Companies are taking a closer look at the makeup of their organization: Is it diverse? Is it inclusive?
According to a news release from SurveyMonkey, these questions (and answers, perhaps) motivated the software company to join forces with a team of top-tier tech companies to increase diversity and inclusion with vendor organizations. The companies driving this new initiative are frequently used businesses, including 23andMe, Chime, Eventbrite, Genesys, Headspace, Intuit, PagerDuty, Slack, Tinder, Upwork, and Zoom, among other major groups.
“Improving diversity, equity, and inclusion is an industry-wide challenge for the technology sector,” said Zander Lurie, CEO of SurveyMonkey. “We have work to do within our own businesses to become anti-racist. We also want to help upend the systemic bias we know still exists in the broader business community. This new initiative enables us to turn diversity, equity, and inclusion into a business metric that will drive accountability in the organizations we rely on to power our companies. Better data will lead to more accountability and—ultimately—progress on critical diversity initiatives.”
The new diversity initiative will use surveys to collect data within their vendors’ pool, which includes law firms, technology services suppliers, food suppliers, landlords, marketing agencies, investment banks, and auditors. As a result, the data—race, gender, sexuality, etc.—will be integrated into decision-making during the vendor selection process.
“This is a critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to untangling the complicated factors that lead to underrepresentation across corporate America,” SurveyMonkey Board Member Erika James said. “There’s power in these companies coming together to take a stand and leverage their budgets to make an impact. No one company can have the impact that the collective can.”
