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In June 2020, we committed to publishing data about the composition of the Invoca workforce twice a year as part of our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative. As an organization, we have set a goal of increasing the company-wide balance of male and female employees to 50 / 50 and the share of underrepresented groups to 30%. You can view all of the reports, updates, and our action plan below.
Invoca understands that diversity isn’t just critical to building a solid culture — it is a key element of how we operate and succeed as a company. We’ve made strides in driving awareness, transparency, and accountability in this area which we’re proud of. In June 2020, we set a company-wide goal to better reflect the U.S. population by balancing our male and female employees to 50/50 and the share of underrepresented groups to 30%.
Every six months, we publish statistics to measure our progress toward these goals. Our motivation in sharing this information is both to hold ourselves accountable as a company and to provide transparency to potential employees, customers, and partners. As of March 2023, we’re getting closer to our gender goal, coming in at 44% underrepresented genders. We’ve exceeded our underrepresented groups' goal, arriving at 31%.
“Continuous improvement” is a core value at Invoca, and we apply that equally to our efforts in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. With that stated, we’re not easing our efforts in growing diversity.
Aside from the data presented in our latest report, we’ve done work to foster a more inclusive work environment and take our efforts to the next level. Here are a few highlights from the last six months:
You can view the latest report below.
Since our last report in March, Invoca has grown to over 400 employees and we have continued to make progress toward our diversity goals. Here are some highlights from our August 2022 DEI report:
You can view our latest report below. Previous reports and more information about our DEI initiatives can also be found in this post, and you can check out our current career opportunities here.
Invoca has continued to grow following the acquisition of DialogTech last summer, and over 100 people have joined the team since last August. With this exciting expansion comes the opportunity to improve our DEI strategy and execution. Here are some highlights from our March 2022 DEI report:
In the spirit of continuous improvement, we’re continuing our DEI efforts through internal initiatives and changes to our recruiting processes.
In recruiting, we’re establishing more diverse interview panels and optimizing our job descriptions to reduce bias in our hiring process. We’re also partnering with DEI-focused organizations to find new and more diverse sources of candidates. Internally, we’re expanding efforts to partner with our employees by expanding support for employee resource groups.
These initiatives embody how we apply the value of continuous improvement to DEI at Invoca. Our focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion are vital to building our company culture, improving decision-making and business performance, and delivering a better experience for employees.
You can view the report below. Previous reports and more information about our DEI initiatives can also be found in this post, and you can check out our current career opportunities here.
This summer, Invoca acquired DialogTech and we nearly doubled our headcount. Our P&C team has been busily onboarding hundreds of new Invocans, and we now have over 30 open positions and lots of opportunity to continue our progress on our DE&I efforts. Here are a few highlights from the August 2021 Report:
One change that has enabled more diverse representation is remote hiring. Approximately one-third of our employees are now remote, enabling us to seek the best talent from communities beyond our physical offices in California and Colorado.
We continue to execute a number of DEI programs spanning hiring, internal education and awareness, and activation to support employees making an impact in their communities. We will continue to share updates over the course of the coming months, and I look forward to further progress in these areas across the company. Here is the report:
Read below to learn more about our plan and to view previous reports.
At Invoca, we drive our business by choosing a few company-wide priorities each year, establishing goals and executive sponsors for each priority, and then reporting on our progress on a monthly basis.
So, in committing to make Invoca a more equitable workplace, the obvious first step was to formalize a company priority with executive sponsorship. We paired Ellen Raim, our head of People & Culture, with Mike Weaver, our head of Engineering, to combine functional expertise with a key “center of gravity” in the engineering team. The rationale was simple — if we could move the needle in hiring a more diverse set of engineers, that would shift the dynamic throughout the company and catalyze a wider environmental change. The Invoca engineering team prides itself on the concept of continuous improvement and had already embarked on some initiatives to broaden representation — which gave our leadership team confidence that Ellen and Mike could drive meaningful improvements.
After some consultation, they brought a simple hiring goal back to our leadership team: by 2023, to increase the company-wide balance of male and female employees to 50 / 50 and the share of underrepresented groups to 30%. These goals align the target representation of Invoca employees with the broad demographics of the US population, and align our aspirations for the company with SaaS leaders that we admire, such as Twilio, Salesforce, Medallia, and Slack.
To kick off our efforts, we wanted to share a snapshot of our current employee base, which serves as a baseline for our efforts. This report, published with data from July 2020, outlines the gender and demographic balances within the company and how they have changed since July 2019.
We will be publishing an updated version of this document publicly every six months to reflect our progress against our company objectives.
Having published a snapshot of our current employee base, the next step was to formulate a plan for change. Our approach is based on three sets of initiatives:
As our first strategic education and content initiative, we held a voluntary “21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge” in July. Participating employees read materials from a curated list and met weekly in small groups to discuss observations and share real-life experiences. On a personal note, I learned a lot from my peers through this process and was encouraged by their commitment to learning about the struggles of others, finding concrete ways to improve our behaviors, and having a positive impact on the community. We will continue driving awareness through the rest of 2020, including conducting mandatory anti-bias training for all employees before year-end.
We are also introducing new policies at Invoca to drive change in company culture, operational processes, and hiring. Starting in August, we added the question “what actions have you taken to support diversity, equity, and inclusion at Invoca?” to the quarterly review and feedback sessions between managers and employees. While the response isn’t a formal input to performance evaluations, we have included it as a periodic reminder in manager-employee conversations about opportunities to champion inclusion at the company.
As we head into 2021, we are working on several operational improvements to reduce potential bias in hiring. As part of candidate screening, we are developing a process to remove references to gender or ethnicity from resumes before reviews happen. The goal is to help hiring managers focus exclusively on what matters most — relevant skills and experience. I was personally struck by reading about the significant increases in the number of female musicians hired once orchestras adopted “blind” auditions, so we are taking a similar approach in the software world. We are also instituting more structured, formal interviewing approaches to remove reliance on anecdotes and qualitative information in the interests of ensuring equity and fairness.
Finally, we want to support our employees’ desire to have a positive impact on their local communities. We instituted a new Volunteer Time Off policy, giving employees up to 25 hours per year of paid time to volunteer, in addition to making Election Day a paid holiday to ensure employees have the opportunity to vote and engage at a civic level. Between employee contributions and company matching, we donated over $23,000 to non-profit organizations supporting the Black community, including Black Girls Code, The Hidden Genius Project, The Loveland Foundation, and the ACLU. As we build out our 2021 financial plan, we will be formalizing a program and a budget to match future employee contributions to non-profit organizations. And we are always looking to broaden the set of career opportunities in software to tomorrow’s generation by supporting education in science and engineering. As an example, we are donating laptops to a computer science academy at a local Santa Barbara high school.
In summary, we know that significant opportunity remains for Invoca to become a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. But I am hopeful that the changes we have initiated will lead to a more rewarding, productive, and enjoyable environment for our employees and also benefit our customers and business partners.
Click here to view the Invoca Diversity Data Report: July 2020
