff.


mock turtle

1+ y ago

What the fuck is this comment section, Jesus Christ.


Hey Mock Turtle, it's been a while!


joeshabadoo

1+ y ago

Man I was just trying to be light hearted in here with the first take. Burn this comment section lol


kuribo

1+ y ago

When you look up “Fragile Male Ego” in the dictionary, it should just link to this comment section.


mock turtle

1+ y ago

@noxide

...Do I know you...?


Probably not, but I remember you for your... interesting takes back before Gonintendo's latest overhaul.
I'm not going to deviate from this comment section any further so I'll just say I'm looking forward to more fun conversations in the future. ;^)


totodile

1+ y ago

@bfx9

No one is "discarding the merits of brilliant, hard working, deserving people".
For a business like Nintendo, the main point of increasing diversity is to help make their product line more attractive to more people (with the assumption that more varied viewpoints from the people making decisions achieves this), thus increasing profits ie: a business' number one priority. There are other reasons, like improving the workplace culture to make it more attractive to more people, making hiring easier.
I'm not sure why you're talking about linemen though...not sure if Nintendo is involved in distributing electricity as of yet.