A year ago, Glassdoor publicly shared our vision to bring radical transparency to workplaces everywhere because we believe transparency drives change. When there is transparency, employers have more information and are motivated to improve and transform. As part of this effort, we hold ourselves accountable for helping to create a more diverse and equitable society and workplace. As we stated last year, it starts within our own company.
In 2020, we committed to publishing an annual update to show how we’re progressing towards becoming a more diverse, equitable and inclusive employer. One year later, we have several updates to share as to where we stand today, the work we’ve done over the past 12 months, and the work ahead to reach our goals.
Progress and Learnings to Date
Overall, there has been some positive momentum and progress over the past 12 months, but we recognize that there is still much work to be done. As it relates to hiring diverse talent, we’ve made significant progress as 30% of all new hires are from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups.
We have accomplished this in part due to changes we made last year in how we source and find talent. While this is a bright spot, we continue to learn from our recruiting strategies and tactics. We plan to make further adjustments in the coming year, such as leveraging technology to help us review, write and rewrite all job descriptions, so the language and messaging we use are fully inclusive and free of bias. We continue to dedicate a significant portion of time to sourcing efforts among underrepresented groups, as well as thinking carefully about where we post jobs.
Beyond recruiting and hiring a more diverse employee base, we are also focused on improving the retention of our diverse employee base, particularly with respect to racial/ethnic representation among our leaders (director level and above). To help, we have new plans in place to better support current employees, including a talent program focused on equity and cultivating diverse talent across the organization.
We are one year into a five-year plan to improve representation, equity and inclusion at Glassdoor. While progress has been made in our recruiting efforts (such as improving interview processes and our own employer branding) and greater attention is being given to retention, these are but initial steps. They represent early milestones on our journey to continue learning and to deliver on our commitment to achieving greater diversity, inclusion and belonging.
Curious how Glassdoor's CEO views our progress towards building a more inclusive work environment? Read here
Our 2025 Commitments
Last year, we published our goals for 2025, and described where we were starting this five-year journey. Our vision is that our workforce should be reflective of the communities in which we operate as well as the users we serve. Our goals for gender balance are based on general averages in the countries where we currently have employees; our race/ethnicity goals are based solely on the U.S. population.
Here is where we are and where we want to be:
- Black employee representation is currently at 5%. We want to have at least 8% representation by the end of 2025.
- Latinx employee representation is currently at 4%. We want to have at least 10% representation.
- Pacific Islander/ Native Hawaiian/ Indigenous American/ Alaska Native employee representation is currently at less than 1%. We want to have at least 1% representation.
- Women in tech roles are currently at 25%. We want to have at least 33% of our tech roles held by women.
- Women in leadership roles (director+) are currently at 36%. We want to have at least 50% of our leadership roles held by women.
- We want all of our employees to feel that they belong at Glassdoor. To help us achieve that goal, we set a target of 78% or more of our employees to state that they “feel a sense of belonging at Glassdoor”, as measured by our employee polling tool. We are currently at 81%.
In addition, this year we are committing to a new goal to meet by the end of 2025, which is to have at least 15% of our leadership team (director+) identify as belonging to an underrepresented racial/ethnic group (specifically Black, Latinx and Pacific Islander/ Native Hawaiian/ Indigenous American/ Alaska Native). We are currently at 3%.
Research: Glassdoor Pays Equitably in 2021
Holding ourselves accountable to be a more equitable workplace also means ensuring that we pay our people equitably. The results of our annual Pay Equity 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 sixth consecutive year that Glassdoor has found no adjusted gender pay differential in its analysis; it is the third year we've analyzed pay by race/ethnicity and, similarly, we found no statistically significant adjusted pay gaps. Ensuring equitable pay based on gender or race/ethnicity is an ongoing priority, and we will continue our efforts to ensure that each and every employee is compensated fairly. Read more about the analysis and findings.
Our People
To provide further transparency as to where we are as a company today, here is a snapshot of our workforce as of June 30, 2021.
By Gender
- Glassdoor employs nearly 700 employees worldwide
- 53% of our global employee population are men and 46% are women
- Among tech roles, 74% of our global employees are men and 25% are women
- Among non-tech roles, 41% of our global employees are men and 58% are women
- 64% of our global leaders (director+) are men and 36% are women
By Race/ Ethnicity (U.S.)
- 10% of Glassdoor’s U.S. employee population identifies as being members of underrepresented racial/ ethnic groups (those other than White and Asian)
- 54% of U.S. Glassdoor employees are White, 26% are Asian, 5% are Black, 4% are Hispanic or Latino, 2% identify as two or more races and less than 1% are Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian/Indigenous American/Alaska Native.
