In 2011, I attended the APEC Women and Economic Summit, and it changed my entire career outlook and trajectory. That forum focused on the barriers to economic participation faced by women and others - and how much better it is for nations when everyone has a chance to be part of the economy. The message inspired me to take on a larger role and position of leadership for all of our inclusion and diversity efforts. Perhaps more than any other company, I realized that LinkedIn has the potential to connect all professionals to economic opportunity.
To transform the world, we first have to transform LinkedIn. That’s the mission to which I am deeply committed as director of our new Global Inclusion team. Last June, we first reported our diversity metrics, and today we wanted to give an update on our progress.
The full set of data can be found here.
For additional information, please refer to our EEO-1
Our latest numbers show encouraging results, and we are pleased with our progress. Each gain is the work of many. Our numbers also show where we still have room for much more progress, so we need to be relentless in our efforts.
Our initial focus on gender diversity has netted gains with growth in women’s representation in technical roles (1%), leadership (5%), and overall (3%).
Progress has been driven by a variety of efforts. The Women’s Initiative within our Global Sales team and the Women in Technology initiative within our Engineering and Product organizations have built a framework to hire, retain, develop and advance women. They have:
- Fostered a positive culture of inclusion through workshop learning sessions for all managers and above;
- Created recruitment strategies to attract women to senior leadership and technical roles;
- Provided an advancement architecture that empowers high potential women leaders to advance through sponsorship, coaching and leadership development; and
- Supported the growth of technical women’s careers through workshops, mentorship events and tech talks on gender issues.
By identifying and rapidly spreading inclusion practices that work, we can scale progress to all dimensions of diversity at LinkedIn.
Our six Employee Resource Groups serving female, Black, Latino, LGBT, veteran, and disabled employees are a vital element of our inclusion strategy. They are working together to create community, attract talent, and expand professional skills and networks. Through their work, LinkedIn’ers have helped people with hearing impairments and autism as well as veterans and underrepresented minorities.
Additionally, we continue to invest in strategic partnerships that align to our vision and mission. These partnerships, with organizations such as Anita Borg Institute, LeanIn.org, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, and Year Up, help LinkedIn build its diversity and inclusion and invest externally in building the STEM pipeline more broadly.
We want to ensure that we consider all the best talent available when we bring people in - and that we help them thrive once they’re here. We are taking a more holistic approach to our recruiting efforts, from enhancing our outreach efforts towards new talent pools to ensuring an inclusive talent acquisition process. Efforts include deepening strategic relationships that connect us to talent, leveraging our own platform, and integrating best practices for diversity recruiting. We already see results - for example, 43% of all hires have been women over the last 12 months.
This journey to embed inclusion in all that we do has gotten off to a great start thanks to the enthusiasm and commitment of hundreds of our leaders and employees. I’m excited to be challenging ourselves and others to foster more inclusive environments that enable everyone to realize their full potential.