Intel : 2017 Diversity and Inclusion Midyear Report and the Road Ahead

[Attachment] By Barbara Whye

At CES in 2015, our CEO, Brian Krzanich, announced Intel's plan to achieve full representation of women and underrepresented minorities in our U.S. workforce by the year 2020. This is important to us because we believe diverse and inclusive teams with diverse perspectives are more creative and innovative.

We are now at the halfway point in that journey. Since our 2015 announcement, the social and political climate has evolved as issues of diversity and inclusion have become ever more pressing, especially in our industry. That makes our effort to achieve full representation even more urgent. We've come a long way, but there is still much to be done. Since taking on the role of chief diversity and inclusion officer in April, I've been evaluating our progress, reflecting on the lessons learned and considering how best to achieve our goals.

Progress at the Midyear

The 2017 midyear diversity and inclusion data, which we published today, shows where we stand now. Our overall gap to full representation in the U.S. has narrowed from 2,300 people in 2014 to about 800 today - a 65 percent improvement that we're very proud of. Encouragingly, we're seeing stable progress of female, Hispanic and Native American representation. However, we have more work to do in achieving full representation by African Americans in technical roles. We also know retention must remain a key focus. Our innovative retention WarmLine is one of the ways we are addressing the gaps. The WarmLine has achieved a 90 percent success rate across well over 6,000 employees who have used it.

MORE:Moving Faster on Diversity and Inclusion (Brian Krzanich Editorial) | Intel's 2017 Diversity and Inclusion Midyear Report (Intel.com) | Intel Global Diversity and Inclusion Website (Intel.com) | Intel Diversity in Technology Initiative (Press Kit)

As part of our previously announced $300 million commitment to diversity, in June we announced a new grant program under which we're investing $4.5 million in support of STEM pathways programs at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Programs like this are impactful and benefit the industry at large, not just Intel.

A Focus on Fundamentals

Inclusion depends on how we connect and interact as people every day. To support that, our managers must have the training, resources and tools they need to lead and model diversity and inclusion practices. We're in the process of training 13,000 managers worldwide through a program called 'Managing at Intel,' with a focus on inclusion and leadership. We're also providing tools and guidance to the business units and organizations that, due to their scale or growth, are in a position to help us make the most progress. Among these tools are our diversity playbooks, customized plans that enable business units to focus on closing progression and hiring gaps.

We're also making changes to ensure that our goals stay current and relevant, and that our data is as accessible as possible:

• We've updated our Market Availability (MA) benchmark for the first time since 2015, as newer census data on technical females has become available. MA captures hiring, retention and progression, and is how we assess our progress. MA measures how many skilled people exist in the external U.S. labor market as well as Intel's own internal market for the jobs for which we hire. It is not necessarily the same as population. For example, according to the 2010 census, slightly more than 50 percent of the U.S. population are women. However, MA for early career technical females is about 26 percent, and that sets our objective for full representation at that level.
• In addition to the categories we've traditionally covered in our reports, we're including data on our majority population, military veteran employees, disabled employees and employees who self-identify as LGBTQ.
• We've reformatted our data addendum to make it much easier to read and evaluate, and to better reflect MA as our long-standing key metric.

The Future Is Bright When We Create It Together

There are challenges ahead, but Intel is at its best when embracing a challenge. In that spirit, our CEO has challenged us to achieve our goal of full representation not in 2020, as originally planned, but by the end of 2018, two years ahead of schedule.

We're driven to listen, learn and innovate to move ahead, and that's as true in diversity and inclusion as it is in our technical endeavors. We know what you focus on matters. I'm optimistic about the path ahead and believe we can achieve our new, more ambitious goals. But that won't be the end of the story. Diversity and inclusion are business imperatives for our company. They started many years before we began reporting our data and will continue long after we achieve full representation.

The future of Intel is in our hands, but the future is bright when we create it together.

Barbara Whye is vice president of Human Resources and chief diversity and inclusion officer at Intel Corporation.