We are living through another challenging moment in history – from deadly, hate-provoked attacks committed against Asian American, Black, and Latinx communities, to threats to healthcare for women and transgender people.
Amid all that we’ve faced over the past several months, we are steadfast in our mission to advance equality and support our employees and communities. We continue to take action to change the systems that perpetuate inequality and hate.
Last quarter, we continued to prioritize employee safety and wellbeing with financial support and benefits to ensure employees have access to the healthcare they need. We also continued to prioritize and expand critical initiatives — like equal pay and our leadership development programs — to foster inclusion. In June, and all year long, we’re focused on lifting up our LGBTQ+ community as part of global Pride month.
Beyond our own employees, we remain committed to supporting our communities and broadening access to reach new talent. And we rigorously analyzed hiring and representation data to hold ourselves accountable as we work to accelerate representation.
Listening deeply to employees and honing in on experience
We centered our work on the employee experience, supporting people through recent traumas and continuing to drive inclusion in the workplace with our annual equal pay assessment and the expansion of key development programs.
- Supporting employees: For those who need access to critical healthcare outside of their current working locations, Salesforce reiterated it will provide financial support for travel and relocation for employees and members of their immediate family. And we rolled out a new five-pronged mental health support system that provides free therapy, personalized care, support with substance abuse, time off and stress management solutions. We also hosted three Equality Circles to create space for employees to process and dialogue amid recurring gun violence, threats to healthcare access, and the ongoing war in Ukraine.
- Continuing equal pay: No matter what’s happening in the world, we remain deeply committed to equal pay. In March, we completed our seventh annual equal pay assessment to ensure pay fairness across race and ethnicity in the U.S. and gender globally. This year, we spent $5.6 million to address any unexplained differences in pay, a total of more than $22 million spent since 2015.
- Expanding key programs: The Warmline, our employee advocacy program for women of all races and ethnicities, Black, Indigeneous, Latinx, and LGBTQ+ employees, is on track to increase the number of employees supported by 20% YoY. Insights from the Warmline directly impact our strategy and programs. For example, we added career navigation to our leadership development programs to help participants get more access to senior leadership, develop career roadmaps, and ultimately increase the talent pool where we source leadership across Salesforce.
Delivering for our communities
In addition to championing our employees, we also continue to support our communities by taking action toward greater racial equality and justice.
- Philanthropy: Last quarter, we donated $1 million to Year Up to help young adults gain the skills and experiences they need to launch meaningful careers. We’ve donated $107 million and 300,000 volunteer hours to advance racial equality and justice since June 2020. We’ve also delivered more than $2 million in pro bono services aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities.
- Policy: The Salesforce U.S. State and Local Government Affairs team supported 28 pieces of legislation, including the VOTES Act (HB 4367 & SB 2554) in Massachusetts. If passed, it will increase access to voting for Bay Staters through no-excuse-needed absentee voting and will reinstate voting rights to previously incarcerated individuals. In Washington state, we supported two police-reform bills: WA HB 1735, which clarifies the use-of-force standard, and HB 1412, which reduces fines and fees placed on people leaving incarceration.
- Purchasing: We launched our Black-Owned Business Mentor Program, providing sponsorship, education, and networking opportunities to more than 25 Black-owned businesses.
Creating new pathways
We know that talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. So we’re investing in new programs and initiatives to create new pathways to attract top talent.
- Expanding hiring locations: We’re broadening our search beyond city centers and welcoming incredible talent from new communities and geographies. In fact, ‘remote’ became our number one hiring location in 2021.
- Driving representation: Our Futureforce interns represent one of the most diverse and global employee groups at the company. So we’ve expanded the program with Futureforce Tech Launchpad, a new pre-internship program that will allow us to reach underrepresented students in computer science earlier in their career journeys.
- Creating community: To create new connections and broaden our reach, we brought together communities and allies throughout the quarter. We hosted the inaugural Black Women Leadership and Connection Summit to support Black women leaders with better sponsorship access and career advancement opportunities. We also held the fourth annual Trailblazing Women Summit to advance gender equality. And in May, co-CEO Bret Taylor hosted a Black in Tech event in the Atlanta office, with nearly 100 business leaders in attendance, gathered for networking and discussions focused on increasing Black representation in the industry.
An update on hiring
These initiatives are helping us continue to make progress toward our representation goals. We are building on the momentum from hitting our goal to have 50% of our employees in the U.S. from underrepresented groups nearly a year early. We’re seeing steady gains in representation of Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Multiracial employees in the U.S., as well as increases in our global representation of women. Below is the latest data.
We are committed to driving systemic change in our workplace and communities through action, advocacy, and continued dialogue. We will continue to share progress and areas of opportunity as we work to meet our goals and drive change.
Learn more about our commitment to Equality and the Racial Equality and Justice Taskforce.
