Google released its seventh consecutive diversity report on Thursday, revealing modest gains in representation for women and people of color, and a disproportionately white, Asian and male workforce.



The percentage of black hires in the U.S. grew from 4.8% in 2018 to 5.5% in 2019, a .7% increase. The percentage of black hires in technical roles also grew by .7%, the largest increase in the share of black technical hires since Google first started publishing diversity data. Latinx employees, on the other hand, saw a dip in hiring, dropping from 6.8% in 2018 to 6.6% in 2019. The percentage of Latinx employees in technical roles increased by a mere .2%.



Female employees didn’t fare much better, dropping from 33.2% of global hires in 2018 to 32.5% in 2019. Over that same time period, the percentage of women hired for technical positions remained at about 25.6%—a far cry from gender parity. But hiring only shows one side of the coin, which is why Google began to include attrition rates in 2018.



As in previous years, women continued to have a lower than average attrition rate in 2019, while Latinx attrition in the U.S. dipped below the Google average. Attrition was highest for Native Americans and increased significantly for black women.



Overall, Google’s workforce representation—defined as hiring minus attrition—saw a slight uptick for most underrepresented groups. Black and Latinx employees represented 9.6% of the U.S. workforce in 2019, up from 9% in 2018, and women represented 32% of Google’s global workforce, up from 31.6%.



The representation of women and Latinx employees in leadership roles also grew, increasing by .6% and .4% respectively. The percentage of black employees in leadership positions didn’t change year-over-year and dropped by .2% for Native American employees.



Although the needle has barely budged for women and people of color in tech over the last year, Google has made it a point to invest in diversity programs. Through its philanthropic arm,&nbsp;Google.org, the company committed $10 million to support low-income students and students of color in Bay Area STEM classrooms in 2019.



Internally, the company has launched smaller initiatives, such as running all job postings through a bias removal tool, which it says has led to an 11% increase in applications from women. And in an effort to retain diverse talent, Google expanded its retention case management program for underrepresented employees who are considering leaving the company.



Looking at its most recent diversity figures, however, Google concedes that there is considerable room for improvement. “The Native American population is one of those areas where we remain flat and so we will continue to invest more focus in 2020 to make sure that we&#8217;re targeting this population as well,” says Melonie Parker, Google’s chief diversity officer.



While she wouldn’t specify what that investment would entail, Parker says that the company is moving forward on its 2020 diversity goals and will continue to focus on representation and creating an inclusive culture companywide. She also notes that&nbsp;even the smallest percentage gains represent&nbsp;thousands of jobs for underrepresented groups.&nbsp;



One area where Google has seen significant progress is in its internship program: Globally, 40% of interns in technical roles were women in 2019 and 24% of U.S. interns were black and Latinx.



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ruthumoh/">Ruth Umoh</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/diversity-inclusion">Diversity &amp; Inclusion</a>

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Google Diversity Report Shows Little Progress For Women And People Of Color

Twitter published its latest diversity report on Wednesday, revealing, for the sixth consecutive year, that the bulk of its staff is white or Asian and skews male.



Still, the social platform did make good on its two-year&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2018/growingtogetherattwitter.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">diversity targets</a>&nbsp;for female, black and Latinx employees—meeting and, in some cases, exceeding its goals.



Globally, women represent 42.5% of all roles, just half a percentage point shy of Twitter’s 2018 target, and a bump from 38.4% two years ago. Black and Latinx employees make up 5.8% and 4.9% of all roles, compared to 3.4% for both groups at the end of 2017. Twitter’s two-year timeline was 5% for each.



While Twitter’s 2018 goals weren’t exactly ambitions, the results are a promising step in the right direction and show a slight headway on an issue that has long eluded the tech industry.



Broken down by technical and leadership roles, however, the diversity numbers aren’t so laudable. Women represent just a quarter of all technical positions and nearly 36% of leadership positions, while black and Latinx employees combined make up almost 8% of technical roles and 8.7% of leadership roles. Interestingly, a majority of the small percentage of black and Hispanic employees are in leadership positions: 86% and 76% respectively.



