Lack of diversity in corporate America is a well-documented problem and improvements have been slow. I’ve seen this first hand throughout my career: from serving as a champion for the Department of Energy’s Minorities in Energy Initiative and leading diversity programs at Lockheed Martin to my current role where I lead our diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at Google.
I’ve learned over the years that you can’t fix what you don’t measure. Representation is a function of many factors such as hiring, development, progression, retention and culture. Without measuring these things, it is hard to know what changes need to be made. Which is why, at Google, we’ve been taking a second look at what and who we measure.
Specifically, we started paying closer attention to attrition rates so we know how many employees stay and leave our company each year. Why? Because we can’t improve representation without knowing which employees are leaving faster than others. More importantly, there are human beings behind the numbers we report each year, and how well we retain and develop talent has a real impact on people’s careers and lives. That’s why we care about getting this right, and getting better.
Last year, Google published its first attrition index, and the results were mixed. Attrition rates indicate how many employees leave a company annually. Globally, women were leaving Google at lower rates than the average, and in the U.S., where we are able to report across race, Black and Latinx Googlers were leaving at faster rates than the average. Looking at these numbers, I always think about my mother’s experience at the bank. What would they have lost if they had failed to keep her there? Would they have been able to fix the roadblocks that ended her career? Thankfully, by measuring these numbers at Google, we can implement initiatives across Google to find solutions. Here’s a look at the improvements and progress we have made over the past year, and the work we have ahead.
Read the full article @ Google Perspectives
