Today I’m sharing our latest Diversity Report — data we’ve shared annually since 2014 for transparency across our organization and industry. This report is an important tool to measure our progress and hold ourselves accountable in areas that require additional focus and growth.
We’ll be hosting our next Global All Hands in November in just a few weeks, following our earnings report, where we can share updates on our business and from around the company. We didn’t want to wait until then, however, to share our annual Diversity Report, so I’m sharing the details below today — which we’ll also publish online.
This year, I want to acknowledge the tremendous effort put forth across our organization as we had to adapt through difficult times across our industry, but stayed true to our commitment to Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (DI&B) in our work and in our culture.
Our teams set goals, drove change and worked to ensure we fostered a culture of respect and equality across race, gender, age, orientation and beyond at BuzzFeed, Inc. I’d like to especially thank the DI&B council, our ERGs, BIPOC employees, allies, and the invaluable contributions of Dionna Scales who played a key role in the progress we’ve made to date.
METHODOLOGY
The data in the 2023 Diversity Report is based on all employees in Workday as of September 13, 2023.
An important note about this year’s study: compared to our last report we saw a small decrease (1 percentage point) in US employees who did not input their data in Workday. While this is an improvement over the previous measurement, the data in this report represents only a portion — 90.7% — of our US workforce.
This 9.3%“Undeclared” group includes both employees who did not self-report and employees who selected “Decline to Identify.” Of this group, the majority did not self-report. Due to rounding, values may not always sum to 100%.
In addition to collecting gender data in a “male/female/undeclared” format, as required by many governments, BuzzFeed, Inc. encourages employees to also complete an additional gender identity field, using an expanded list of options including cisgender, transgender, non-binary, and more. Due to participation rates and sample sizes, the former is used for this report, unless otherwise indicated.
The US Government requires race/ethnicity data to be collected in a way that many feel is outdated, such as considering people of Middle Eastern and North African descent as “White” in US Census data. BuzzFeed, Inc. also encourages employees to complete an additional expanded race/ethnicity survey -- while we do yet not use that data for reporting, we want to thank and acknowledge the employees who completed that data and have additionally identified as African, Caribbean, East Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, and Native American. This data helps us gain a more complete understanding of our employee population.
DIVERSITY REPORT RESULTS
- The US employee population is slightly more ethnically diverse in 2023 than last year. The population is 52% White, 12.6% Asian, 13.6% Black, 7.6% Latino/a/e or Hispanic, 4.1% Two or More Races, and 0.80% Other Groups (which includes American Indian or Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander). In the US, the number of employees who identify as a race/ethnicity other than the most common (White), has increased incrementally (37.98% to 38.7%).
- We continue to be a majority-female company. A total of 61.8% of employees globally identify as female (more gender and gender identity data below).
- The percentage of global employees who identify as LGBTQ+ increased. Today, 12.86% of global employees identify as LGBTQ+, up from 12.67% and 9.50% in our 2 most recent reports.
In addition to these numbers, I’d like to share some of our 2022-2023 DI&B highlights.
- October 2022: Multi-Racial Employee Celebration Week by DI&B Council
- February 2023: Listening Sessions
- March 2023: People team attended Tech Elevator Matchmaking event which connects diverse entry-level talent
- May 2023: Renamed AAPI ERGs to more clearly include “Pacific Islander” → API*Family
- June 2023: DI&B Council sponsored company wide Back to School Drive in partnership with The Assistance League of Los Angeles, which supports predominantly Black and Brown students living in poverty in LA.
- July 2023: HuffPost attended the AAJA and NAHJ annual conferences
- July 2023: Mentorship Week planned and sponsored by the DI&B Council, to help promote growth among diverse employees.
- August 2023: HuffPost attended NABJ and NAJA annual conferences
- September 2023: HuffPost attended The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists Annual Conference
- We have donated over $290,000 in advertising inventory to non-profit and philanthropy-focused organizations so far in 2023 with more to come!
- We’ve hosted 19 Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging training opportunities in 2023 alone.
RACE & ETHNICITY DATA (US)
Below is the overall diversity data by race and ethnicity across BuzzFeed, Inc.
Below is the race/ethnicity data organized by the divisions across BuzzFeed, Inc. The divisions in 2023 are: Administrative (HR, Legal, Finance, Accounting, Communications), Business Organization (Sales), Tech, BuzzFeed + Tasty, First We Feast, HuffPost and Complex.
The below chart illustrates the racial and ethnic diversity of employees across levels.
2023: We still have work to do to close the gap and increase the representation of BIPOC employees at higher levels.
GENDER DATA (GLOBAL)
The next chart illustrates women over time at BuzzFeed, beginning in 2014 and continuing through to today, 2023.
- A total of 61.8% of employees globally identify as female, which can be broken down into:
- 36% of Tech org employees identify as women
- 53.6% of Company Leaders (Sr. Director and higher) identify as women
- 57.2% of People Manager identify as women
- Gender Identity Data (Global)
- Out of the employees who completed our more inclusive Gender Identity section in Workday, 1.2% identify as a gender identity beyond the male/female binary.
- Non-Binary / Third Gender 1.2%
- Cisgender Female 48.5%
- Cisgender Male 28.3%
- Prefer not to say 22%
- Out of the employees who completed our more inclusive Gender Identity section in Workday, 1.2% identify as a gender identity beyond the male/female binary.
- Sexual Orientation Data (Global)
- Queer 2.5%
- Bisexual 4.4%
- Lesbian 1.5%
- Gay 4.3%
- Heterosexual 52.8%
- Undeclared 34.3%
- Questioning 0.2%
- Age (Global)
- 20 and under 0.5%
- 21-31 37.3%
- 31-40 48.2%
- 41-50 11%
- 51-60 2.2%
- 61-64 0.5%
- 65 and over 0.2%
LOOKING AHEAD
We see opportunity to grow through the following key areas:
- Education & Intentional Conversations: Numbers don’t tell the full story of an employee’s experience at BuzzFeed, Inc. As HR held listening sessions and conversations across the company and the ERGs this year, we feel there continue to be opportunities to educate employees on lived experiences, and give individuals more tools for open, productive conversations. We will continue to host regular DI&B mandatory and elective training and add more mandatory DI&B sessions in the new year.
- Inclusion: We want to ensure all employees feel safe bringing their authentic selves to work - whether at the office or in remote/home spaces. Since managers play an important role in an employee’s feelings of inclusion, we have been and will increase our efforts to ensure managers have the resources they need to model the company’s values of inclusion.
- Networking & Partnerships: We have to continue to build inclusive networks, so when we return to recruiting we can hire diverse candidates -- and in the meantime uphold practices that equitably advance BIPOC talent. We are actively exploring opportunities to partner with diverse and inclusive organizations and educational institutions, and look forward to attending events as we are able in the weeks and months ahead.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
Unfortunately, the percentage of employees in the UK (London) who did not declare race/ethnicity increased, therefore we only have data that represents 69% of employees. At this time, due to the small population size and low data completion rates, we cannot provide an accurate picture of our population in the UK or other international offices.
Additionally, we did not include graphs on new hires or promotions due to a hiring freeze, recruiting deceleration and postponed mid-year promotions.