Diversity, equity & inclusion

Glassdoor CEO: Our Steps To Drive Equity in the Workplace

Christian Sutherland-Wong

Christian Sutherland-Wong, Author at Glassdoor US | Jul 30, 2020

Our vision is a world where transparency ensures everyone is treated equitably and where greater transparency empowers companies to become better employers. Last month, Glassdoor made a commitment to do more to foster greater diversity and inclusion within our own company and to fight inequities in the workplace and in society. How will we do this? Through transparency and through action. Words matter, but actions matter more. This is why I am following up today, in the spirit of transparency, to share the steps Glassdoor has taken and is taking to create a more equitable workplace for underrepresented groups, here at Glassdoor and everywhere. To change the world, you must first change yourself. That’s what we are endeavoring to do at Glassdoor. Diversity within our own employee base is absolutely essential to Glassdoor’s long-term success and our ability to effect change in the world. By building a more diverse workforce, full of different perspectives and backgrounds, we believe we will not only become a better company, but we will also be able to deliver better solutions to help everyone find a job and company they love. To date, we have fallen short and this is something we will change. As a next step, we feel it’s important to acknowledge where we are today, share the actions we are taking and hold ourselves accountable to the kind of change we want to see here at Glassdoor and in the world. Diversity & Inclusion Transparency Report*. Today, we are publishing our inaugural Diversity & Inclusion Transparency Report which examines Glassdoor’s own employee population data by race/ethnicity, gender, leadership and tech and non-tech roles. As of July 25, 2020, Glassdoor employs more than 700 employees worldwide. Currently, Glassdoor’s global employee base is 54% men and 44% women. Among tech roles, 76% of our global employees are men and 23% are women. With respect to Glassdoor’s U.S. employee population, 10% are among underrepresented racial/ethnic groups (5% are Hispanic or Latino, 4% are Black, 2% identify as two or more races and less than 1% are Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian/Indigenous American/Alaska Native.) So where do we begin? We are committed to building a company that is more diverse and representative of society at large. While there are many areas we need to work on to improve, to be successful, we want to focus on the areas where we believe we have the biggest gaps. By the end of 2025, our aspirational diversity and inclusion goals at Glassdoor are:

Black employees. 4% of our workforce today is Black. The general population average in the U.S. is 13%, a 9% gap. By the end of 2025 we want to double the current Black representation at Glassdoor to 8%.
Latinx employees. Today we have a U.S. employee population that is 5% Latinx. As 19% of the general U.S. population is Latinx, by the end of 2025 we want to double our Latinx representation to 10%
Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian/Indigenous American/Alaska native employees. Today 0.4% of our workforce identifies as belonging to these groups. U.S. representation in these groups is approximately 1.5%. By the end of 2025, we again want to more than double our representation to 1% of our employee population.
Women in Tech: 23% of our tech roles are currently held by women. While an estimated 25% of women today hold tech roles, we want to help bring more women into tech, and so we aspire to have one-third (33%) of our tech roles held by women by the end of 2025.
Women in Leadership: Today, 37% of our leaders (Director+) are women, but we believe leadership should be more reflective of the U.S. population by gender. That’s why we want women to hold 50% of leadership roles by the end of 2025.
Belonging. Currently, 78% of Glassdoor employees surveyed report they feel that they belong at Glassdoor. Among tech companies, the benchmark is 73%. By the end of 2025, we believe we can maintain or improve on 78% of employees feeling they belong.

