At Twitter, we’re using the new decade as an opportunity to refresh our approach to our public conversation around inclusion and diversity.
But first, let’s take a look at highlights from 2019:*
- Total representation of women, Black and Latinx Tweeps increased
- 47.1% of new hires were women; up 1.4 percentage points from last year
- 15.7% of US new hires were Black or Latinx; up 3.4 percentage points from last year
- 1 in 3 Tweeps participate in at least one Business Resource Group
All of these gains were made during a time of rapid global expansion at Twitter, making progress especially meaningful.
Our sights on the horizon
We kicked off 2020 in Houston at #OneTeam, where we brought our entire company together in one place, with the goal of continuing to build a diverse and global team with a shared vision of serving the public conversation.
We make this investment in our Tweeps because they are the most important stakeholders in our work. Without Tweeps, there is no Twitter. Like many company all-hands, #OneTeam was an opportunity to come together, connect, and align around our strategic priorities. Because we’re Twitter, it was so much more. But don’t take our word for it, check out this thread from a Tweep who was there:
Why Houston? We saw an opportunity to have a real-world connection with a city that has been at the center of some incredible conversations on our service – like during #HurricaneHarvey. Twitter empowered first responders and community volunteers to come to the aid of stranded residents as flood waters rose. #OneTeam enabled us to make even deeper investments in the Houston community.
Our central organizing principle: “purpose before profit,” an acknowledgement that by focusing on our mission and our customers, we will unlock long-term durable impact and opportunity. Over the course of three days, we deeply explored what it means to truly serve the public conversation and directly heard from our global customers about the role our service plays in their lives––and the world.
We also meditated, volunteered across 49 local nonprofits, and shared an inspirational new vision for the future of diversity and inclusion at Twitter.
Our vision for the future
We’re on a journey to be the world’s most diverse and inclusive tech company. We used the start of a new decade to lay down a roadmap of what it will take to get there.
Our efforts were informed by the appreciation that there is no other company whose product plays the role in the world that ours does. That means the stakes are incredibly high and we don’t have the luxury of time or incrementalism. We have a unique responsibility to be bold, move fast––and get this right.
We started with two questions: 1) What would it take to realize this vision? and 2) How long would it take to get there? We studied our peers in tech, evaluated industry benchmarks, and took a close look within the company. Here’s where our work led us:
While women currently make up 42.5% of our workforce, we’re committing that by 2025, at least half of our global workforce will be women. We want women to be represented across our global business, so we’ve also set targets for representation across technical roles (42%) and leadership (41%).
This is an ambitious goal and timeline, but one we can and must achieve together.
We’re also setting bold new targets for the United States, where the federal government allows for more categorization of our workforce. By 2025, our commitment is that at least a quarter of our US workforce to be under-represented minorities; specifically Black, Latinx, Native American, Alaskan or Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, or Multiracial. We’re currently at 14.8%. And, for the first time later this year, we’ll publicly report our progress on workforce representation of military veterans, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities. These efforts reflect the more inclusive approach we’re taking in cultivating a truly diverse US workforce.
Why set targets?
We set goals for things that are important––and diversity and inclusion has never been more important at Twitter. While goal setting has been a point of controversy in diversity and inclusion, we know representation targets work, because we’ve seen it in action.
The introduction of workforce representation targets were a catalyst to increased investment, organizational alignment, transparency and accountability. Most importantly, they helped drive progress: Since workforce representation targets were introduced in 2018, our global representation of women has increased 4.1 percentage points, and in the United States representation of Black and Latinx Tweeps has increased by 2.4 percentage points and 1.5 percentage points, respectively. During the same period, Twitter was expanding rapidly, making this growth especially meaningful.
Our journey together
The path forward involves everyone. That’s why we’re doubling down on investments that reach Tweeps around the world. We’re launching an Inclusive Hiring Program to drive global progress in workforce representation. We’re leveraging the momentum from investments in our global Business Resource Groups to introduce an Allyship Program with the goal of bringing our BRGs closer to the business and drive belonging. And, our Supplier Inclusion Program is expanding its focus to include more communities and regions.
Over the next three quarters, we’ll use this forum to share insights and take a closer look at specific initiatives that are helping us break new ground, while providing quarterly updates on our numbers here. At year end, we’ll share a comprehensive report on all the activities that contributed to our progress in 2020.
Radical transparency drives accountability––to each other and all of you. We encourage you to follow our progress and let us know what you think. What do you want to hear from us in the year ahead?
We look forward to the ongoing conversation, because we’re all in this together #UntilWeAllBelong.
*Data Notes: All data is based on employee self-identification. Gender is global. Race / Ethnicity is US-based. Workforce data includes regular full-time employees. New hire data includes regular, full-time employees who started within 12 months of the data effective date. Leadership includes Directors and above. Technical is our functional designation and omits G&A and sales designations. Data effective dates: comparison of 2018 (Dec 31, 2017) to 2019 (Dec 31, 2018) for new hires in the beginning summary, current standing for women, US Black, and US Latinx (as of Jan 31, 2020), and growth metrics since 2018 (Dec 31, 2017) compared to current standing (as of Jan 31, 2020).