Ending systemic racism is complex and will require long-term dedication for everyone to do their part. At Intuit, diversity and inclusion isn’t just something we do — it’s part of who we are and is essential to realize our mission of powering prosperity around the world. That’s why we’re committed to doing even more to create a more inclusive world both within our company and beyond.
Last Spring, our CEO, Sasan Goodarzi, shared with Intuit employees that it’s more important than ever for us to come together and openly discuss the realities that the Black community faces. While there are no easy solutions to addressing systemic racism, we accelerated our journey of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) to put a more progressive actionable plan in place to achieve true equity, starting with our employees and expanding to our customers and communities.
By starting with a plan that addresses our most marginalized group of employees, we will create a ‘rising tide that will lift all boats’ philosophy, making Intuit a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace for every employee to do the best work of their lives. This work goes beyond our four walls and we hope to inspire others so that we can collectively drive greater societal transformation.
Intuit’s Racial Equity Advancement Leadership (REAL) Team
We came together as a company and announced the creation of Intuit’s REAL Team which is dedicated to help create a long-term plan to address racial equity at Intuit.
The REAL Team is composed of all Black employees and supported by a group of executive sponsors who represent a diverse cross section of the company. Each team member brings different skills, experiences and expertise to the team and together, they are leading the way to develop policies and advocate for change that will improve the employee experience and build a more inclusive workplace.
Increasing representation and enhancing engagement for underrepresented groups at all levels and functions of the company
Underrepresented Minority Recruiting: Increasing representation involves hiring more top talent from underrepresented groups at all levels. We’re improving our talent acquisition funnel by expanding our recruiting efforts in the US to geographies and schools with larger populations of underrepresented groups. We’re also partnering with professional associations like AfroTech and Black Professionals in Tech Network to identify talent at the middle manager and executive levels to increase representation and help drive change at the top.
To continue our progress, we have set a goal to increase representation of Black, Latino and other underrepresented ethnic minorities from 12 percent to 16 percent of our workforce within the next two years in order to reflect the communities in which we operate and the customers we serve.
Employee Training & Development: Hiring diverse candidates isn’t enough and we’re doing more to retain our employees from underrepresented groups. We want to ensure we have representation at all levels of the organization while leaning into ways to grow and develop our top talent so they have equal opportunity to thrive. We know that in order to unlock the benefits of diversity, you must lead with inclusion so employees know they can be themselves at work and that they belong. Our ultimate goal is for every single Intuit employee to be able to bring their full, authentic self to work, every day.
As part of our focus on DEI, we’re extending our racial equity training programs beyond managers to all of our employees around the world. We’ve also provided additional training to our senior leadership and key functions within the company to provide additional resources and training to operate in a more equitable world.
Building additional capabilities in our managers and leaders is critical. This includes the creation of resources to support diverse career conversations, ensuring our managers understand employee needs that may be very different from their own. We’re also creating a formalized mentorship program for our top underrepresented minority talent to better support them and help them grow in their careers.
Inclusive Practices and Policies: We’re more rigorously embedding DEI data and analysis into our company’s operating mechanisms by evaluating and making appropriate improvements to our pay, promotion, mobility, performance feedback and ratings to improve equity.
Additionally, Juneteenth, a holiday that commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in the US, will become an official US Intuit holiday moving forward.
In the spirit of continuous learning and improvement, we recently launched our first company-wide DEI survey in January to ensure that all employee voices could be heard. We intend to implement this survey on an ongoing basis and the results will provide a baseline to help us create and drive further actions.
Supporting inclusive product and customer experiences
We’re committed to learning from customers in underrepresented minority groups. The more we learn, the more we can build better and more inclusive products. And the more diversity we have within our internal team, the better we can understand our customers’ needs.
In addition to incorporating feedback into our experiences, we’re leveraging more diverse representation in imagery and marketing materials and are continuing to expand the use of the new anti-racist language principles in the design of our products.
To bring additional expertise, experience and perspective to Intuit, we appointed Tekedra Mawakana to join our Board of Directors. Mawakana is the COO of Waymo, LLC, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc., where she is a recognized business leader and expert on public policy related to commerce and advanced applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Our REAL Team members are also sharing their expertise through company events, training and volunteering their time to speak externally. Through almost 50 speaking engagements, the team is both educating and inspiring others to tackle racism in their life and throughout their companies.
Embracing our underserved communities
Economic inequality is on the rise across communities, driven by shifts in technology, the environment and socioeconomic factors. We’re committed to continuing our focus on underrepresented minority communities, customers and suppliers.
In 2016, we launched our Prosperity Hub program with a mission to promote economic prosperity for people and communities in need by creating new jobs, as well as preparing people for jobs of the future and equipping entrepreneurs to start and build successful businesses. When selecting the location of our Prosperity Hubs in the future, we will reinforce underrepresented minority criteria, expanding the impact we can have on communities who will benefit most.
We’ll also contribute to initiatives that improve financial acumen, decrease the wealth gap and support underrepresented minority small businesses by participating in initiatives and events like Black Entrepreneur’s Day and customer initiatives like the recent panel with Greg Johnson and Shaquille O’Neal discussing the many obstacles communities of color still face on their path to financial security.
Long-term Commitment
We’re making progress and are committed to building a scalable infrastructure for the future.
Achieving diversity, equity and inclusion is a journey that is focused not just on ending systemic racism today, but for the future.
Together, we can make a difference in creating a more equal world.