While we recognize these are just a few areas of diversity, we will focus on these goals for the time being and believe this will make a marked difference in Glassdoor being more reflective of the communities where we operate. Equally important, we want to ensure that Glassdoor is an employer where people truly feel they belong. This is not just about who we welcome in the door, it is just as important that Glassdoor is a company where all employees feel they can thrive. To learn more about Glassdoor’s employee population data, our diversity and inclusion goals, and how we’re working towards these goals, please read the blog post from Carina Cortez, Glassdoor’s Chief People Officer. Annual Pay Gap Audit. We believe transparency is one of the most important tools to ensure everyone is paid fairly and equitably. In addition to holding ourselves accountable by sharing our employee population data and diversity goals, it is also important that we embrace pay transparency to ensure every employee at Glassdoor is compensated equitably. Each year, Glassdoor’s Economic Research Team conducts a pay gap audit on Glassdoor’s own employees in order to ensure that our own pay practices are equitable across gender and race/ethnicity. The results of our analysis found no statistically significant pay gap among Glassdoor’s U.S.-based employees when comparing across similar roles, levels of experience, gender and race/ethnicity. This is the fifth consecutive year that Glassdoor has found no gender pay gap in its analysis, and the second year that Glassdoor has examined and found no pay gap by race/ethnicity. But our efforts won’t stop here. Preventing any pay gap based on gender or race/ethnicity is an ongoing commitment, and we will continue our efforts to ensure that each and every employee is compensated fairly. Read more about the analysis and findings. Our Product: Transparency to Drive Equity.** As the world’s leading site for workplace transparency, our product and platform represent our greatest opportunity to make an impact and drive societal change. We can do more as a platform and within our product to highlight diversity and hold companies accountable to walk the walk when it comes to meeting their diversity and inclusion commitments. Job seekers today want their employer to prioritize having a diverse, inclusive, and truly equitable workplace. They look for a company that aligns with their values and practices what it preaches. Our platform will shine a light on this. Today, I am excited to share some key product innovations that Glassdoor will deliver by the end of 2020. These features are designed to enable employee feedback specific to diversity, inclusion, and equity inside a company. This will further help job seekers find the right job and company and enable greater visibility into the diversity efforts of employers. We will empower our users to rate diversity and inclusion within their company, contribute their own demographic data, and see company reviews highlighting topics on diversity and equity. This will enable deeper transparency into current employee sentiment levels by underrepresented groups. In addition, we will provide the opportunity for employers to tell their diversity and inclusion stories. But, we are very aware that words and commitments are not enough. That’s why we’re also providing space for employers to share their employee population demographic information. We are pushing for radical transparency here. We will do it and encourage other employers to follow. Read more about Glassdoor’s product commitment from Annie Pearl, our Chief Product Officer. Community Impact. We believe our responsibility to promote and drive equity extends beyond just our employees and the workplace. We also have a responsibility to create positive change in our communities. Glassdoor’s volunteering and giving program, Community Door, will now be 100% focused on addressing systemic barriers to employment that exist for underrepresented groups, and we have revamped the program’s charter to reflect this focus. Community Door will focus on three strategic pillars: Inform, Invest, and Inspire. First, we will help inform companies on how they can better support underrepresented groups in the workplace by providing them with toolkits and other resources that will help them hire and retain diverse talent. We will also invest by donating resources, time, and funds to programs and organizations aligned with the goal of making equity in the workplace a reality. Finally, we will leverage our expertise to host experiences (virtual, for now) like events, workshops, and more to inspire employees and employers alike to join us as we drive for an equitable workplace for all. Transparency can be uncomfortable, but so is every seismic change that has disrupted society or industry. We fully acknowledge that we’re not satisfied with where we are today and know we still have progress to make. These steps we are announcing today alone are not enough, but they are the first steps and actions in a journey forward to create a better future for all. We are fully committed to doing this absolutely necessary work to drive equity in the workplace and beyond by doing what we do best: embracing transparency. Christian *Methodology:

Employee population and demographic data based on internal data shared voluntarily by employees with Glassdoor, as of July 25, 2020.
Race/ethnicity data represents U.S. workforce only in light of relevant European privacy laws.
We have plans to collect and report on additional demographics going forward so we can better understand and support even more of our employee population.

**Glassdoor remains committed to the highest level of content and workplace review integrity, including strictly protecting user anonymity.

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Christian Sutherland-Wong

Christian Sutherland-Wong is chief executive officer of Glassdoor. Christian became CEO in January 2020, responsible for leading Glassdoor’s mission to help people everywhere find a job and company they love. He joined Glassdoor in 2015 as vice president and general manager of monetization. In 2018, he was appointed as the company’s first chief operating officer and was promoted to president in 2019.

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Glassdoor CEO: Our Steps To Drive Equity in the Workplace

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