Hello, everyone. My name is Melonie Parker and I am Google's chief diversity officer.
I'd also like to introduce Melanie, who's with us today.
She's going to be providing ASL interpretation.
It is great to be back for my third Google Cloud Next,
this time, for a look at nurturing and developing pathways to careers in tech.
Today, I'd like to talk about how building a more diverse, inclusive culture,
it's not just a competitive advantage for us at Google,
but it's a responsibility as well.
And as we get started, I want to let you know that the chat is open
so you can engage with each other during this session.
I want you to share thoughts, share where you're tuning in from,
and we'll have a few of our folks on hand to join the conversation.
We'll also get into what we're doing to widen pathways to tech careers
at Google and across our industry.
But first, I am so proud to say that Google is committed to making diversity,
equity and inclusion a part of everything we do,
from how we build our products to how we build our workforce.
I work hand-in-hand with our CEO, Sundar Pichai,
and as part of our executive leadership team to bring our global DEI strategy to life.
I also lead a passionate group of people whose work touches
over a 140 thousand employees,
stretches across nearly 60 countries
and helps millions of users who use our products in our platforms
to run their households, their businesses and their lives.
And personally, I traveled down a very unlikely path to land this position.
I'm a black woman who grew up in a small town in North Carolina.
My brother and I are proud alumni of HBCUs,
and we were the first generation in our family to bring home a college degree,
which I earned at a historically black university, Hampton University.
And unlike many of my peers,
I didn't have anyone at home to explain the unwritten rules of corporate America
or to help me navigate my career.
Instead, I cobble together a community
of mentors, managers and inspirational voices who help me find my path.
And that's an idea that I want to focus on today.
Access, opportunity and networking
are critically important building blocks for a successful tech career.
And that's especially true for folks like me,
who come from nontraditional backgrounds.
Too many people from underrepresented communities find themselves
confronting systemic inequalities, such as a lack of access to STEM education
or access to high-speed internet that disrupt the pathway to tech careers.
And for many who do navigate the pathway, we've seen how the weight of inequality
can foster a sense of imposter syndrome once on the inside.
It's that sinking feeling of doubt in our abilities
and a feeling like a fraud or that we don't belong,
and that for some, it will linger for an entire career.
Overcoming inequality and creating access to opportunity,
including for our underrepresented talent,
this is a top priority at Google.
And we're taking decisive actions that create opportunities
and steadily grow a workforce that reflects the world around us,
to launch programs that support our communities globally
and to build products that better serve all of our users.
In other words, to build for everyone,
we need to weave diverse perspectives
into every step of our design, engineering and testing processes.
And innovative ideas can come from everyone,
from Googlers at the grassroots level
to engage leaders and to establish diversity councils across the company.
As an example, the Google Meet team
worked on a light enhancement feature to better represent all skin tones
in an inclusive way during our video calls.
And through feedback from a diverse group of testers,
the team was able to determine the right algorithm that better work
for all individuals across the skin tone spectrum.
And this ensured that all video calls on Meet work well for everyone.
And it was thanks to the collaborative work
and questioning how to make products equitable for all.
In another example, Google has internal teams to foster equity through technology,
empowering our black plus community to innovate
in the digital space by supporting their educational journey
and helping them land roles in the tech industry.
And we've also built external programs like Cloud Career Jumpstart.
It's a 12-week learning course for underrepresented students
with computer science or information systems-related majors
or the relevant experience,
and it offers free access to Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer Training
to prepare for the certification exam.
We just published our Diversity Annual Report,
and I am excited to share that 2020 was our best year yet
for hiring our black plus and latinx plus Googlers in the U.S.
It was also our best year ever for hiring women in tech in the U.S. and globally.
In addition to hiring, we're also redoubling the focus
on retaining Googlers from all underrepresented groups.
And in full transparency, this is an area where we can and we must do better.
Google depends on the best, brightest and most diverse talent
to not only help us solve today's challenges,
but also to co-create solutions to tomorrow's problems.
So we are building a lasting model of inclusion
and belonging that helps all employees
feel seen, connected, supported, and I hope, proud to be in service.
Belonging is key to re-recruiting our workforce
and acknowledging that not everyone experiences our culture the same way.
Despite our best efforts, some team members are still feeling left out.
There is work to do around building the culture
that we've all been working so hard to co-create.
Clearly, there's some other missing element,
and as different as we are, we all have the same underlying need to feel valued,
to feel like our contributions matter, to feel like we belong here.
But being included isn't necessarily feeling like you belong.
Being invited to the table is not the same as being welcome at the table
and being valued like you belong.
Personally, I've been inspired by the work of John Powell.
John is an expert in the areas of civil rights and civil liberties,
and he's a professor at Berkeley,
and he leads the Institute of Othering & Belonging.
And he looks at our primal need as humans to belong
and what fosters belonging and what prevents it.
And if you think about it,
one of our primal fears is to be ostracized by a group.
Aside from food and shelter, we need to belong,
and we've evolved to ensure
that we can maintain access to the resources that the group has.
Many behaviors are dictated by this need to be accepted by others,
but we're also guided by the fear of losing that very acceptance,
and we've evolved to protect ourselves
and our loved ones by determining who's in and who's out.
And that comes down to identifying who's the least risk
those that we perceive most like us
and relegating those who aren't to the out crowd.
And John calls that primal sorting of people into ins and outs,
the cool kids vs. the non-cool kids as "Othering".
And we don't necessarily do this consciously,
but it is the behavior that stems from our unconscious bias.
The subtle ways that we send messages, even virtually, of who's cool and who's not,
who's valued, who's not.
And that's what I believe that our work it's not truly possible
until we foster this sense of belonging
and as evolved humans, we have control over this.
