Diversity and Inclusion Company Index: Facebook
The awareness of diversity and inclusion in business has grown over the last few years. More and more companies, even from the tech industry, try to keep their commitments to make diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) part of everything. Plenty of research suggests that companies can grow following that path, as it drives community spirit, social cohesion and brings out the best version of their employees.
Given the challenges 2020 presented globally, Facebook like many other companies made the pandemic a priority. In its diversity and inclusion report for 2020, the motto’s company was “Advancing Opportunity for all”.
COVID 19 & PANDEMIC
Facebook highlighted that they tried to build a reliable COVID information hub, helped local news outlets continue their critical services, and helped researchers track its spread, through data to get supplies to hot spots ahead of outbreaks.
In the US, where communities of color were suffering disproportionately not just from the disease but also from the economic collapse, they committed millions of dollars to minority, women, and veteran-owned businesses, organizations, and nonprofits.
In general, they are working closely with the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and national ministries of health to connect people with accurate information and help limit the spread of misinformation.
GENDER EQUALITY
Looking at the numbers, though, the social networking company received much criticism over gender and ethnicity rates within its workforce as they failed to make progress on a yearly basis.
According to the report, men represent 63% of Facebook’s workforce globally, just down from 63.1% in 2019. In 2014, that number was 69%. They are particularly overrepresented in technical roles, comprising 75.9% in 2020 (down from 77% in 2019, and 85% in 2014).
The report showed the number of female employees increased slightly from 36.9% in 2019 to 37% in 2020 in all roles, while the percentage of women in the high levels of hierarchy shows that there is more work to be done, with only 34.2% in 2020 in comparison to 32.6% in 2019. The highest increase is attributed to non-technical roles, where the percentage is 58.5%.
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ETHNICITY RUN
Unfortunately, the same pattern is depicted in the Ethnicity chart where we see that the majority of Black and Hispanic employees work in non-technical roles. Black employees went from 8.2% in 2019 to 8.9% in 2020 and Hispanic from 8.8% to 10.7% respectively. Asian employees continued to have an upward trend at the company, growing to 44.4% of the total US workforce.
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”20″ gal_title=”Facebook Ethnicity”]
FUTURE GOALS
Last year, the social networking firm set the goal of “50 in 5,” which means that by 2024, at least 50% of their workforce will be underrepresented people.
To achieve this, the company aims to double the number of women employees globally and double the number of Black and Hispanic employees in the US.
In 2019, people from underrepresented groups accounted for 43% of the staff. That number went up to 45.3%.
Also, they made an additional commitment: to increase the representation of people of color in leadership positions in the US by 30 percent, including a 30 percent increase in the representation of Black people in leadership, by 2025.
https://www.facebook.com/facebook/videos/281315249635835/
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