Intel diversity stats show slow pace of progress

SAN FRANCISCO — Intel's newly-released diversity hiring  statistics show just how difficult it is for even the most motivated company to make real, substantive change in its workforce.

Just over a year ago, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich made a bold pledge — the company's workforce would reach full representation of women and under-represented minorities by 2020.

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Full representation would mean that Intel's workforce in the United States would match the supply of skilled talent available for current roles, the company said. For example, the company calculates that while women make up 50% of the U.S. population, they make up  22.7% of the labor force with the skills consistent with the technical positions Intel is trying to fill.

Intel Tuesday reported that 43.1% of its hires were either women or underrepresented minorities in 2015, surpassing its goal of 40%, said Danielle Brown, the company’s chief diversity officer.

Broken down, 35.5% of Intel's hires were women and 11.8% were from underrepresented minorities, which in tech firms means African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans.

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In 2016 the company’s goal is to retain its diverse employees, Brown said.

After a year of the project, the chip-making giant was able to increase the  portion of female technical workers it employed by 1.18 percentage points, but the percentage of Hispanic workers decreased by 0.08 percentage point while the  percentage of African American technical workers stayed flat.

This occurred even as the absolute numbers of women, Hispanics and African Americans at the company increased, because the entire workforce was growing.

Intel's overall workforce grew to 53,672 by the end of 2015, the company said in a report issued Tuesday.

MORE WOMEN

The number of female workers at the end of 2015 was 13,299, up from 11,836 and the end of 2014. That put women at 24.8% of Intel's overall workplace, a portion that rose 1.28 percentage points in the course of a year.

For women in technical positions — which make up about 85% of the chip-maker's overall workforce — 20.15% of positions, or 9,176, were held by women. That's an increase in percentages of 1.18 percentage points.

Given the size of Intel’s overall staff that's actually very positive, said Telle Whitney, CEO and president of the Anita Borg Institute, which works to increase women’s presence in technology.

“When you have a large number, even a 1% of change is pretty difficult," she said. Higher that that  "is actually pretty impressive,” she said.

However representation for Hispanics moved in the opposite direction.

For Hispanic technical workers, Intel had 3,670 at the end of 2015, up from 3,533 at the end of 2014. Given that Intel's overall workforce grew during that time, the actual percentage of its tech staff who were Hispanic declined by 0.08 percentage point, Intel said.

Hispanic workers made up 8.06% of Intel's tech workers.

African American representation in the tech work force at Intel as a percentage was unchanged. At year-end 2015 there were 1,522  African-American tech workers at Intel, an overall increase of 71 workers.

African Americans were 3.34% of Intel's tech workers at the end of 2015. However the percentage did not increase at all from 2014 given the rise in overall staffing.

African American workers among Intel's employees overall were 1,882, 3.51% of its workforce. That  portion increased 0.06 percentage point since the end of 2014.

GENDER PAY EQUITY

One bright spot was pay equity. Intel says it was able to achieve 100% gender pay parity for women for all its U.S. employees. “There is no gap in compensation between U.S. men and U.S. women at every level of the organization,” Brown said.

Jesse Jackson, who has escalated his campaign for more racial and ethnic diversity in Silicon Valley over the past year, said that he was impressed by Intel’s approach and commitment to spend $300 million on increasing diversity at the company, which he said other companies should emulate.

Despite that, the chip maker is not doing well in advancing African American participation.

“I'd like to see Intel appoint an African American to their Board. I'd like top see blacks in the C-suites, and minority inclusion in their financial and professional services,” Jackson said.

RETENTION AN ISSUE

Retention is a huge issue for all tech companies. “It’s obviously ineffective to fill a leaky bucket,” said Joelle Emerson of Paradigm, a strategy firm that helps tech companies build more diverse organizations.

It's rare to actually see retention numbers.

“I will tell you that hires and exits are really hard to get, so I applaud Intel for actually publishing this. You don’t see these numbers very often,” said Whitney.

Intel has found retention to be an area needing special consideration. There are four consistent themes in terms of what impacts  retention, said the company’s vice president of global leadership and learning, Deb Bubb.

“They are isolation, a negative work environment, management quality and progression,” she said.

The company is working to create effective retention strategies, which includes custom tailored solutions for individuals workers and creating community, Brown said.

Intel’s rigor, specificity and transparency “really sets  it apart from how a lot of companies are approaching diversity,” said Laura Weidman Powers, co-founder and CEO of CODE2040, a non-profit that focuses on getting more African Americans and Hispanics into the tech workforce.

She was especially impressed that the company published not only absolute numbers for its white, black and Hispanic employees, but also the percent change over the past year.

One area where Intel stands out is that it doesn’t expect its minority staff to bear the burden of changing their own numbers, she said.

“A lot of companies set up a buddy system — somehow they make it the responsibility of other African American folks at the company to increase retention. It’s kind of a hidden task for African Americans that they’re not paid for,” she said.