By 2030, we hope to enable 10 million creators and makers to thrive in a changing world. In this age when industrial and technological innovations are rapidly changing the nature of work, we want to help employees and communities to gain the skills and expertise needed to create jobs, revitalize communities and build a better world for all.

Relevant UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals

Empowerment begins with quality education and retraining — giving people the tools to make something of themselves. This leads to decent work in skilled professions for individuals and more equitable economic growth for their communities.

“For the Creators” — Supporting the Maker Movement

We recently launched our first homegrown makerspace near our Towson, Maryland, corporate campus. The workshop is outfitted with the tools necessary to accelerate prototype development, while giving our employees a space for team building, equipment education, personal project work, hackathons, classes, workshops, and more. Employees from every division and across our enterprise have gained certifications in milling, routing, plasma cutting, laser engraving and 3D printing. Initially, this makerspace is for the use of our employees but we have plans to broaden access to the surrounding community.

By committing to support the maker movement around the world, we are looking to enrich the education, creativity and hands-on experience of curious and inventive people in their efforts to bring new ideas and better solutions to light.

We do this in numerous ways. We support nonprofit makerspaces and maker faires with our time, our tools, and direct financial support. We support in-school education programs that foster a love for science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics at an early age. We look for innovative out-of-school and extracurricular programs that bring innovation to life and enhance student learning in new ways.

Among our many partnerships, we are particularly proud of our presence at the 2017 WorldSkills Competition, which was held in Abu Dhabi. Competitors from 59 countries came together to compete in 51 skill competitions including carpentry, automobile technology, cabinetmaking, concrete construction work, joinery, landscape gardening, mobile robotics, and more. Here, as a Global Partner of WorldSkills, Stanley Black & Decker was able to support and inspire thousands of young people from all over the world.

Learn more about all of these partnerships here.

Empowering Our People

Our people are the makers we count on every day. We strive to ensure a safe, healthy and supportive work environment, enriched by diversity, robust learning and advanced means of collaboration and communication.

Career Mobility

We support career development at this time when Industry 4.0 manufacturing and supply chain management are disrupting and transforming the industrial sector. Through initiatives like our new manufacturing center of excellence in Hartford, Connecticut, we intend to provide any who have the potential to be displaced by technology with the retraining and repurposing needed to make their skills relevant in the evolving world of work.

Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity and inclusion are embedded into our company values and purpose. Our high performance culture unifies us across all our businesses, worldwide, with a shared commitment to excellence, innovation and social responsibility. And we know from experience that our culture draws strength from diversity. Different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger and more creative work environment. All of our businesses thrive on innovation — and bringing together highly creative individuals with diverse backgrounds and cognitive styles never fails to bring new solutions to light. Over the last two years we have launched several Employee Resource Groups including our Women's Network, African Ancestry Network, Pride and Allies, Veterans Network and Developing Professional Network.

“Workplace” Driving Engagement

Stanley Black & Decker is an early adopter of Workplace, Facebook’s internal social media platform. In its first year of deployment, it has immediately become engrained and integral to our daily work lives. Workplace has truly opened up and flattened our organization, connecting us like never before. We are all now informed about and engaged with the business and the interesting, and sometimes game-changing, initiatives various groups and individuals have under way. Now, our associates can see in real time the successes across our facilities around the world.

Empowering Learners and Doers

Society does best when all people — young, old and in between — have access to education, skills development and creative outlets. In the countries and communities we call home, we provide and support STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics), so that subsequent generations will have a strong grounding in the hard sciences. Our ambition is to enable students to prepare for valuable livelihoods — helping to support the workforce of tomorrow. We also help tradespeople develop cutting-edge vocational and trade skills required for employment and career advancement.

20,0000+

students and educators in STEAM programs supported in 2017

Empowering Women in South Africa

Partnering for a greener tomorrow, our Johannesburg Distribution Center’s Women’s Network joined with Samsung’s Electronic Waste Management Project and Habitat for Humanity to help empower women in the surrounding community. The Samsung project trains unemployed people to dismantle electronic waste in a safe manner and sell the components for a living. We partnered with Samsung to take the project to the township of Orange Farm. Habitat for Humanity was the community engagement facilitator, recruiting the women and getting community involvement and buy-in for the project. We provided the women with a tool box containing all the tools they would need to participate in the project and begin to create a livelihood for themselves.