Apple's page on diversity
The Era of 'Diversity'
The year is 1965. President Lyndon B. Johnson just issued an Executive Order that requires government employers to take "affirmative action" to "hire without regard to race, religion and national origin." In 1967, gender was added onto that list. It was a significant step toward combating discrimination at the time. Fast-forward to 2018. Large companies like Apple, Google, Amazon and others boast about their 'diverse' work culture. 'Diversity' has become a sparkly addition in corporations' mission statements. Minorities and women are flourishing in today's job market and employers are also reaping the benefits of a truly diverse workplace, right? Well...not quite.
(Statistics) Not All that Glitters...
“Sociologists from Stanford University and Harvard Business School recently looked at more than 40 years of data on the racial makeup of every large private-sector workplace in the U.S., and found that while there are more people of color across occupations, individual employers are still pretty homogenous and actually more divided than they were in the ’70s”, states author Kristen Bahler of Time.
Google's 2017 diversity report
Most companies don’t even share their EEO-1 data internally. It is quite the stretch for a company to release this data publicly. However, thanks to social media, giants like Twitter and Google have been pressured to publicly release their diversity reports.
Their numbers are a stark reflection of Harvard’s segregation study. White, male employees make up more than half the overall workplace, with Asian employees tailing behind around 30 percent. Black and Hispanic workers occupy a depressing 2-4 percent. When viewing leadership positions, the percentage of Whites and males enjoy a significant bump, while the rest of the ethnicities dip even further downward (Blacks and Hispanics are now tied at 2 percent!)
Switching over to non-tech positions, there is a close percentage of men and women represented. White employee percentages also rise, while this time around, the Asian percentage drops. Unsurprisingly (or surprisingly), Black and Hispanic percentages rise to 5 percent. Native American and Pacific Islanders are relegated to the less than 1 percent in every category.
What do these differences in leadership and non-leadership mean, and are they important?
How do we reach this in all workplaces?
Is there a solution?
One of the most efficient ways to fix an issue is to acknowledge there even is one. Large corporations, such as Google, being transparent about their lack of diversity is a good start. It also sets an example to follow for smaller companies.
However, leaders of corporations shouldn’t need to be intensely pressured to diversify their workplaces. They should be educated about segregation and how it prevents their business from flourishing. Leaders should also recognize that an overall perception of diversity does not actually equal a diverse workplace. “If everyone in the mail room is black, and all the white people are computer programmers, it doesn’t matter if the labor force as a whole is a lot more diverse” says John-Paul Ferguson of Stanford University.