LinkedIn’s own workforce is still too heavily white and male and needs to become more diverse, the company admitted Thursday. LinkedIn said 61 percent of its employees 5,400 employees worldwide are men and 39 percent are women.
Of its employees based in the U.S., 53 percent are white, 38 percent are Asian, 4 percent Hispanic and 2 percent black.
“That’s still not good,” Pat Wadors, LinkedIn’s vice present of talent, told The Chronicle.
LinkedIn released its internal diversity numbers in a company blog post that also highlights steps the Mountain View company is already taking, such as working with groups like the Anita Berg Institute, which focuses on women in computing, and the Out and Equal Workplace Advocates, which is committed to ending discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees.
Linkedin’s diversity numbers are similar to those released last month by Google. LinkedIn decided to follow Google’s lead and be transparent about its own workforce to help lead Silicon Valley to become more diverse.
“True inclusion is something that can only be achieved through a workforce that reflects the rich diversity of our member base, and this is something we strive to do in all of our hiring efforts,” Wadors wrote.
“While it’s easy for tech companies, like LinkedIn, to form partnerships with organizations that can promote a more balanced workplace diversity, there is a cycle of responsibility associated with transparency. This is why we thought it important to publish our own numbers regarding diversity at LinkedIn — to better ensure this accountability. And we will consistently measure ourselves and look for ways to improve.
“We may not be the first company to be transparent, and we hope we won’t be the last. Our goal is to improve over time and to make a lasting change at LinkedIn. Let’s challenge each other to make it a more inclusive world in which we work.”
Google last month said 30 percent of Googlers are women, 2 percent are black and 3 percent are Hispanic. According to U.S. Census data, blacks make up 13.1 percent of the overall population, while Hispanics make up 16.9 percent.
LinkedIn is a professional social network that generates revenue from corporate recruiters who use the service to find and hire new talent.
But Wadors, who joined LinkedIn a year and a half ago, said LinkedIn has grown so fast in the past three years that it often brought in new workers recommended by existing employees.
“If your network isn’t diverse, then that’s what you’ll end up hiring,” she said in an interview.
In some sections of the company, team leaders haven’t changed in six years simply because the teams have been performing well. That creates less opportunities to make leadership more diverse, but “you can’t create a reorganization just to create opportunity,” she said.
Wadors said she’s been pushing to expand the company’s diversity by making sure it does better outreach on college campuses and in the business world.
In the last year, for example, she said 25 percent of the new technology sector hires have been women, a higher percentage than in years past.
And she’s tried to get current employees to think more about diversity and “how you can create an environment you feel proudly about working in.”
“Diversity goes beyond ethnicity,” she said. “This transparency is going to create a better opportunity for everybody.”
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Poster Comment:
Looks like successful Silicon Valley is poised to take a nose dive. Merit kaput. Diversity in vogue. Silicon Valley we hardly knew ye.