Cook is a family company founded in 1963 and has grown into a global, multicultural organisation. We were founded on core values of mutual respect, acting with integrity and deeply committing to the quality of products and services we provide for patients and customers. Racism and injustice exist everywhere and adversely impact human dignity as well as access to education, jobs, housing, justice and healthcare. Injustice and intolerance must be addressed, both within Cook and in our broader communities; we recognise our own responsibility to make the necessary changes.
To that end, we commit to a conscientious effort to remove barriers that block progress for people and communities. We affirmatively commit to having zero tolerance for and standing against racism, inequality and discrimination in all forms. We declare our shared commitment to listen to, learn from and empower our employees and communities to make impactful changes toward combating racism.
We stand together with our Cook families and their global communities to combat any form of racism. We can and will do more to create a more equitable society that allows all of us to reach our full potential.
In June, we established an Equity Task Force to ensure that Cook is a place that provides equal opportunity and understanding for everyone. Through education, internal initiatives and more focused involvement within our communities, we believe that Cook can help remove the barriers that many people have historically faced and continue to encounter.
We have established objectives to guide our efforts, including:
- Align our Code of Conduct and policies with our stance on racism.
- Complete unconscious bias training for all employees, including a library of supplemental tools and micro-learning experiences.
- Develop a podcast and video series that shares employee experiences for increased awareness of the presence and impact of racism.
- Intentionally increase the diversity of our internship candidate pool and develop a process to sustain that diversity.
- Intentionally increase the diversity of our permanent hiring pool and implement a process to sustain that diversity.
- Expand our global commitment to community engagement and identify new opportunities to remove barriers for people of colour.
Racism has no place at Cook. It does not align with our values, our purpose or our business. Globally, Cook is dedicated to doing whatever we can to improve our ability to serve all employees, their families and communities. We challenge you to act as well—let’s work to make this world better, together.
A commitment from Cook Medical Australia
At Cook Australia, we are committed to supporting our community and diversity and inclusion more broadly. Over the years, we have supported local education programs, charities and health and wellbeing initiatives through donations of time and money.
Though we are proud of how we have contributed, we want to do more. We have established a local working group to research how we can make positive change. We’re conducting surveys and focus groups to learn what’s important to our employees. We’re increasing our commitment and focussing on developing long-term partnerships. We are exploring programs that build pathways to upward mobility, personal growth and career fulfilment for the most vulnerable people in our community. We look forward to sharing more about our plans and partnerships as they develop.