Our 2021 Workforce Diversity Report Published on Oct 20, 2021 Categories: Company News LinkedIn Corporate Communications
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At LinkedIn, we are building a more diverse and inclusive company where all talent thrives. We envision a workforce that reflects the communities we serve, and diversity, inclusion, and belonging (DIBs) remain our number one talent priority. Over the past 12 months we've made significant investments, and we're seeing advances across our DIBS strategy globally. In this year's workforce diversity report, we're sharing an update on our progress with a mix of enthusiasm for the momentum we have established and deep humility in recognizing that we have more work to do.
We've accelerated our work to create an environment of belonging across LinkedIn. This work is global in scope with a goal to build a consistent culture of inclusion that every employee at LinkedIn is responsible for driving. We partner with organizations that share our commitment to creating diverse and inclusive workplaces and offer invaluable expertise directly developing our talent strategy. Last year, we launched our inclusive leadership for managers initiative, reaching over three-quarters of our global manager population. We are now expanding on that foundation with additional learning paths for people managers and a growing portfolio of offerings for individual contributors (ICs).
Last year, we made a public commitment to double the number of Black and Latino leaders, managers, and senior individual contributors in our U.S. workforce by FY25. After a strong FY21, we are proud to report that we're pacing ahead of schedule on this commitment, growing the Black leader, manager, and senior IC population by 35.0%, and the equivalent Latino population by 20.3%. Our highest growth has been at the leadership level, where Black and Latino representation at the Director level have grown by 1.5 pp and 1.0 pp, respectively over the past year. More broadly, we've seen strong growth in representation at all levels, where U.S. Black employee representation grew by 1.0 pp and Latino representation by 0.6 pp. We have also placed an emphasis on gender diversity globally. We saw progress in the representation of women in technical roles, which grew at 1.3 pp this year. Our representation of women in leadership remained stable at 41.8% and will continue to be a global focus area in each of our three regions.
Looking ahead, we will continue to build on the momentum we established in FY21 by focusing on our core strategic pillars - Environment of Belonging, Growth & Development, Inclusion Recruiting, and Strategic Partnerships. We also launched an Equity Strategy organization to help drive equal access and equitable outcomes in our products and platform experience. By continuing to invest in this forever work, we aim to create long-term, sustained progress that continues to help us evolve to where we aspire to be.
Environment of Belonging
Underpinning our strategy is a continued focus on the environment we create for every employee. Our priority is to ensure that our people managers provide inclusive leadership to their teams. This group-the people who most influence employee careers and the day-to-day working culture-is essential to our progress.
Our approach is a holistic three-part strategy focused on expectations, education, and accountability. We began by setting a clear expectation that every manager globally must cultivate an inclusive leadership skill set to succeed at LinkedIn. Over 75% of people managers completed our Leading with Inclusion half-day learning event this year, which was offered in every global region, and we're already seeing a positive impact on the teams of managers who have gone through the learning. Knowing that inclusive leadership is a lifelong pursuit, we will be rolling out new learning paths and engagement tools this year.
Our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are an important foundation for an environment of belonging, and we have invested in the 500 ERG leaders who contribute their skills and energy to this goal. We not only see these employees as leaders in their ERG communities, but also as current and future leaders of LinkedIn's business. This year we introduced Distinguish, a program to recognize the contributions of our global ERG co-chairs through financial awards and other forms of recognition. This program is part of a broader strategy that includes investing in leadership and business strategy skills for our global ERG leaders through our C.E.O. leadership program. Beyond these initiatives, our environment of belonging strategy includes Allyship Academy, efforts centered around people with disabilities, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and executive and leadership engagement. [Learn more about this work here]
Growth & Development
The core to sustaining an inclusive and diverse workforce is ensuring that employees from all backgrounds-especially those from historically excluded or marginalized groups-have the same opportunity to grow and develop their careers. Over the past year, we have deepened and expanded our growth & development work across regions, audiences, and levels.
One example where we've seen success is the Catalyst Program, which focuses on leadership development for employees from underrepresented racial groups in EMEA and Latin America. Catalyst expanded this year into three connected programs tailored to employees at different seniority levels and at different stages of their development journeys. Catalyst has had impressive results in supporting retention and career transformation by focusing on both employees and their managers.
As our growth and development strategy has evolved, we're deepening investments in groups like women in leader
