In today’s workplace, diversity is more than just a buzzword; it’s a way to build a stronger business. At Pinterest, we understand that diverse teams yield smarter, more innovative results, which are essential in the competitive, dynamic tech industry. With over 175 million active users worldwide, Pinterest thrives on providing users with relevant ideas: what to wear, what to cook, how to furnish your home, and where to travel. Pinterest’s fastest growing users are outside of the United States, and for current and future users, it’s important that the people building our product make it relevant to people of different ethnic, social, physical, and geographic backgrounds.
What We Learned from Improving Diversity Rates at Pinterest
Pinterest set a goal in 2016 to hire women engineers at nearly twice the industry rate (16%). They needed a strategy to reach this goal and others, and to ensure a culture of belonging and managerial competence in inclusion. By the end of the year, they had hit or exceeded most of our goals, improving hiring rates of underrepresented engineers from 1 to 9% and increasing underrepresented talent from 7% to 12% in other roles. But they saw limited movement for women engineers, only increasing their hiring rate from 21% to 22%, which fell short of our goal. The experience offers four key lessons about how to improve diversity from within a company: 1) Setting diversity goals isn’t enough; you need to repeatedly explain why they matter; 2) Embracing diversity means getting comfortable with being uncomfortable; 3) Diversity doesn’t slow down hiring — it makes it more efficient; 4) Pursuing diversity requires plenty of course correction.