- Among U.S.-based tech roles at Glassdoor, most are held by Asian (46%) and White (40%) employees
- Among our U.S. leadership group, 70% are White and 18% are Asian
How We Will Continue to Build a More Diverse, Equitable and Inclusive Glassdoor
One of the main areas of positive change at Glassdoor over the last year has been how and whom we hire. As I said 12 months ago, part of building and nurturing a diverse workforce and equitable workplace culture where all people feel they belong starts even before employees become employees. We therefore now incorporate a DEI lens into every stage of our hiring process, from job descriptions to interviewing and employer branding. We have dedicated more than half of our sourcing efforts, including our online advertising campaigns, to focus on attracting candidates from underrepresented groups. Initial results are promising: 13% of new Glassdoor employees hired within the past 12 months are Black, and 13% are Latinx. We know this is just a start, but we are encouraged by our initial success.
Our employee resource groups (ERGs) have gathered momentum in terms of output and engagement, with at least 40% of employees now a member of an ERG. They are indispensable partners in our efforts. An additional ERG, ADEPT (Advocates for Disability Education, Partnership and Talent), was created in May 2021 and already has 120 members. Our diversity, inclusion, community & equity council (DICE) is made up of the co-chairs of each ERG and works closely with Senior Executives on high priority strategic initiatives. And, while in all candor it does not reflect the full measure of how much we value their extra work on Glassdoor’s behalf, we also pay our ERG leaders for their critical contributions to our DEI work.
Each ERG undertakes its own fundraising and community activities through Glassdoor’s Community Door program. These activities support initiatives designed to promote equity and support non-profit organizations aligning with our goals of expanding opportunities for underserved and underrepresented job-seekers to enter the labor market. Some examples of what our ERGs are doing in the community:
- BUILD ERG (Blacks United in Leadership & Development) continues to explore partnership options with various community and professional organizations, as well as schools in Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere, focusing on advancing racial equity through programs such as:
- Work preparedness (skill development, training, etc.)
- Mock interviews
- Access to education
- Tutoring
- Community outreach
- La Familia (our Hispanic/ Latinx focused ERG) is partnering with Techqueria as a corporate partner. Techqueria helps build Latinx-centered community spaces that promote career advice, technical talks, mentorship, open jobs, and more. We are very excited to share that we recently made our first hire from Techqueria, and look forward to hiring more talented individuals advancing through Techqueria’s programming.
- WinG (our Women in Glassdoor ERG) raised $4,645 to support its partner organization, Dress for Success, as part of its ‘Your Hour Her Power’ campaign during Women’s History Month. Our WinG members have spent approximately 90 hours coaching Dress for Success San Jose clients through their speaker program, 1-on-1 mentorships and mock interviews.
- Our ERG for the Asian community, GAIN, partnered with APIA Scholars at the end of 2020. In February 2021, GAIN participated in scholarship volunteering at an APIA event where GAIN members were responsible for reviewing applications for high school and college students, collectively reviewing over 100 applications. In March 2021, as Asian hate crimes were on the rise, GAIN members rallied and, with the support of many generous Glassdoor employees, donated $17,410. GAIN also matched $1000 in donations to stopaapihate.org
- Pride (our LGBTQ+ employee resource group) selected Brave Space Alliance (BSA) to be a partner for FY22. Beginning Summer 2021, Pride will be working with BSA on its Employment Justice Program, helping to align trans people with jobs and opportunities in protected and affirming workplaces.
We’ve also made tangible progress with internal education and training programs over the past year, with numerous speakers and events promoting heightened awareness, understanding and the fostering of allyship. We are launching a mentorship and sponsorship program this summer to create and maintain connectivity in the hybrid working environment (with many employees choosing to work remotely some or all of the time), as well as to support further employee career development and mobility. We also redesigned our leadership development program, “Leading@Glassdoor” to focus on strengthening our managers’ inclusive leadership skills . We will also be launching a talent program focused on attaining and ensuring equity and cultivating diverse talent across the organization. This program will include sponsorship, career pathing and coaching, leadership and professional development and community service. Finally, we are developing an Inclusive Leadership program with the aim of driving transformative change within our Senior Executive team, ranging from programs to bring more diversity into leadership roles to ensuring team cultures are more diverse and equitable, and all employees feel they belong.
We are committed to building a culture where everyone can flourish and thrive. Commitment to this work is non-negotiable for Glassdoor, and we look forward to sharing a further update on our progress in one year.
Methodology:
- Glassdoor’s 2021 employee population and demographic data is as of June 30, 2021 and based on internal data shared voluntarily by Glassdoor employees.
- Race/ethnicity data represents U.S. workforce only in light of relevant European privacy laws.
- In some cases, percentages for certain fields may not equal 100% due to employees choosing not to disclose certain demographic information. In addition, in some cases, percentages may exceed 100% due to rounding.