Google Diversity Essay

The following paper addresses the topic of diversity within a workforce on the example of Google. DeNisi and Griffin (2005, p.509) state that, ' diversity exists in a group or organization when its members differ from one another along one or more important dimensions.' .

Firstly, in today’s business world, increasing emphasis has been put on this particular topic as organisations nowadays have realised that a business as a whole will be more successful hiring smart and highly skilled employees disregarding their gender, possible special needs, national background or religious believes. A workforce, that is diverse is one that is capable of getting the most out of a company in every aspect.

Secondly, the law does not allow discrimination and

For positions with a technical background it is not surprising, that the numbers are similar: 60% are white, 34% Asian, 2% Hispanic and 1% Black.

But also in terms of overall leadership in separate departments there are 72 % white, 23 % Asian, 2% Black and 1 % Hispanic who are positioned at the top level of Google's employee hierarchy.

Google is currently employer to 55,419 people (Google Inc., First Quarter 2015 Results) world- wide whereas 70 % are male and only 30% are female.

83 % of Google's tech workers internationally are male – and when looking at leadership positions, the relation becomes even more eye-opening and crucial: Google has 79 % men in a leadership role and only 21 % women.

The only job category that seems to have an adequate gender balance lays in non-tech jobs, meaning administrative and clerical positions where men hold 52% of the jobs and women 48%. Various professionals tried to explain this phenomenon with the prototypical statement that technology simply fits the interest of men much more than the one of women. This interest is then followed by an obtained degree and by a fully developed pool of possible skilled

Sullivan, 2014)

Laszlo Bock commented that there are fewer women and minorities who obtain tech related degrees at university: “ There are lots of reasons why technology companies like Google struggle to recruit and retain women and minorities. For example, women earn roughly 18 percent of all computer science degrees in the US. Blacks and Hispanics make up under 10 percent of US college grads and collect fewer than 5 percent of degrees in CS majors, respectively.” (L. Bock, 2014).

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The issue that Google is facing is not unique. Almost every major company from the tech sector is influenced by the small number of women and minorities. However this is not a valid excuse for failure. It might be normal to have more men employed in the tech industry – but Google does not want to be normal – Google wants to be outstanding and extraordinary.

To get a closer look and a better view on the comparison, two statistics have been developed by Biz Carson in the name of Gigaom (See Graphic 1 and Graphic 2 below).

Graphic 1: Overall Gender Overview

Gigoam graphic by Biz Carson, Source: Company diversity reports, August