Case
Study

Playboy Enterprises Partners with Yardstick Management for the Creation of DEI Infrastructure

Playboy Group, Inc.

Industry: Consumer Goods
HQ Location: Los Angeles, California
Size: 1,097 Employees*

“Yardstick has been an incredible partner for us. We continue to use the tools we’ve collaborated to build, embedding DEI best practices into the very fiber of our daily operations.” – Jenny Greenwald, Playboy, Chief People Officer

The Background

Playboy Enterprises, Inc., founded in 1953, is a media and lifestyle company that publishes Playboy magazine and online entertainment that encourages pleasure for all. Kick-started by the horrific murder of George Floyd during the summer of 2020, stakeholders and executive leaders communicated the need for a thorough company response in the form of a DEI infrastructure. Hoping to improve leadership retention and facilitate a culture of belonging, Playboy sought the expertise of Yardstick Management.

The Challenge

Playboy believed in Yardstick Management’s authenticity and commitment to understanding Playboy, meeting them where they are, and helping them build on their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion journey, particularly from a race and ethnicity perspective. Playboy was experiencing a gap in Inclusion and Belonging across the board for historically disadvantaged groups, creating a lack of internal retention. Yardstick Management has built structures that reflect company-wide operations to bolster Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies and practices.

The Tactics and Results

Over the course of 10 months, Yardstick Management created Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policies, Practices, and Guides for Playboy. Examples include:

● The Yandy Ambassadors Guide which assists decision makers and other stakeholders on the appropriate action they should take in their review of an employee’s behavior.
● The Playboy Contractors And Partnerships Evaluation Guide outlines grading criteria for PLBY Partners/Contractors and calculates a score based upon inputs.
● The Playboy Rubric and Evaluation Guide for Leaders and Individual Contributors guides PLBY employees annual appraisals.
● The Playboy Employee Resource Group Guide addresses specific ERG designed for the needs of Playboy. The ideation for Employee Resource Groups came from a diversity coffee chat: a short training followed by a conversation led by Bilal King, Principal Consultant. Comments and points directly impacted the development of the Playboy ERG guide.
● The Playboy Multi Use Disclaimer was designed as a multi use statement to be placed at the beginning of potentially disturbing historic Playboy articles and interviews.

Engagement is ongoing (4/13/21).

*Subject to have changed since the start of the engagement

About Yardstick Management

Established in 2012, Yardstick Management is America's leading Black-Owned management consulting firm, providing organizational strategy, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging support, and executive search expertise at the world’s most recognizable companies. Our comprehensive services help organizations transform their culture as well as attract and retain the most senior-level diverse executives to their C-Suites and boards. Named in Inc.’s 2021 Best in Business list and as Georgia Business Journal’s 2021 Best Business Consulting firm, Yardstick Management has a proven track record of successful transformation and is trusted by the largest companies in the world.
In 2021 alone, the management consulting firm increased revenue by 166%, grew its employee base by 42%, and impacted over 2,600,000 employees across global corporate, non-profit, and educational organizations including, Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn, Netflix, MIT, Orangetheory Fitness, PLBY Group Inc., Davita Kidney Care, Whirlpool, Roark Capital, and more. For additional information, visit yardstickmanagement.com.