At Dropbox, we’re committed to creating an environment where everyone feels inspired to create their best work and achieve what they previously could only imagine. To do this, we need a diverse team of people who represent different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) isn’t just the right thing, it’s mission critical.
That’s why we’re working every day to build a diverse and inclusive culture at Dropbox, a place where all employees feel a sense of pride and belonging.
In the past year, our team has invested in designing the right approach and identifying the proper resources and measurement tools needed to make progress. Here’s a snapshot of what’s been happening:
- Hired a Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Angela Roseboro joined Dropbox in December and she will be responsible for leading our diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. She has more than twenty years of HR experience, and has held positions leading diversity and inclusion, talent management, and leadership development teams.
- Amped up recruitment: We deployed a dedicated diversity recruiting and sourcing team to attract great talent at all levels and expand our reach to diverse communities.
- Conducted focus groups to assess our diversity efforts: We completed more than 60 global focus groups to help us identify how Dropboxers perceive diversity and inclusion within the company. As a result, we’ve created a number of working groups to develop and execute action plans.
- Implemented diversity workshops: We designed and implemented a two-hour interactive workshop using actors to demonstrate the impact of unconscious bias in the workplace. Built on previous workshops focused on awareness, this workshop concentrates on building inclusive behaviors, providing Dropboxers with real-life tools to navigate sensitive situations and have valuable conversations.
- Created Launch internship program: We kicked off the Dropbox Launch internship for Dropbox engineering in 2017. Launch is a program that provides a first internship experience to technical students from diverse backgrounds.
- Launched Veterans Employee Resource Group: Our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) continue to be an asset in providing us with insights and perspective on our diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. In 2017, we were excited to launch our Vets@ ERG, giving us further opportunities to build awareness and an inclusive culture for all Dropboxers.
- Recognition amongst peers: We’re proud to have been named one of 2017 Best Workplaces for Diversity by Great Place to Work and FORTUNE.
Gender diversity
This year we made progress in gender representation:
- Company-wide female representation increased by 3 percentage points to 36%
- Women in leadership roles increased by 4 percentage points to 31%. Additionally, we filled key leadership positions with women, including our VP of Sales, Americas, VP of FP&A, VP of Corporate Legal, and CIO.
- Women in manager roles increased by 5 percentage points to 39%
- Female hires increased by 6 percentage points to 40%
- The percentage of women in technical roles increased 2 percentage points to 23%
US ethnic diversity
Our minority representation (including Asians, Hispanics, Blacks, American Indian/Pacific Islander, and people of two or more races) rose one percentage point to 45% of the employee population. However, we remained flat in our representation of Blacks and Hispanics at Dropbox. Although we’ve seen progress in some areas, we know that to make sustainable progress we have to be more purposeful and deliberate in how we recruit, retain and advance diverse talent.
With each year our goal is to have our Dropbox community grow stronger, broader, and better reflect the world we live in. For us, diversity, equity, and inclusion is not about creating advantages for some, but removing barriers for all to fully leverage the talents of each of our Dropboxers. There is still work to do, but we are committed to this journey and will continue to not only share our progress, but our challenges as well.
Data as of 12/31/2017; race stats are US only and include employees who self-identify; percentages rounded to the nearest whole number
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