Twitter says that its vision is to become the world’s “most diverse and inclusive tech company,” but the company’s relatively homogeneous workforce still mirrors the broader industry’s, and doesn’t fully reflect the community that it serves.Take, for instance, the popularity and influence of Black Twitter. About&nbsp;<a href="https://www.walterkaitz.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nielsen-from-consumers-to-creators.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">28% of Twitter’s 67 million users</a>&nbsp;are African-American, though they represent just 14% of the total U.S. population, and 40% of African-Americans are on Twitter.&nbsp;



“The stakes are incredibly high and we don’t have the luxury of time or incrementalism. We have a unique responsibility to be bold, move fast–and get this right,” Dalana Brand, Twitter’s head of inclusion and diversity, writes in a blog post.



For Twitter, that means committing to new diversity goals. By 2025, the company pledges to have women comprise half of its global workforce, 42% of technical roles and 41% of leadership positions. The company also set a 25% target for the representation of minority ethnic and racial groups–specifically black, Latinx, Native American, Alaskan or Hawaiian/Pacific Islander or multiracial–and is launching an Inclusive Hiring Program, although no details were given on when that initiative will begin.



Later this year, Twitter plans to publish its progress on workforce representation of military veterans, employees with disabilities and LGBT+ workers for the first time.



Since introducing diversity targets in 2018, the company’s global representation of women has increased by 4% and the figures for black and Latinx employees in the U.S. has climbed by 2.4% and 1.5%. In 2019, nearly half of all new hires were women, 47.1%, and 15.7% of U.S. hires were black or Latinx.



&#8211; <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ruthumoh/">Ruth Umoh</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/diversity-inclusion">Diversity &amp; Inclusion</a>

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Twitter’s 2020 Diversity Report Shows Modest Gains As Company Sets New Goals For Representation

Over the past decade, Kenya has taken considerable steps towards deepening financial inclusion. This is reflected in the 2016 FinAccess Household Survey which shows that slightly more than three-quarters of Kenyans are now formally included by the financial system, which is a 50% increase over the past 10 years.
According to the report, the percentage of Kenyans relying on informal services providers decreased from 32.11% in 2006 to 7.2% in 2015. Thanks to technology, 18% of Kenyans now use new mobile banking services such as M-Shwari and M-Pesa, a scenario that has pushed the proportion of bank account users to 38%, up 10% from 2013, while traditional bank accounts have decreased.
Despite the significant progress seen towards enhancing financial inclusion, there is much less success in the use of investment products, such as shares, mutual funds and treasuries. The study showed that the use of investment products decreased to 10.6% in 2016 compared to 11.6% in 2013. Findings by the same survey also revealed that the number of Kenyans familiar with the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) stood at only 38%. It seems that a lack of awareness could be why less than 30% of daily market transactions at the NSE are attributed to local individual investors.
But there is hope. Mobile phone platforms are being used to increase awareness and participation. Data shows that 26% of Kenya’s adult population own a smartphone or other smart devices. The uptake of mobile banking services has led to an increase in the banks’ penetration in the past 10 years, from 14% in 2006 to 38.4% in 2015. Investment managers, stockbrokers and insurance companies will also be buoyed by market studies that show that 71% of the population uses financial services provided by mobile financial service providers. This is a clear sign that mobile phones are the best way to encourage investments.
In light of this, the Kenyan government is launching the mobile-traded government security, M-Akiba. Kenyans with as little as $30 will be able to bid for the upcoming five-year income tax-free bond using their M-Pesa accounts. Investors will rejoice; M-Akiba returns are expected to be better than the current fixed deposit rates and most money market accounts. Stockbrokers have not been left behind either – at least three of them have recently launched mobile apps aimed at retail investors looking to buy shares, monitor their portfolio holdings and check account balances via their mobile phones.
But, the road ahead is not without obstacles. One is the low incomes among Kenyans. According to household survey, 75% of adults earn less than $150 per month. This may hinder most Kenyans from taking up financial products. A lack of trust among women towards formal financial institution is another major challenge. According to the latest quarterly report by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), women account for merely a third of the total number of investors. Low levels of education in the country are also an issue, with 60% of the population not completing a secondary level of education. With this in mind, it could be daunting when it comes to selling sophisticated financial products, such as derivatives and exchanged traded funds. Even among the educated, stakeholders will have to fight to shake off the persistent fascination with real estate.
At least Kenya is showing resolve to deal with the challenges. There is a big chance to make real changes to how people invest; all that is needed is a phone.

