Diversity And Inclusion At Envato: Where We Stand In 2017

Diversity and inclusion are prominent buzzwords in the tech industry at the moment. At Envato, we don’t think it’s a bad thing that companies are getting more interested in this. And for us, it’s not a fad.

The lack of diversity in the tech industry is well documented, particularly at the executive level, with many top US tech companies in the spotlight. Even amongst lower ranks, large and well-known tech powerhouses are seriously lacking in their gender diversity in particular. Both Facebook and Apple have only 32 per cent female workforce; Uber has reported a 36.1 per cent female workforce. For racial diversity, these stats are even lower.

The go-to response from large tech companies has traditionally been to blame “the pipeline” of majority white, male graduates. However, this has been challenged. Data shows that in 2014, black students in the US received 9.7% of the bachelor degrees in computer science, but makeup only 3 per cent of the top 75 companies in Silicon Valley.

Ongoing criticism demands that companies can and should do more to enable a more inclusive workforce. We need to implement programs and actively encourage change to see the industry improve. As Envato’s Founder Collis Ta’eed said at a recent all-company meeting, this isn’t even about doing the right thing – even though it is – it’s a necessary and important way to conduct business.

For the past year, we have worked on many initiatives related to diversity and inclusion at Envato, including dedicating a new role to diversity and inclusion. The goal is to make sure we’re doing the right thing by all the members of our team and living up to our commitment to be an inclusive workplace for all. This is, after all, one of our core values. That means making Envato great for everyone, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, or the state of their mental health.

This is the third year we’ve voluntarily reported on the state of gender diversity of the Envato team. Reporting these results gives us an opportunity to review what we’ve achieved over the past 12 months and discuss our plans for the year ahead. More on that below.

However Envato’s D&I roadmap goes beyond just gender diversity. Some of the other initiatives we have rolled out in the last 12 months are outlined below.

This program is a fully paid initiative open to any woman who would like to apply. A dedicated mentor trains and equips the apprentices with skills to become junior developers, which usually takes 9-12 months, with the end goal of employment at Envato. It’s a grassroots program developed in-house, and not affiliated with any university or external education provider. We currently have the first two apprentices completing the program at Envato’s Melbourne HQ.

An internal remuneration review was undertaken to ensure our team were being paid appropriately. This was important for us to double-check so we had an external provider also review the salaries of the team in 2017. This found none of our roles reflected unequal pay according to gender.

Workshops were held for the Envato leadership team and all people managers around mental health. These were designed to give managers tools to support someone experiencing mental health challenges and guide them to take appropriate next steps.

It’s well documented that people who identify as LGBTI need allies from the hetero world. As such we have held a number of sessions focussing on LGBTI Ally Awareness to talk about what it takes to be an Ally and how to help the LGBTI community.

This year Envato was announced as being an official national partner for Code Like a Girl, a Melbourne based social enterprise that encourages and supports Australian women to achieve coding jobs and leadership roles in tech. This is a year-long sponsorship that involves quarterly women’s leadership and development workshops, a series of presentations and mentor and mentee opportunities.

We hold a number of informal talks in the Melbourne office, some of which focus on LGBTI and mental health awareness. Some examples of talks held include a winter health seminar, a guide to building resilience, and how to have proactive mental health conversations.

Over the past twelve months, we worked hard to ensure all types of diversity and inclusion are celebrated at Envato, which includes the LGBTI community. We made a submission to the AWEI, the largest national survey that gauges how inclusive an organisation is. The feedback from this survey helps us identify areas for future focus. For Envato, this future focus includes online training, senior leadership support and promotion, and specific guidelines around LGBTI issues such as transitioning in the workplace.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) is an Australian government agency whose aim is to promote and improve gender equality in the workplace. The WGEA help companies report on gender diversity to identify areas for improvement and measure performance against their peers.

Diversity and Inclusion is something that will never be ‘complete’ at Envato – we’re constantly looking for ways to improve, and we hope others in the industry follow suit. We have a host of initiatives coming up in the next year that include a focus on how to support team members exposed to family violence, more programs to help those returning to work after parental leave and more formalised processes, guidelines and training around diversity and inclusion.

We want to be an industry leader in this space and hope the next 12 months brings us closer to achieving this. Because it’s the right thing to do, will make the industry stronger and it’s at the core of Envato as a values-based organisation.

Read more about Envato’s commitment to diversity over at the Envato Blog!

This article was originally written by Selina Ife.