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The tech industry is notorious for its lack of diversity. According to tech media Builtin’s 2022 State of DEI in Tech report: One in four of the companies surveyed said their teams were more than 70% white and 73% of respondents said there were no Black leaders on their executive teams. 39% of women and BIPOC employees said their voices and perspectives didn’t feel included in the decision making process at their jobs.
The COVID-19 pandemic, and cultural movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, have created a state of urgency on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workforce. After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the internet was full of CEO pledges to increase diversity at their companies which resulted in hundreds of newly opened DEI positions, but there is still a long way to go for the industry to meaningfully close the opportunity gap for all workers. Many BIPOC job seekers called out how reactive those pledges presented themselves to be which made them suspicious of these companies’ intentions, and worried that joining the company would result in tokenism.
At the same time, there is an incredible opportunity for this innovative industry to pioneer the cultural push for progress. Therefore’s new series, Buzzword to Buzzworthy, aims to highlight what authentic inclusive engagement and intentional equitable practices can look like in the tech industry.
What Therefore is Doing
Every week we’ll spotlight the tech companies, big and small, who are practicing their commitment to DEI here in the Therefore blog. The goal is to:
- Introduce job seekers—in particular those who have been excluded from jobs in the tech industry— to companies that are walking the walk
- Help companies who are really championing DEI become buzzworthy
- Rally the tech industry around best practices and ways to make progress on their own teams
How we made the list
The Therefore team combs through hundreds of publicly available resources to collect information on the state of diversity at tech companies and the initiatives they have in place. Sources include platforms like company websites, Glassdoor, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more.
Diversity is more than a buzzword, and companies doing it right should be buzzworthy.
