Over 75% of people using Dropbox today come from outside the US—with different needs and backgrounds. We believe it takes a diverse team to build innovative products that delight users, and we’re committed to building an inclusive culture that reflects the world around us.
In 2016, we continued to invest in programs that help attract and retain diverse candidates. We’ve made modest strides—the number of women in leadership roles went up, and so did the number of new hires who are women and minorities—but we still have work to do.
We’ve also started to do more benchmarking of ourselves against the industry. For the second year, Dropbox was awarded a perfect score for LGBTQ equality on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI). In addition, the Great Places to Work Institute recently named Dropbox a Best Workplace for Diversity and a Best Workplace for Asian Americans.
Year in review
The efforts we’ve made to recruit, retain, and develop women have contributed to 35% of our new hires being women—up from 28% last year. Similarly, the percentage of women in senior leadership has increased from 21% to 27%. This past year, we made a number of key female hires, including Chief Marketing Officer Carolyn Feinstein and VP of Communications Lin-Hua Wu. We also promoted Amber Cottle, who leads our DC office, to VP of Global Public Policy & Government Affairs.
Though we’ve made progress in hiring minorities this year, the numbers aren’t where we want them to be. New hires across minority groups (including Asians, Hispanics, Blacks, and people of two or more races) comprised 45% of all new hires in 2016—up from 41% in 2015. We also saw a small increase in Hispanics and Blacks at Dropbox, who make up 6% and 3% of Dropbox, respectively. Asians and people who self-identify as two or more races stayed flat at 30% and 4%, respectively.
Key programs
As part of our efforts to create a diverse workplace, we’ve developed programs that aim to help Dropboxers feel supported to do their best work. Specifically, we focus on the following:
- Equal pay policy: We continue to provide equal pay for equal work. Building an equitable workplace is key to supporting the inclusive foundation we’re trying to build. And we were honored to sign the White House Equal Pay Pledge earlier this year.
- Parental leave policy: We’ve expanded our policy so all new Dropbox parents in the US can take up to eight weeks of leave (for non-birthing parents) and up to 20 weeks of leave (for birthing parents) at 100% pay. New parents can also take their parental leave intermittently to ease their transition back to work.
- Employee resource groups (ERGs): Our employee resource groups are a key part of our culture. ERGs plan regular events and workshops that celebrate the unique contributions of every Dropboxer and discuss topics that matter to employees. Current ERGs include: Asians@, Black Dropboxers, LatinX, Pridebox, and Women@.
- Other initiatives: We’ve partnered with organizations like Code2040, a non-profit that helps connect minorities with summer internships in companies like ours. We’ve also co-designed and funded an after-school Hacker’s Lab at Mission High School in San Francisco and mentored two teams of young female entrepreneurs via Technovation. Finally, our CTO, Aditya Agarwal, is on the board of the Anita Borg Institute.
*Due to rounding, some columns may not sum to 100%.
The Author