There are ways to check in with ourselves.
Noticing, are we turning inward, focusing on only who and what we know
versus turning outward to connect with
and explicitly work with other groups and to seek ways to build common ground?
And that would foster belonging and empathy.
And this means that we need to co-create the workplace experience
with our internal communities and redefine what it means to be a Googler
by acknowledging where we can do better.
And by ensuring everyone feels like they belong,
is positioned to do their best work
and can confidently bring their authentic, whole selves to work each day.
And for underrepresented talent,
this can make the difference between surviving and thriving in their career.
And for those of us who are accustomed to muting parts of who we are,
authenticity empowers us to do our very best work.
Last summer, at the start of the global racial justice movement,
I realized that I could no longer "code switch"
or check parts of myself at the door in an act of self-preservation.
To lead our deep work in racial equity and address the systemic and structural barriers,
I needed to reconcile the most vulnerable parts
of my own identity as a black woman
with the black woman who happens to lead diversity at Google.
And I know that this is the type of workplace environment
that we strive to build.
And with our collective consistent efforts, that is what we'll do.
We know that Google is most helpful when our products and our services
reflect the needs of the people who are using them.
To best serve our diverse global community of users,
we need a more representative workforce.
And while we're making progress,
we know inequalities persist around access, opportunity and networking
for underrepresented talent.
But through investments in creating pathways to STEM, and with help from allies,
we can broaden the talent pipeline, improve product design
and fulfill our mission of making DEI part of everything that we do.
What does this look like?
There's a real cognitive shift happening both inside and outside of Google
around diversity, equity and inclusion
and how we can best build for everyone.
Externally, we're creating pathways to careers in tech
as early as elementary and high school.
We're expanding recruitment beyond the usual campuses like
Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, Yale, and doubling down
on higher education institutions, like Hispanic-serving institutions
and historically black colleges and universities serving underrepresented talent.
Why?
Because we know that 25% of black graduates with STEM degrees, for example,
they come from HBCUs, just like the one I attended.
So this year, we began deepening and sustaining relationships with HBCUs.
In June, we announced an historic, unrestricted
$50 million grant that allows
the presidents of these esteemed institutions to allocate resources
in the manner that they see fit.
We're also broadening career pathways to include a major grow
through Google career readiness investment
that supports our Hispanic-serving institutions around the U.S.,
a significant economic opportunity grant for workforce development
and digital skills training to thousands of Hispanics.
And a career readiness program for Native American indigenous-serving institutions.
And that's just a slice of the work that we're doing externally.
And while I mentioned that 2020 was Google's biggest year in terms of hiring Black
and Latinx talent in the U.S,
we know that there's much more work to do inside of Google
to retain and grow our talent.
So broadly speaking,
we've developed racial equity education for all Googlers
and incorporated into our new hire orientation.
We've doubled the size of our Retention & Progression team.
Now we're on a path to triple this team by 2022.
And this enables us to provide one-to-one support
like coaching, networking and internal mobility opportunities,
to help underrepresented Googlers grow and thrive.
And we've rolled out an innovative onboarding program
for our new black Googlers so that they feel more supported right from the start.
Our employees want to know that they can grow and thrive with us.
And that's one reason why we're working to increase leadership representation
among women, black and latinx Googlers.
We've introduced pathways to sponsorship for women in technical leadership roles.
It's designed to accelerate their careers.
We leverage partnerships with more than two dozen
community and professional organizations,
and these partners offer professional development
as well as networking opportunities for underrepresented Googlers.
We also offer skills building initiatives like
the Cloud Technical Residency Program.
And with great intention,
we've begun building a culture of belonging for all Googlers, as I described earlier.
We've been very open about our successes and our challenges
and I invite you to explore this further at diversity.google.com.
Now, I know many of you are wondering, what can I do?
So, as you weigh your own strategies around engagement and retention,
consider the role of allies in driving results.
Allies can be leaders, managers and peers.
They support folks in marginalized groups to which they don't identify.
Internally, we've created a number of pathways
for allies that are seeking to support our underrepresented colleagues.
These include an Allyship Pathway with group exercises for allies
and resources for practicing or encouraging inclusive behaviors.
We also have Google in Residence.
Experienced Google's software engineers
teach introductory computer science classes on HBCU campuses.
And we have Faculty in Residence.
We have more than 50 faculty members from 30 HBCUs
to the design project-based industry and form content,
and to implement that content in their classrooms.
Google has doubled in size in the past few years.
We know our DEI commitments need to keep pace.
Operating at this global scale, it heightens our sense of responsibility around DEI
and to paraphrase my colleague Annie Jean-Baptiste,
"There's no blueprint to doing this work perfectly."
And while we don't have all the answers,
we're eager to share what we've learned and also to learn from others.
And in the spirit of learning leadership,
I hope I'll be invited to share more discoveries and progress
at Google Cloud Next 22.
In closing, when our mission is to build for everyone,
we have to work with everyone.
So with help from allies and through smart investments
and creating pathways to STEM careers,
I am confident our talent pipeline will flourish.
Real, meaningful change can take years, we know.
But there's no need to wait for change to come.
If you haven't already, please head over to the chat room and join the discussion.
There, you can share some of your successes
and your challenges around creating pathways to tech careers.
This kind of dialogue can open minds and truly inspire change.
I look forward to sharing more progress with you next year,
and I'll bring others along who've been on this journey with us
to share their experiences.
Thank you for wrapping up day one of Google Cloud Next with me.
It's been great sharing this time with you.
We look forward to seeing you all here tomorrow for day two,
which kicks off with our developer Keynote.
Until then, be sure to register at g.co/cloudnext
for access to all of our content,
and join the conversation on social using #googlecloudnext.
See you tomorrow!