Our 2020 Workforce Diversity Report Published on Oct 21, 2020 LinkedIn Corporate Communications
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Today, we published our annual workforce diversity report. As an organization that exists to create economic opportunity for the entire global workforce, we recognize the responsibility we have to help build that future, both within our workforce and for our hundreds of millions of members and customers. In the long-term, this means building towards a world where professional organizations are a reflection of the communities in which they operate.
As a company, we're making a commitment to double the number of Black and Latino leaders, managers, and senior individual contributors on our U.S. team over the next five years. This commitment represents just one part of our broader strategy. The extended work we're doing in support of this commitment will lift our efforts globally.
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At a time of global focus on racial injustice and a pandemic that has disproportionately affected Black and Latino communities in the United States, along with other marginalized communities worldwide, the work of economic equity has never been more important. We believe companies -- as the enablers of wealth creation and professional mobility -- must play a leading role in building a more equitable future for all. And as an organization that exists to create economic opportunity for the entire global workforce, we recognize the responsibility we have to help build that future, both within our workforce and for our millions of members and customers. In the long-term, this means building towards a world where professional organizations are a reflection of the communities where they operate.
Our Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging strategy begins with LinkedIn's workforce, with an ongoing focus on increasing representation of underrepresented communities and building an environment of inclusion and belonging at LinkedIn. This strategy is both broad in scope and global, including a focus on gender, underrepresented racial groups, and other historically marginalized groups in every region where we operate. To infuse this work more deeply in our decision-making and operations, we've added a new value to our LinkedIn company values for the first time since their creation in 2008: Embody Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging.
We're introducing a new commitment to double the number of Black and Latino leaders, managers, and senior individual contributors on our U.S. team over the next five years. By focusing on increasing and maintaining diversity in senior positions and the leadership pipeline, we're centering attention on roles with the most responsibility and decision-making authority, while also enhancing development pathways for underrepresented talent at all levels. This commitment represents just one part of our broader strategy, and though we don't yet measure race and ethnicity outside of the U.S., the work we're doing in support of this commitment will lift our efforts for all marginalized and underrepresented groups globally.
Below, you'll find a summary of how we're putting our vision into practice in the near and long term, including our progress in FY20, and the aspirations that will guide us as we work hard to build a more diverse and inclusive LinkedIn.
Doubling down on an environment of inclusion
This year, our top talent initiative is focused on building a people manager population who are world class at inclusive leadership. Managers have an outsized impact on the work of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. They are responsible for hiring and promotion decisions, coaching and developing the people on their teams, and setting the tone for an inclusive culture. Recognizing that leading inclusively and mitigating bias will take sustained focus, we're putting into place a strategy with three key pillars:
Expectations, where we've rolled out a framework defining what inclusive leadership looks like for every manager at LinkedIn
Education, beginning with a foundational live-virtual learning course called Leading with Inclusion offered in every global region
Accountability, where we're developing processes to make inclusive leadership a requirement for success as a manager at LinkedIn
A critical component of our inclusive leadership work is that it will be global from the start. The practices and principles we apply will help build a culture of belonging for employees of many different historically marginalized backgrounds. We've already rolled out live virtual training in all three of our global regions, with participants from 20 offices to date. Our senior leaders, including the executive team and vice presidents, engaged in this learning path this past quarter.
Extending beyond the people manager population, we've activated allyship circles in over a dozen offices around the world. We've also deepened our focus on people with disabilities, launching a series of learning sessions in our India, Japan, and China offices focused on building an inclusive environment for people with disabilities, and this year, we were recognized by the Disability Equality Index (DEI) as being one of the 2020 Best Places to Work for Disability Inclusion, scoring 100 in the ranking.
Retaining and developing our employees
In conjunction with our focus on creating an environment of inclusion, retention and development of underrepresented employee populations is a principal FY21 objective. While we saw an increase in Black and Latino retention in the U.S. over the course of FY20, we are focused on closing the remaining gap in retention between employees from underrepresented groups and our overall retention rate. We are expanding our Leadership, Engagement, and Development (LEAD) program, which is focused on
