Companies committed to publishing workforce internal diversity data

Many of the most known and big international corporations including Duke Energy Corp, Starbucks Corp and Wells Fargo & Co will make public detailed workforce diversity statistics after that pressures and incessant calls from activists - who keep sustaining the fact that the information will help judge companies’ progress in hiring and promoting minorities- have finally been heard.

Specifically, 34 companies in the S&P 100, an American stock market index maintained by Standard & Poor's, will commit to sharing and publishing their internal diversity data to increase and promote diversification of employees and talents among the companies’ workers.

The disclosures are expected to double the number of U.S. companies publicly offering information that large employers already file confidentially to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, hoping for a more inclusive international market.

It is hoped that the publishing of the mentioned details at the beginning of 2021 "will allow stakeholders to better understand our workforce profile and our diversity, equity and inclusion journey," said Katherine Neebe, chief sustainability officer for power utility Duke, in an email.

Currently, Corporate America is in the eye of the tiger as the lack of minority representation the company has, has drawn protests and judgements amid a wave of anti-racist activism since the brutal murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, in police custody in Minneapolis in May.

Some companies have already made their number public, including Snapchat parent Snap Inc, showing miserable inclusion and diversity numbers.

The company, out of 488 mid-level officials and managers, only 2% were Black and 5% were Hispanic or Latino, far below the groups’ share of the U.S. population but close to what other technology companies have reported. How can this still be possible in 2020?

Snap, under attack for this terrible statistic, noted that the company also set goals to promote diversity, including to double the number of its U.S. racial and ethnic minority employees by 2025.

Currently, many companies give partial diversity statistics including Duke and coffee retailer Starbucks, which declined to comment on Stringer's announcement.

Another, Wells Fargo, told Stringer's office it will make more data public as "a next step in the evolution of our transparency and disclosure process," a spokesman announced.

Yet, I wonder when we will be finally free to work peacefully in a world where words to label races and minorities don’t even exist.