Intel reported Wednesday that 43.3 percent of its hires so far in 2015 are “diverse,” meaning that they are women, African Americans, Latinos or Native Americans.
That exceeds the chip maker’s goal of 40 percent.
A few highlights:
- Of new employees this year at Intel, 35 percent were women and 4.7 percent were African American. The company said it is below goal for Hispanics, who were 7.5 percent of its new employees and Native Americans, who were .3 percent.
- More women and under-represented minorities are in leadership roles. For its senior positions, the company has seen an 11 percent increase of women and a 19 percent increase of African Americans.
- The company is meeting its retention goal of women and underrepresented minorities staying with the firm at the same rate as the majority population. But it notes in its mid-year report that if it improved retention as much as hiring, the “representation gaps” would close more quickly.
In January, Intel’s chief executive, Brian Krzanich, said that by 2020, as we wrote then, Intel would reach “full representation,” meaning that its workforce would reflect the demographics of the available talent pool.
Rosalind Hudnell, Intel’s chief diversity officer, said in an interview that the company is auditing everything.
Like Facebook, Google and other firms, Intel does employee bias training. But Hudnell said that it’s what happens after the training that matters.
“Training drives awareness, but you have to mitigate the bias through the system,” she said. “How people progress in the company relates to retention. Who is getting promoted, Who is getting stretch assignments.”
Above: Intel headquarters (Photo courtesy Intel)
