SOCIAL
Pinterest Publishes New Update on Employee Diversity and its Impacts on Product Decisions
Pinterest has this week released a new update on its efforts to employ a more diverse and inclusive range of people within its organization, and the impacts that those efforts have had on its product decisions.
As explained by Pinterest:
“It’s hard to feel inspired when you don’t feel represented – online or in your workplace – and research shows that diverse teams make us more creative, diligent and hard-working. When we are building products, a team of people with different backgrounds enables us to think through products, policies, and safety from all angles (for instance, how products could be abused or how they could unintentionally impact a community).”
Pinterest has set a range of targets on staff diversity, and it says that, for the most part, it’s now meeting those aims:
- We wanted to increase hiring rates for full-time women engineers to 25% and surpassed it with a new high of 27%
- We wanted to increase hiring rates to 8% underrepresented* minority engineers and exceeded it at 9%
- We wanted to increase hiring rates for underrepresented minority employees across the company (business and product) to 12% and exceeded it at 14%
This increased focus on diversity has lead to some significant, inclusive product developments, including improved user wellbeing policies, the creation of a gender transition guide for organizations, and the implementation of a ‘skin tone’ search qualifier to hone in on more relevant search results.
In a more progressive, inclusive online world, Pinterest is looking to lead the way in showing how expanding your employee perspective can lead to a more beneficial, supportive and welcoming situation – both for the employees themselves and for those utilizing your services. The outcomes listed here highlight exactly what that looks like in practice, and as the world becomes even more connected, such initiatives will only increase in relevance.
You can read Pinterest’s full ‘Diversity Report 2020’ update here.