TechTown Diversity Pledge companies release first report

Contact: John Cárdenas, cardenasj@pdc.us

The participating companies in the TechTown Diversity Pledge initiative have released their first report on employee demographic data, delivering on one of the key goals of the Pledge: to share collective data on the demographic representation of gender and race within participant company offices in the Portland metro area.

Between May 18 and June 10, 22 Pledge companies distributed to their employees an online survey developed by local research firm DHM, which provided analysis of the resulting responses. Survey questions were intended to assess the workplace experiences of pledge company employees and set a baseline to track changes over time. A total of 1,815 Portland-based employees received the survey; 70 percent (1,270) responded.

Luke Kanies, founder and CEO of Puppet, said, “We at Puppet think a diverse workforce is critical, to build the best products, to ensure that everyone has great opportunity, and to make sure that we’re recruiting from the entire market, not just a thin slice of the population. I can’t imagine baseball without Jackie Robinson, or tennis without the Williams sisters, but if we can’t make tech companies diverse, we risk cutting that greatness out of our industry. Releasing the data is critical to publish that we care, and to hold ourselves accountable for making true progress, and hopefully to spur other organizations to change.”

PDC industry liaison Jared Wiener said, “A more equitable and prosperous Portland, where everyone benefits from economic growth and inclusion, is in the tech industry’s business interests and is central to PDC’s own strategic mission. We are proud to deliver on this Pledge commitment and we look forward to our continued partnership.”

Ilana Davis, HR manager at Zapproved, said, “Inaugural results of the TechTown Diversity Pledge show that our collective diversity efforts have only just begun. Zapproved and fellow pledge companies will have to put in consistent efforts to find meaningful results. Embracing diversity as a corporate value, engaging in open and honest conversations, and keeping diversity/inclusion top-of-mind will be essential.”

Key findings in the report include:

The Diversity Pledge workforce skews young: Millennials make up more than half (54%) of all pledge company employees.
Less than half (38%) of pledge company employees identify as female, although Pledge companies tend to have a higher proportion of females than the whole software/tech industry in the region.
Almost nine in ten identified as white, slightly higher than the proportion of those in the region’s software/tech industry, its whole workforce, and the general population.
The representation of women in both technical positions and non-technical positions has increased slightly since the pledge date.
While women and people of color are underrepresented in the overall number of employees, proportionally they are just as likely as white men to be in leadership and/or management positions.
There has been a notable increase in the representation of women in new hires since the pledge start date, from 35% to 43%.

The full report is available at TechtownPortland.com/diversity

The companies participating in the survey include the following. Some have posted or will be posting their Individual company data in the coming months: