ServiceNow has been named a Glassdoor Best Place to Work for three years in a row. And when you learn about their People Pact, it’s no surprise why. Creating an inclusive workplace and putting its people first are core to that commitment.
At our Beyond Boundaries: UK & Europe Diversity Summit, we invited ServiceNow’s Alanzo Blackstock, senior regional director for the Alliance and Channel Ecosystem, and Surbhi Srivastava, senior manager, DEI business partner, to give us insight into how ServiceNow is shattering boundaries and building a culture of inclusion for all.
Increasing diverse representation
One fundamental building block of a diverse workplace is ensuring individuals from various backgrounds are entering the talent pipeline.
Alanzo says, “It's no secret that the boundaries of technology are continuing to expand, but there's a skill shortage, driving a need for more expertise. At ServiceNow, we want to solve this talent gap. And we want to do it in a way that brings in diverse talent.”
One way ServiceNow began addressing this talent gap was through their NextGen Professionals Program, which enables participants to build critical entry-level technical skills and access alternative paths to employment in the ServiceNow ecosystem.
“I’ve heard many times from women and people of color that it feels hard to get into the industry. The industry says, ‘You have to have experience,’ so it’s a sort of chicken-and-egg scenario. We’ve addressed this problem head-on at ServiceNow,” Alanzo shares. “We’ve connected over 2,200 NextGen graduates to employment opportunities. We’ve engaged with about around 10,000 participants and helped more than 5,000 of those connect to jobs.”
Additionally, ServiceNow launched a global talent movement, RiseUp with ServiceNow. The goal is to create simpler, faster, and more equitable paths for underserved and nontraditional talent to have successful careers in technology. Participants can access over 600 self-paced courses and use their credentials to explore opportunities with one of ServiceNow’s 10,000+ partner and customer organizations or grow their careers at ServiceNow. RiseUp with ServiceNow aims to skill one million people on the ServiceNow platform.
ServiceNow understands that developing a diverse talent pipeline is only the tip of the iceberg. To fully break barriers for diverse professionals, we must also focus on what happens internally–the employee experience.
Fostering a culture of inclusion for all
To foster an inclusive work environment, ServiceNow has focused its efforts on several pillars, including allyship, intersectionality, mentorship, well-being, and the gender pay gap.
Increasing allyship across the organization
ServiceNow launched a partnership with Praxis Labs, an immersive learning platform that helps team members develop soft skills to drive equity, inclusion, and belonging in the workplace.
“This helps develop greater empathy and understand, from a first-person perspective, what different experiences look like through immersive simulations,” Surbhi explains.
“We also enable that through in-person discussions, which create safe spaces for people to come and express what they've experienced and gather and garner learnings out of it. These simulations can range from microaggressions in interviews to allyship in career development and advancement conversations and has had a real impact on how acts of inclusion are being perceived by our employees. Following this training, our surveys indicated that 89% of learners reported increased empathy, and almost 84% reported increased confidence to act.”
Recognizing & addressing intersectionality
“It would be such a missed opportunity if we looked at individuals as just one part of their identity, such as solely ethnicity or age. We are very complex as human beings,” says Surbhi.
To address the importance of intersectionality, ServiceNow launched a global series called Courageous Conversations. “The purpose of this initiative is to focus on the complexities of not just diversity but also identity in the workplace. What are the different aspects of yourself that are governing how you present yourself at work?” explains Surbhi.
Mentorship as an avenue for growth
ServiceNow believes that another way to break barriers for diverse professionals is through mentorship. For Alanzo, employee belonging groups (EBGs) are a perfect place to find this support.
“We currently have nine EBGs,” he shares. “We’ve increased our membership in these groups by around 42% over the past year or so. It’s a significant resource that we leverage across the organization.”
He also brings up the impact of ServiceNow’s suite of professional development tools for managers, which provides clear guidance and organization on the mentorship experience.
“Our employees receive pertinent and timely feedback that helps them progress in their career development and celebrate wins and successes. It also helps managers so that they have meaningful conversations around performance and can support employees in setting and achieving their goals.”
ServiceNow offers various growth and development programs to its employees, including Power of 10, a cross-functional peer mentoring group for female employees. Surbhi says, “It offers women mentorship opportunities that speak to their needs. … giving women the opportunity to cultivate a culture and a community of mutual support.”
Encouraging well-being
In addition to ServiceNow’s flexible PTO and 30-day work from anywhere policies (conditions applied), it offers its employees six well-being days each year, to rest and recharge. It also offers a holistic employee assistance program that supports mental, physical, emotional, and financial well-being.
ServiceNow runs an Employee Voice Survey annually to ensure their well-being, benefits, and workplace culture are meeting the mark.
“What's really impressive at ServiceNow is how much the leadership, all the way down to management, really takes it seriously. They review the results and take action to ensure we address where we need to improve,” says Alanzo.
Closing the gender gap
Another piece of the inclusion puzzle at ServiceNow involves closing the gender pay gap.
The company uses third-party software that tracks and manages pay equity by analyzing base salaries, bonuses, and commissions, and adjusts compensation packages wherever necessary.
“In 2022, our global pay adjustments affected less than 1% of our employee population, and it accounted for less than 0.05% of our global payroll costs,” explains Surbhi.
“Thanks to these initiatives, in 2022, we grew our representation of women across our business and women in leadership positions… our employee engagement survey results reflect how every individual employee in the organization understands DEI and values the efforts that we are making to prioritize global teams across multiple different countries and lead through inclusion.”
For more insight from Alanzo and Surbhi on how ServiceNow is building an inclusive workplace, listen to for our full conversation, “ServiceNow: Shattering Boundaries: Breaking Barriers and Building Empowerment,” here.
ServiceNow is committed to creating equity and inclusion across every employee journey and is recognized among Fortune’s top 25 World’s Best Workplaces. Explore career opportunities with ServiceNow here.
