Twitter Touts Progress in Inclusion and Diversity Efforts, Despite Pandemic

Twitter released its Inclusion & Diversity Report for the fourth quarter of 2020 Thursday, with vice president of people experience and head of inclusion and diversity Dalana Brand citing “meaningful progress” despite the many obstacles that 2020 brought. Brand wrote, “It would be a disservice to all of the hard work that’s occurred across our business to solely focus on the curveballs the year has thrown us. At the beginning of the year, we unveiled a bold new vision for 2025, and our initial plan for the hard work required to drive progress across the company. I’m proud to say that despite the unpredictable nature of 2020, we’ve still made meaningful progress against these goals, and I want to tell you about it.” Twitter set goals for 2025 of having women account for at least one-half of its global workforce, as well as having at least one-quarter of its U.S. workforce be made up of underrepresented minorities. The company currently stands at women representing 42.6% of its global workforce and whites accounting for 41% of its U.S. workforce. Brand added, “Along with that bold vision, as a company, we doubled down on deeper commitments across leadership, transparency and accountability—all to drive progress along our journey to be the world’s most diverse and inclusive tech company.” The company recently rolled out the third version of the internal diversity dashboard it initially debuted in 2019 to enable any employee to track its progress, and Brand said the latest update offers more visibility by gender globally and race and ethnicity in the U.S., with data only restricted if a team is too small to maintain the anonymity of its members. The new dashboard also provides employees with steps they can take to further the process. Twitter is also examining representation in leadership roles and pay equity, starting by gender, which it plans to share in early 2021, and Brand added, “Work is also underway to increase pay transparency and, starting in 2021, we’ll share with Tweeps the pay bands for their individual position.” The company formed a Consistency & Fairness Taskforce to review its promotions process across Twitter from end to end, and Brand wrote, “This work will explore new measures to disrupt potential bias: a data-informed promotion readiness pipeline; increased transparency and consistency in the frequency, makeup and process of promotion committees; and increased communications and training about the process.” On the hiring front, Brand cited progress in inclusive hiring, saying that Twitter expanded its diverse slates initiative from senior director roles to all roles manager and above, and adding that prior to hiring decisions, at least one woman (globally) and one Black or Latinx candidate (U.S.) must be considered by the interview panel. She shared the five principles for employees to follow: Always hire the most qualified candidate.Start with a candidate pool that reflects our communities.Ensure a fair and equitable hiring process.Map candidates to core competencies and our values—hire for culture add, not culture fit.Lead with diversity and inclusion throughout the interview experience. Brand concluded, “Taking stock of what actually went right in 2020 is quite the flex. But in retrospect, the strides we made across our inclusion and diversity efforts in leadership, transparency and accountability are significant. They represent the extraordinary efforts of Tweeps across every part of our business. Thanks to them, we’re continuing to take bold steps. Each is intended to push us, and our industry, forward. And we’re not stopping #UntilWeAllBelong.”