Diversity in technology

Google have recently started to publish their own internal hiring data to illustrate the diversity amongst its workforce. There is no question that for public and large organisations at least, diversity has become an important point of focus to ensure a level playing field for all.

Google’s data directly illustrates the hiring of 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 does elaborate on its challenge of increasing underrepresented groups and what actions are 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 organisations 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 mentally walk in someone else’s shoes. 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 found success in increasing the representation of its 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.