Diversity: The Other Half of the Equation
Last August, we joined other tech companies in releasing our workforce demographics publicly for the first time. We published this data to give ourselves a benchmark for increasing the diversity that’s so critical to Pandora’s continued success.
Today, we updated those numbers. And while we absolutely have more work to do, there are signals our efforts are on the right track. For example, we continue to have an equal representation of men and women. We also increased the percentage of employees who identify as a person of color by 10 percent and the percentage of Pandora employees who identify as a person of color in leadership roles by 14 percent. Our senior diversity manager, Lisa Lee, addresses this in more detail in her Medium post today. I encourage you to give it a read.
But acquiring diverse talent is just one half of the equation. Creating a culture in which all employees thrive is the other. At Pandora, this starts with our principles. These include trusting one another and working as one team. We also want you to be yourself and help others do the same. More simply stated, we hire smart, passionate employees who care about what they do and then trust them to make it work however they can.
This culture is already showing up in one subset of our numbers. Women now hold 40 percent of the leadership roles at Pandora. This includes two of the seats on our executive leadership team. For me this is particularly encouraging because a driver of attrition – which is 41 percent for women in tech versus 17 percent for men – is often the “conflict” between work and life. We solve for that by basing our company culture on the principles above and by giving our employees the flexibility to get their work done in a way that works for them. And guess what, people who are trusted work their asses off for you.
With equal commitments to attract diverse talent and nurturing an environment in which all employees thrive, I’m confident we’ll continue to make progress. At the end of the day, this is about building a better collective future. Pandora is invested.
Surveys Manager at University of Otago
9 年This is very inspiring. Good on Pandora for being so transparent. I guess it comes with teh name right? Can't help yourself to open the box to see what's inside :)
Resident Physician
9 年Thanks for sharing the progress at Pandora. Increasing diversity and providing an accepting, encouraging environment can do a lot for creativity and satisfaction. I look forward to seeing more from you and others.
Freelance Writer & Editor
9 年To those questioning the focus of bringing diversity in the workforce: The problem behind the most "qualified" or "best" is that it's always subjective, even if under the veil of seemingly objective interview questions or resume hurdles. Subjective choices about what makes someone more qualified can cause a lack of diversity in the work force exactly because they *come* from a lack of diversity in the work force -- it's an enclosed system. For example, SATs don't actually predict how well you suceed in college, but colleges still use them for admisisions, and just because one person had the opportunity to have three unpaid internships and another had to work at a grocery store during or after college doesn't mean they can't both succeed in the same job. Our choice of hiring practices is often arbitrary in order to make easier decisions/narrow the field, and those practices can be fed by our pre-existing tendencies to pick people "like us," whatever those characteristisc may be. A diverse workforce not only begets diverse hiring, but it also creates more dynamic business ideas and products. Hence, diversity isn't just about good hiring practices, it's about good business. Kudos, Lisa Lee. You rock!
MLT CEO & Founder
9 年Tim, I have tremendous respect for your transparency and am proud that MLT is partnering with Pandora to make continued progress on diversity and inclusion.
CEO @ Goal Aligned Media | Digital Marketing, Advanced Analytics
9 年Everyone should get a fair chance, but the biased hiring practices you've described are offensive and a slap in the face to many of those whom you've hired. The implication of your practice is that the people you're giving preferential treatment to are less capable and wouldn't have been hired without your favoritism. I’ve hired a high percentage of Chinese women when looking for Statistical Analysts because they’ve more often been the ones to arrive at the interview and done the best job at answering the questions. Should I stop hiring them so that I can pretend that some other group answered the questions better even though they didn’t? If you’ve studied and know your stuff you should get the job, otherwise you shouldn’t.