{"id":347833,"date":"2017-06-21T01:00:14","date_gmt":"2017-06-20T17:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1504911"},"modified":"2017-06-21T01:00:14","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T17:00:14","slug":"a-look-at-squares-first-diversity-report-and-ally-training-for-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/a-look-at-squares-first-diversity-report-and-ally-training-for-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"A look at Square\u2019s first diversity report and ally training for employees"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Square, led by CEO Jack Dorsey, has released its first diversity report<\/a>, which, not surprisingly, looks very similar to the below-par numbers of other tech companies. But, unlike other tech companies, Square does not \u201csubscribe to a \u2018pipeline\u2019 excuse,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n

Square is 36.7 percent female globally, and 57.3 percent white, 6.4 percent black and 5.8 percent Latinx in the U.S. Although Square\u2019s overall representation of people of color is low, there\u2019s greater representation of POC at Square than at companies like Facebook (2 percent black, 4 percent Latinx<\/a>), Google (2 percent black, 3 percent Latinx<\/a>) and Twitter (3 percent black and 4 percent Latinx<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Because the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission only asks about gender and race, Square conducted an inclusion survey, which more than 80 percent of employees completed, to look at things like sexual orientation, gender identity, disabilities, veteran status and primary languages.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of other ways we think about diversity and inclusion were included in the survey, like is English your first language, the education status of your parents and if you\u2019re a caregiver for someone other than your children,\u201d Square diversity and inclusion lead Alicia Burt told me. \u201cThose are things that we think are really important in making up a person.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the inclusion survey, Burt said she took some high-level takeaways to the company. For example, Burt reported to the leadership teams to pay closer attention to time zones.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have decision-making meetings late in the day, be mindful of the fact that you have parents on your team,\u201d Burt said. \u201cAnd don\u2019t change the schedule at the last minute, and rotate who owns the meeting so that it\u2019s not constantly being prescribed by San Francisco.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. \n
    \"\"<\/div>\n

    square sex orientation<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n
  2. \n
    \"\"<\/div>\n

    square gender identity<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n
  3. \n
    \"\"<\/div>\n

    square trans identity<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol><\/div>\n

    Ahead of the company\u2019s release of the report, I had a chance to sit in on one of Square\u2019s ally trainings for employees.\u00a0Square sees ally trainings as an additional tool to help foster acceptance and inclusion among all employees, regardless of things like race, gender and ability. Square licenses the ally training from Frame Shift Consulting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    The goal with ally training is to \u201cgive people the tools and the language to use in order to educate one another to be an ally, so we\u2019re not always depending on the woman in the room or the marginalized person in the room to be able to defend themselves, because it\u2019s exhausting,\u201d Burt said.<\/p>\n

    The training I attended, which had 15 Square employees, kicked off with introductions and preferred pronouns (he\/him, she\/her, they\/them, etc). The 1.5-hour training went over terminology like privilege, oppression, target and ally. It also defined various gender identities, like cisgender, transgender, non-binary and genderqueer.<\/p>\n

    After we did intros and went over some terms, we broke into smaller groups and went through a few hypothetical scenarios. The first was about bias against transgender people, in which a co-worker came out as transgender and a problematic co-worker didn\u2019t understand why they had to use different pronouns. The task was to speak up about overt oppression and discrimination as an ally.<\/p>\n

    In order to ensure Square employees felt safe and able to speak honestly, I agreed to not report their individual comments. Though, something the facilitator brought up as a potential way to respond as an ally was to compare it to how people don\u2019t tend to make a fuss over name changes when someone gets married.<\/p>\n

    The second scenario involved being an ally to people with disabilities. The example: a manager suggesting scheduling a hiking offsite for employees, and you know a team member has a disability that prevents them from walking long distances. A potential ally response is to suggest an offsite that is accessible to people with disabilities.<\/p>\n

    We went through a couple of different scenarios before wrapping up, but that was the gist of it. I personally left the training with a better awareness and understanding of how to be an ally to people with disabilities, as well as transgender and gender non-conforming people. I think every company could benefit from offering something like this to employees because we all could be better allies.<\/p>\n

    Square has conducted five ally trainings in its offices in St. Louis. The ally training I attended in San Francisco was the fourth one Square offered to employees. Eventually, Burt wants every manager to go through the training. Down the road, ally training will be part of Square\u2019s onboarding process.<\/p>\n

    Featured Image: Photographer: Yana Paskova\/Bloomberg via Getty Images\/Getty Images<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Square, led by CEO Jack Dorsey, has released its first diversity report, which, not surprisingly, looks very similar to the below-par numbers of other tech companies. But, unlike other tech companies, Square does not \u201csubscribe to a \u2018pipeline\u2019 excuse,\u201d the report states. Square is 36.7 percent female globally, and 57.3 percent white, 6.4 percent black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-347833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}