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The issue of gender inclusion once again featured in this year’s Mining Indaba in Cape Town in February. And there were no surprises – mining is still very much a man’s world, particularly at the senior executive management level.
“Women in high mining positions tend to refer to the sector as an old boys’ club. Whilst the numbers of men and women who enter the sector at graduate level are more or less the same, there are few females in senior leadership roles,” says Claire McMaster of Women in Mining South Africa (WiMSA), referring to her own country.
Whilst South African companies manage to attract women at the entry level, they seem to fail to keep them and see them through to the higher echelons of management structures.
“According to our research, 50% of women who are working in the South African mining sector are between 26 and 35 years old. However, by the time they are 55, this percentage is down to 3%.”
South Africa however is not the world’s worst performer in terms of gender representation in the extractive industry, on the contrary. Mining For Talent, a 2015 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), shows 19.8% of all executive management positions of the top 100 mining companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) are held by women. This is considerably higher than economies such as Australia (7.5%), the United States (12.1%), and United Kingdom (4.6%).
In addition, South Africa’s ratio of female board members of the JSE’s top 100 mining companies stands at 16.8%. Africa’s second largest economy hereby outperforms Australia (14%), the UK (15.3%), and the US (11%).
The situation is however not ideal, says McMaster. The main reasons South African women decide to leave the mining sector include a rigid glass ceiling that prevents them from moving up and paternalistic views on how women should behave in the work environment.
“For a young woman who is working in the sector, assertiveness is often viewed as aggressiveness by male superiors,” she says, adding that this deters women from staying.
Thuthula Balfour-Kaipa, who heads the South African Chamber of Mines’ health division, agrees. The patriarchal nature of South Africa’s extractive sector also discourages women from asking for raises, better opportunities and promotions.
“Psychologically, we are not used to ask for a better deal because it is seen as demanding. Men, however, do tend to ask for better opportunities. Millennials are changing this around. They are confident enough to ask for what they want.”
What doesn’t help is the fact that men are still often seen as more important employees than women, says Balfour-Kaipa.
“At the work place, men are seen as the main breadwinners, whilst women tend to be seen as supplementary,” she says. “When it comes to retrenchments, male workers tend to be viewed as people who have a family to provide for, whilst when it comes to women, people assume they have a man looking after them.”
A lack of successful role models, mentors, and guidance is another reason women leave mining prematurely, says McMaster. According to a 2014 WiMSA study, 62% of respondents complained about poor access to relevant role models and mentors, whilst 54% agreed on a lack of career and development guidance relevant to them.
“That is why we at WiMSA are running a project which has identified 13 senior mining women as patrons,” McMasters says. “Women in our very male-dominated industry need role models like Deshnee Naidoo, CEO of Vedanta Zinc International. They need to know they can achieve that too.”
So why should mining companies work to retain its women employees, and groom them to become senior executives? According to McMaster, the answer is simple.
“Various research reports have shown having a critical mass of women on your board and in your senior leadership team positively impacts on your financial metrics, decision-making, transparency, and corporate governance,” she says.
Nonkululeko Nyembezi-Heita, Chair of the JSE and former CEO of steel and mining firm ArcelorMittal South Africa, concurs. Making space for women makes business sense.
“It does not make sense to draw skills and expertise from just one half the population, particularly if you want to create a competitive advantage now that mining is struggling due to commodity volatility,” she says.
“If you focus on just men, how do you know you will get the right skills for your company? In my view, you are creating more risks if you are not embracing this particular topic, and not including women.”

Tag: Inclusion

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Google Diversity Report Shows Little Progress For Women And People Of Color

Twitter’s 2020 Diversity Report Shows Modest Gains As Company Sets New Goals For Representation

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A Glass Ceiling Even A Pickaxe Can’t Break