ITM735 - Winter 2019 Case Study 1: Diversity Challenges at Facebook

This case study delves into the diversity challenges faced by Facebook, examining the company's struggles in maintaining a diverse workforce and the reasons behind these issues. The analysis draws upon evidence from Facebook's diversity reports and executive changes, highlighting the underrepresentation of women in leadership and technical roles. The study explores the impact of stereotypes, bias, and discrimination on Facebook's diversity efforts, and the importance of diversity in decision-making and product development. The case study also investigates Facebook's current programs and partnerships aimed at advancing women in the ICT environment, including potential investments in education, training, and collaboration with governments. The document provides a comprehensive overview of Facebook's diversity landscape, offering insights into the challenges and opportunities for improvement.

Running head: DIVERSITY UPDATE OF FACEBOOK
Diversity Update of Facebook
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

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Table of Contents
1. Assessment: Supporting of Evidence..........................................................................................2
2. Analysis: Reasons for Facebook to struggle in a Diverse Workforce.........................................3
3. Advancing Women: Facebook's Current Programs and Partnerships.........................................4
References........................................................................................................................................6

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1. Assessment: Supporting of Evidence
a. In the recent times, Facebook has launched the largest form of executive shakeup. As
per recent reports of the Palmer article, it has been seen that Facebook includes several women
that have been offered various potential roles. This includes women who work at the classified
ad section, Marketplace, vice president for handling video and product design. The evidence
supporting the statement is that Facebook has been continuing to make steps based on hiring a
diversified staff within the top ranks of the organisation (Facebook under fire as it shuffles
executives, adding just ONE woman, 2018). Based on their diversity report, women have
comprised of 28% of the senior leadership and had represented 19% of technical roles. On
another report, it has also been confirmed that the company comprises of 35% of the organisation
and the male counterparts comprise of 65% of the workforce.
b. A business case scenario that has been outlined is based on Baroness Martha Lane Fox.
She is the co-founder of LastMinute.com and Karaoke Bar Chain. In one of her tweets, she had
mentioned that Facebook had reorganized their product team. They have brought together men
and women within their diversified workforce (Lightfoote et al., 2014). Though women have
been discussed to have overseen about different areas of the efforts of Facebook, their male
counterparts would be in the major charge of some of the major applications. These include the
core Facebook application, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram. The diversified workforce
within the company reach at 5 billion at a monthly basis. Facebook has made serious efforts to
hire a diversified staff selection within the top ranks of the organisation (Cummings & Worley,
2014). They have been provided with various kind of tasks that would help in the major growth
of the organisation. The culture of diversity has been the major core within the business at

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Facebook. Based on the development of new kind of products, it has been seen that people who
would be responsible for the development of products should learn to code within the industry.
2. Analysis: Reasons for Facebook to struggle in a Diverse Workforce
Based on the understanding of stereotypes, bias and discrimination, it has been
understood that Facebook has been struggling to establish and thus maintain a diverse workforce
within their team. The aspect of diversity has been the core at the business. This diversified
workforce within the organisation would majorly help the business to make better form of
decisions and thus help the world to be close together in a single place.
The Facebook Resource Groups that is primarily been set up by internal communities,
help in supporting and fostering the value of understanding between the people (O’Brien et al.,
2015). The building of community outside the region of Facebook is important for impacting the
culture. The diversified culture of people within the Facebook community help in building of
software products. They should also learn to code in order to develop better products in the
future. Further emphasis on the company have shown that people coming from a variety of
backgrounds have a major form of interest in technological aspects (Brodock & Massam, 2016).
The technical lead of the organisation have certain aspirations based on providing impact to the
growth of the organisation. The company has founded that the process of attending conference
and building of strong form of partnerships with the industry organisations have been seen as a
crucial tool based on finding and encouraging of talent.
The entire talent management group within Facebook want to have a major impact on the
diversity culture of the organisation. The company wants to spend their power based on the
ability for creation of economic opportunity. They also help in promotion of equality outside of

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the organisation. This is the primary reason of the continuous growth of the organisation and
their supplier diversity program. As a powerful and diversified workforce, Facebook always
plans for the development of better and high quality of products and services. Thus they
primarily focus on finding new talents that would be able to put major impact to the tech culture
within the organisation.
3. Advancing Women: Facebook's Current Programs and Partnerships
The actions that could be taken up by Facebook for the investment within the future of
girls and women in the ICT environment are:
 Greater form of investment should be made for providing the affordable and equal access
to girls and women. Facebook should collaborate with the government of any country and
thus discuss on some kind of strategies. They should also further prioritise the issues
based on gender equality (Sandberg, 2015). They should also provide training needs and
funding to the people in order to provide them with basic facilities and amenities.
 Facebook should also integrate different forms of ICT policies based on gender and
development of the education within the lower community sector. Providing education to
the economically backward sector would the company to generate high quality of
students who would wish to participate within the tech sector. They should also be taught
about the latest kind of cybercrime laws and issues faced. This would also prove to be
helpful for them to understand the implications of such dangerous cyber outcomes (Falb
et al., 2014). Cybercrime is a major concern in the recent times and thus proposes several
challenges to the industry. The providing of education for the people based on cybercrime
and rights of women protection and online safety should be taken into consideration.

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 Facebook should also understand the need for investing more on girls and women
education based on bringing women digital empowerment. They should also collaborate
with governments based on the integration of ICT policies with policies of gender and
development. Facebook should also help in capitalising on the vast talent of women and
girls in order to meet with the demand of ICT skills (Carr & Thompson, 2014). This
could also result for boosting the GDP growth of the concerned country or organisation.
Bringing more workforce within the work culture would put major impact on the tech
sector. They would be able to code and develop vast kind of products and innovative
services that would be helpful for bringing innovativeness within the organisation.

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References
Brodock, K., & Massam, G. (2016). How and why to hire a diverse workforce: what you need to
know. Strategic HR Review, 15(5), 208-213.
Carr, E. R., & Thompson, M. C. (2014). Gender and climate change adaptation in agrarian
settings: Current thinking, new directions, and research frontiers. Geography
Compass, 8(3), 182-197.
Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2014). Organization development and change. Cengage
learning.
Facebook under fire as it shuffles executives, adding just ONE woman. (2018). Retrieved from
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5710289/Facebook-fire-overhauls-
executive-team-adds-just-ONE-woman.html
Falb, K. L., Annan, J., King, E., Hopkins, J., Kpebo, D., & Gupta, J. (2014). Gender norms,
poverty and armed conflict in Côte D’Ivoire: engaging men in women’s social and
economic empowerment programming. Health education research, 29(6), 1015-1027.
Lightfoote, J. B., Fielding, J. R., Deville, C., Gunderman, R. B., Morgan, G. N., Pandharipande,
P. V., ... & Macura, K. J. (2014). Improving diversity, inclusion, and representation in
radiology and radiation oncology part 1: why these matter. Journal of the American
College of Radiology, 11(7), 673-680.
O’Brien, K. R., Scheffer, M., van Nes, E. H., & Van Der Lee, R. (2015). How to break the cycle
of low workforce diversity: A model for change. PloS one, 10(7), e0133208.
Sandberg, S. (2015). Lean in-Women, Work and the Will to Lead.