After Backlash, Salesforce Increases Minority Hires With a Focus on Black Women

After public condemnation for its treatment of non-White employees, Salesforce is trying to do better.

Salesforce shared new employee diversity statistics data as of April 2021, pointing out that in April 2020, there were 4.0% Black, 5.0% Latinx and 12.7% total underrepresented minorities hired. April 2021’s numbers rose to 8.1% Black, 6.8% Latinx and 18.8% total under-represented minorities who were hired by the cloud computing leader.

Another initiative entailed “designing a company-wide strategy focused on the Black Women experience to accelerate representation, create access, address microaggressions, and develop Black leaders,” according to Salesforce.

“Building a company-wide training in partnership with a Black-owned vendor that will address microaggressions impacting underrepresented communities in our workplace. The training will enable leaders to interrupt bias and microaggressions in key talent processes and help employees recognize their role in these day to day moments,” Salesforce said in the company’s blog.

While mentioning hiring strides, Salesforce said that the company recognize the need to focus on the experience, once their talent arrives.

“We are working to create a culture where underrepresented talent doesn’t just exist, they thrive,” Salesforce said.

Several months ago, a former Salesforce employee who is Black penned and posted a letter on LinkedIn.

“I resigned because I experienced countless microaggressions and inequity during my time at Salesforce. I wrote a resignation exit letter to several leaders and I want to share it here with all of you. I have taken out identifiers because this is not about exposing or cancelling anyone. This is about me. My story. It’s about moving forward and not carrying their shame with me,” Cynthia Perry said.

Perry, a former senior manager of research in business technology, was not the only former employer who took that route. Vivianne Castillo followed the same path. Ironically, Salesforce had publicly been an advocate of racial equality and justice.

In the latest update, Salesforce mentioned that while focusing on employee experience goals, the company also trained nearly 10,000 employees through “Racial Equality Ally training” and conducted “Inclusive Promotions Training.”

“As part of our vision of building a workplace that looks like society, we published a representation goal last year of having 50% of our U.S. workforce made up of underrepresented groups* by 2023,” Salesforce said on its Equality for All page.