Facebook makes modest progress on workplace diversity

Revealing the LGBT workforce data at its premises for the first time, Facebook on Thursday released its diversity report, announcing a modest increase in the number of women and minority employees and highlighting lack of talent to fulfill its diversity goals.

While its current representation in senior leadership is 3 per cent Black, 3 per cent Hispanic and 27 percent women, "of new senior leadership hires at Facebook in the US over the last 12 months, 9 percent are Black, 5 percent are Hispanic and 29 percent are women," said Maxine Williams, Global Director of Diversity, Facebook, in a post.

"In a voluntary survey of our employees in the US about sexual orientation and gender identity, to which 61 per cent responded, 7 percent self-identified as being lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender or asexual. We are proud to support the LGBTQ community through our policies, products and extensive benefits for our employees," Williams said.

Facebook also committed $15 million to Code.org and took TechPrep resource hub to communities of colour across the US.

"Facebook's five-year commitment will help Code.org to drive the development of curricula, public school teacher-training and student skills-building, particularly among traditionally underrepresented populations in engineering and computer science," the Facebook executive wrote.

Facebook needs an employee base that reflects a broad range of experiences, backgrounds, races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, abilities and many other characteristics.

"Over the past few years, we have been working hard to increase diversity at Facebook through a variety of internal and external programs and partnerships. We still have a long way to go, but as we continue to strive for greater change, we are encouraged by positive hiring trends," the company said.

The strength in recruiting has also contributed to an increase by several percentage points of women in leadership, from 23 per cent to 27 percent and Black people in non-tech from 3 percent to 5 percent.

Facebook also aims to build an inclusive environment through its training on managing unconscious bias.

"Nearly 100 per cent of people at the manager level and above - and 75 per cent of all US employees - have taken our Managing Bias class," Williams said.

--IANS

na/vt