The public sentiment has turned strongly in favor of diversity of late. Companies are now being held accountable and those that had not made diversity reports public, are being pressurized to do so. Along the same, Uber is set to release its diversity report before the end of the month for the first time ever. However, a new report from Bloomberg states that the company’s demographics were unknown to its recruiting team.
Before moving any further, consider the implications of that. If the recruiters themselves didn’t knew the demographics, how could they be expected to set specific goals and work towards achieving them? According to Blooomberg, while some people were tasked with ensuring that diverse people were employed at the company, even they did not have any concrete data regarding the pervading demographics at the ride-hailing firm.
Apparently, several employees also attempted to track the diversity at Uber and towards the same, had requested it to release data. However, they were turned down and were told that the Human Resource department did not keep track of this particular piece of information.
Unlike many of its Silicon Valley peers, Uber has gotten away with not releasing a diversity report for this long. Indeed, the company started seriously moving in the direction only after the recent fiasco in which several former female employees came out and claimed that they faced harassment while working at the cab aggregator. The event cause a public outrage and demands for a diversity reports were strongly raised. Following that, Uber promised to release a diversity report and also set an inquiry into the claims of harassment made by the women.
The Bloomberg report also cited an anonymous source who said that while CEO Travis Kalanick exhibited interest in improving the diversity at the company, he also kept postponing important decisions in that regard. Meanwhile, lets await Uber’s diversity report and hope that it will shed more light on the complexities of the company’s recruitment process.
