Twitter Vows More Diversity, Admits There's 'A Lot Of Work To Do'
Silicon Valley is suddenly awakened to the fact that workplace diversity is a thing, one in which technology firms as a whole are somewhat lacking. Several companies have vowed to do a better job at building a diverse workplace, including Twitter, the latest firm to come forward with statistics in an industry that typically keeps such data out of the public eye.
As with several tech firms, Twitter's workforce is dominated by white males. Overall, 7 out of 10 employees are male, and when it comes to technical jobs, the percentage of males jumps to 90 percent, meaning just 1 in 10 technical employees are female.
Source: Twitter
Leadership roles are just as lopsided, with 79 percent of the positions belonging to males and 21 percent to females. Only when it comes to "non-tech" jobs is there an equal split between men and women at Twitter.
Source: Twitter
"Research shows that more diverse teams make better decisions, and companies with women in leadership roles produce better financial results," Janet Van Huysse, VP of Diversity and Inclusion at Twitter, stated in a blog post. "But we want to be more than a good business; we want to be a business that we are proud of. To that end, we are joining some peer companies by sharing our ethnic and gender diversity data. And like our peers, we have a lot of work to do."
To Twitter's credit, not only does it join rare company in the tech sector by releasing diversity details and statistics, but there are a number of employee-led efforts within the company that focus on the subject, such as WomEng (women in engineering), SWAT (super women at Twitter), TwUX (Twitter women in design), Blackbird (Tweeps of color), TwitterOpen (LGBTQ folks), and Alas (Latino and Latina employees).
As with several tech firms, Twitter's workforce is dominated by white males. Overall, 7 out of 10 employees are male, and when it comes to technical jobs, the percentage of males jumps to 90 percent, meaning just 1 in 10 technical employees are female.
Source: Twitter
Leadership roles are just as lopsided, with 79 percent of the positions belonging to males and 21 percent to females. Only when it comes to "non-tech" jobs is there an equal split between men and women at Twitter.
Source: Twitter
"Research shows that more diverse teams make better decisions, and companies with women in leadership roles produce better financial results," Janet Van Huysse, VP of Diversity and Inclusion at Twitter, stated in a blog post. "But we want to be more than a good business; we want to be a business that we are proud of. To that end, we are joining some peer companies by sharing our ethnic and gender diversity data. And like our peers, we have a lot of work to do."
To Twitter's credit, not only does it join rare company in the tech sector by releasing diversity details and statistics, but there are a number of employee-led efforts within the company that focus on the subject, such as WomEng (women in engineering), SWAT (super women at Twitter), TwUX (Twitter women in design), Blackbird (Tweeps of color), TwitterOpen (LGBTQ folks), and Alas (Latino and Latina employees).
