Pinterest announced on Wednesday that it will begin transforming its working environment to become more diverse in terms of gender and race. They plan to begin this by hiring more women and professionals of different cultural and racial backgrounds. Pinterest has been valued at around $11 billion.
PINTEREST PIONEERED PUBLIC DIVERSITY INFORMATION IN TECHNOLOGY
They believe that by making this information public, that it will encourage professionals of different backgrounds that will eventually assist the company in fulfilling its pledge. Pinterest has also released company diversity statistics that women are making up a positive 42 percent, and employees are still predominantly white, at around 49 percent, and Asian, at 43 percent. Pinterest has assured that they are taking a step beyond the other companies that claim that they want more diversity in technology. Although the overall diversity statistics have been consistently low within the past few years, many civil rights activists are pressing for Silicon Valley to increase diversity.
PINTEREST HAS VOICED CONCERNS OF DIVERSITY IN THE PAST
This isn’t the first time that Pinterest has voiced major concern about diversity in the office. In 2013, an engineer for Pinterest called on other technology companies to release their diversity statistics in a Medium post. The engineer’s efforts pre-date the conventional reports that some of the big firms have started releasing since the publishing. In 2014, Apple, Facebook, and Google all released diversity reports about the internal set up of their workforces. A second report came out and the numbers showed that white males are still in the majority.
PINTEREST REQUIRES EMPLOYEES TO PARTICIPATE IN CULTURE AND DIVERSITY TRAINING
Pinterest also requires its current employees to participate in training that is hoped to increase and improve the diversity numbers and avoid culture bred differences. Under 4 percent of Pinterest’s engineering team has an ethnic background that is not exclusively Asian or white. They are aiming to have around 8 percent of engineers and 12 percent of non-engineers to come from underrepresented ethnic backgrounds, including Hispanic and African-Americans. According to Pinterest, “If you don’t reassure it, you don’t mean it.”
