Microsoft 2015 diversity numbers flat, women fall
SAN FRANCISCO — Despite Microsoft's CEO-led push to diversify its workforce, altering the global tech giant's largely white, male make-up remains a challenge.
The Redmond, Wash.-based company released its latest workforce numbers Monday in a blog post written by Gwen Houston, Microsoft's general manager for global diversity and inclusion. In the U.S., the company remains two-thirds white, with Asians making up 29.3%, Hispanics 5.4% and African-Americans 3.5%. That compares to 2014 percentages, respectively, of 28.9%, 5.1% and 3.4%. Microsoft employs 115,000 people worldwide.
The number of women working for Microsoft globally dropped significantly from 29% to 26.8%, although the reason cited was Microsoft's decision to write down almost the entirety of its $9 billion purchase of Finnish handset maker Nokia, which resulted in some 8,000 layoffs.
Apple diversity report shows little progress
"Even with this explanation, I want to emphasize that we are not satisfied with where we are today regarding the percentage of women in our workforce," writes Houston. "Our senior leaders continue to be deeply committed to doing everything possible to improve these numbers."
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has made it his personal mission to improve the company's diversity and gender equality numbers, a move that is in line with a growing realization by technology companies that their employee rosters do not represent the consumer demographics they're targeting.
Nadella told an audience at this fall's Salesforce Dreamforce convention that his company's culture is what "keeps me up at night," adding, “What’s a CEO's job? It’s about curation of culture. That’s my real job. The culture of a place is what defines its pursuit of excellence. The culture produces whatever you achieve in terms of greatness."
His passion for the topic comes in the wake of a gaffe early in his tenure as CEO — when he told an interviewer that women wanting raises should just believe in "karma" — and a lawsuit brought against Microsoft by a former security expert who claims she was denied multiple promotions due to the company's stack-ranking system.
Earlier this fall, Microsoft pledged to spend $75 million to help improve computer science education in high schools around the country, something that's critical to increasing the so-called "pipeline" of potential tech workers. By 2020, there will be some 1 million unfilled computer programming related jobs in the U.S., according to the Department of Labor.
Diversity in Silicon Valley - USATODAY.com
The company's diversity numbers look best when examining non-technical roles, where 58% are held by males and 41% females. Some 14% of that workforce is Asian, 8% is Hispanic and 6% African-American. When it comes to workers in tech-related jobs, Microsoft is 83% male and 16.9% female, 35% of those being Asian, 3.9% Hispanic and 2.3% African-American.
One diversity bright spot for Microsoft is slight growth in the number of women in leadership ranks. The company reports that women on its senior leadership team is at an all-time high of 27.2%, while pending shareholder approval next month, women and minorities will hold five of 11 board positions. In addition, the number of African-American corporate vice presidents has gone from 1.3% to 2.9%.
Driving Microsoft on this inclusiveness front is a "greater awareness in general of the value and importance of diverse talent to the company," writes Houston. "We are focused on all stages of the pipeline. We and many of our peer companies are doing that, and we’re starting to see results. Definitely not as quickly as we would like, but we’re starting to move in the right direction."
Follow USA TODAY technology reporter Marco della Cava on Twitter @marcodellacava.