Diversity in technology

Google has recently started to publish its own internal hiring data to illustrate the diversity of its workforce.

There is no question that diversity has become an important point of focus for public and large organisations to ensure a level playing field for all.

Google’s data directly illustrates that hiring women rose to 33.2% (+1.9 ppts) globally and to 34.9% (+4.5 ppts) in the U.S.; this is one of the biggest increases for any underrepresented group. In the U.S., Black+ and Latinx+ hires increased to 4.8% (+0.7 ppt) and 6.8% (+0.5 ppt), respectively.

Google elaborates on its challenge of increasing underrepresented groups and the actions being taken to address those challenges.

However, how can other organisations learn from these and other global company actions to increase diversity, and what can be done within your organisation?

We have summarised three methods which you could use internally to increase your diversity:

Articulate a company-wide commitment to diversity

Putting your diversity and inclusion commitment into words throughout the organisation, from top-level management, can significantly impact an organisation's culture and diversity. The commitment should include an evaluation of internal processes such as recruitment, performance management, and interviewing to ensure each process is fair.

Promote diversity with external training

Organisations should consider providing training with exercises such as perspective-taking and goal-setting. Evidence suggests these exercises can improve attitudes towards diversity. Perspective-taking exercises ask participants to walk in someone else’s shoes mentally. Goal-setting exercises can be adapted to ask participants to set specific goals related to diversity in the workplace.

Specific training to learn about diversity can also help. For example an introductory course to autism can help others understand the relevance and need for neurodiversity.

Consider a workplace programme

One of the widely-known underrepresented groups in technology is women in engineering. Organisations have succeeded in increasing the representation of their women engineers by creating a workplace programme to encourage applications, illustrate how the role would be carried out, and possibly include case studies of other women in similar roles.

With a high proportion of women within the workplace compared to some other managed service providers we, at OryxAlign, remain committed to diversity within our team.