WILLIAMS COMPANIES INC

We are committed to maintaining a work environment that enables us to attract, develop, and retain a highly skilled and diverse group of talented employees who help promote long-term value creation now and into the clean energy future.

Employees

As of February 1, 2024, we had 5,601 full-time employees located throughout the United States. Of this total, approximately 21 percent are women and 16 percent are ethnically diverse. During 2023, our voluntary turnover rate was 7.2 percent.

We encourage you to review our 2022 Sustainability Report available on our website for more information about our human capital programs and initiatives. Nothing on our website shall be deemed incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Workforce Safety

We continue to advance our safety-first culture by developing and empowering our employees to operate our assets in a safe, reliable, and customer-focused way. We strive to continuously improve safety and implement best practices to progress towards zero safety incidents. When a safety hazard is recognized, every employee has the authority and responsibility to stop work activities, make changes to enhance safety, and share the lessons learned with the organization on how we made it right.

For 2022 and 2023, these goals included our Loss of Primary Containment Events Reduction, a Behavioral Near Miss to Incident Ratio goal aimed to focus attention on behaviors that are the leading causes of incidents, as well as a Methane Emissions Reduction goal focusing on our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by safely and reliably operating and maintaining assets. These three metrics comprise 15 percent of our annual incentive program for employees, and reinforce the importance of incident prevention and our commitment to environmental and safety-focused improvements. These metrics align the focus of the organization, from entry level to executives, and create a connection to annual compensation on environmental and safety performance.

For 2023, our Behavioral Near Miss to Incident Ratio and Methane Emissions Reduction goals outperformed the established targets, however, our Loss of Primary Containment Events goal fell short of the reduction targets.

Workforce Health, Engagement, and Development

Our employees are our most valued resource, are instrumental in our mission to safely deliver products that fuel the clean energy economy, and are the driving force behind our reputation as a safe, reliable company that does the right thing, every time. Cultivating a healthy work environment increases productivity and promotes long-term value creation.

We provide a comprehensive total rewards program that includes base salary, an annual incentive program, retirement benefits, and health benefits, including wellness and employee assistance programs. We provide employees with company-paid life insurance, disability coverage, and paid parental leave for both birth and non-birth parents, as well as adoption assistance. Our annual incentive program is a key component of our commitment to a performance culture focused on recognizing and rewarding high performance.

In order to attract and retain top talent, we create and are committed to maintaining a safe, inclusive workplace where employees feel valued, heard, respected, and supported in their personal and professional development. We utilize employee surveys and employee led advisory councils to ensure we understand the needs of the business from the perspective of our employees regarding engagement, development and inclusion. Additionally, we support employee engagement through formal programming including professional development, mentoring, and succession planning.

We provide comprehensive corporate and technical training programs that are agile and robust. These programs are designed to support the professional, skill, and technological development of our employees, which in turn creates a competitive advantage for our business. We are committed to adding long-term value to our business by investing in our employees’ growth and development. In addition to our internal development programming, we also support external development opportunities to further enhance our employees’ professional and technical skills. Performance is measured considering both the achieved results associated with attaining annual goals and observable skills and behaviors based on our defined competencies that contribute to workplace effectiveness and career success. Including the defined competencies in our annual performance assessments illustrates our emphasis on, and commitment to, achieving results in the right way.

Additionally, we are committed to strengthening the communities where we operate through philanthropic giving and volunteerism. We support Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math education initiatives, environmental conservation, first responder efforts, and the work of United Way agencies across the United States.

The Compensation and Management Development Committee of our Board of Directors oversees executive compensation and equity-based compensation plans and the material risks associated with our compensation program, as well as the oversight elements of human capital management, including diversity and inclusion, and talent development.

Diversity & Inclusion

We are committed to creating an inclusive culture, where differences are embraced and employees feel valued, welcomed, appreciated, and compelled to reach their full potential. We believe that inclusion fosters innovation, collaboration, and drives business growth and long-term success. To create a culture of inclusion, we embrace, appreciate, and fully leverage the diversity within our teams, including gender, race and ethnicity, life experiences, thoughts, perspectives, and anything that makes us different from one another. We believe that incorporating our many differences into a team of people who are working toward the same goal gives us a competitive advantage.

To create space for employees to share personal experiences and perspectives, and to appreciate and celebrate what makes people different, we offer Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). These groups are employee-led and based on similar interests and experiences, represent diverse communities and their allies, and are open to everyone. ERG members participate in community events, volunteer, lend professional and personal support to one another, and promote inclusion across the company. They also have executive sponsors and provide input to the leadership team.

We are committed to helping all employees develop and succeed. We strive for diverse representation at all levels of the organization through our talent management practices and employee development programs, including required baseline diversity and inclusion training for all leaders across the company. Diversity metrics are reported monthly to our management team to enhance transparency and opportunities for improvement.

Our Diversity and Inclusion Council, which includes members of the executive officer team, organizational and operational leaders, and individual employees, promotes policies, practices, and procedures that support the growth of a high-performing workforce where all individuals can achieve their full potential. The council serves as the governing body over enterprise diversity and inclusion initiatives, including enterprise diversity and inclusion events, organized and hosted by one of our 10 ERGs, and our annual awards that recognize an outstanding leader and an individual contributor who champion inclusion.

As of December 31, 2023, our Board of Directors includes 12 members, 11 of whom are independent members, 25 percent of whom are women, and 8.33 percent of whom are from an underrepresented race or ethnicity. As part of the director selection and nominating process, the Governance and Sustainability Committee annually assesses the Board’s diversity in areas such as expertise, geography, gender, race and ethnicity, and age. We strive to maintain a board of directors with diverse occupational and personal backgrounds.