Twitter Is On Track to Meet Its End-2019 Workforce Representation Goals for Women, Blacks

Twitter said when it released its 2018 Inclusion and Diversity Report in March that it would begin publishing this information quarterly, and the first quarterly installment was released this week. Vice president of people experience and head of diversity and inclusion Dalana Brand said in a blog post presenting the results that as of May, the company was on track to meet its December 2019 targets for women and blacks, but it is running slightly behind for Latinx. As of May, women made up 41.2% of Twitter’s workforce (the December target is 43%), blacks accounted for 4.7% (5%) and Latinx made up 4% (5%). Brand said Twitter is prioritizing Latinx hiring, inclusion and retention efforts. [kickout id="1"] All three groups rose in terms of representation among the company’s leadership ranks, as women made up 36.7% in May (up from 35.8% in December 2018), blacks 5.8% (up from 4.7%) and Latinx 3.2% (up from 2.7% last December). [kickout id="2"] The company did not report as much progress in technical roles, as women accounted for 21.3% in May, up from 20.2% in December, while black representation was unchanged at 2.9% and Latinx edged up to 3.3% from 3.2%. Brand wrote, “We anticipate a spike in the hiring of technical roles in the third quarter. This will unlock a significant opportunity to increase women, black and Latinx representation.” [kickout id="3"] Women made up 46.8% of Twitter’s total new hires from May 2018 through this May, while blacks accounted for 7.6% and Latinx for 5.3%. On the retention side, 38.7% of total attrition from the company was comprised of women, while blacks represented 4.9% and Latinx 3.4%. [kickout id="4"] Twitter conducted an analysis of its pay after its compensation planning cycle in the first quarter, and Brand said the company found that all of its employees are paid equitably across genders, races and ethnicities. She added that the analysis covered U.S. and global employees and took into account base salary, incentive compensation (where applicable), performance bonus and equity compensation. The company is currently conduction a similar review of promotions, with plans to share that data in the third quarter of this year. Twitter debuted a new internal dashboard for its employees in March, giving them access to org-level demographic data (gender, race, leadership and tech representation) at the management level, with drop-downs to view that data at the Twitter and team levels. Brand wrote, “By hovering over any of the columns, leadership and tech versus non tech representation is provided. For instance, a Tweep can select a leader’s name in the drop-down, select race/ethnicity and hover over the column on the right to learn how many black employees are within that leader’s team.” [kickout id="5"] She also broke down three key issues that Twitter found after analyzing its data and gathering feedback, and how it intends to address those issues. The company found significant gaps in self-identification, preventing it from producing fully accurate numbers. It will conduct a full refresh of its self-ID process, expanding its scope to sexual orientation, gender identity, disabilities and military status, saying that this will be implemented in the U.S. in June and globally in the second half of the year. Twitter also determined that its definitions of diversity have been too limited, and it plans to conduct an anonymous survey among all employees worldwide to collect even more information on gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, military status, disability status, nationality and family/caregiver status. Brand wrote, “The self-ID refresh, coupled with the anonymous survey, will help us arrive at our most accurate composite of employee representation to-date. We will report our findings in a future quarterly report.” Finally, the company found that its data and insights are too U.S.-centric, and it plans to add an international diversity lead to its inclusion and diversity team. Other inclusion and diversity initiatives in the works at Twitter include: The company will provide more training for hiring managers and recruiters on effective diversity sourcing and eliminating bias from the process. Policies are being implemented to ensure that hiring managers are presented with a diverse slate of candidates for certain roles moving forward. Brand concluded, “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us and will be listening to our Tweeps and your feedback. We believe these quarterly updates will spark conversations and actions needed for change—at Twitter and beyond. We’ll be back in three months.”