Building a more equitable world

Rob Bearden, CEO, Cloudera

 IWD 2022

The simple - and hard – truth - is that whether we want to admit it or not, we all have biases. It shows up in how we interact with colleagues, the questions we ask and our behavior. Acknowledging and accepting that we all have hard work to do is central to building a more equitable world.

Women face biases much more frequently than men. Last year, LinkedIn highlighted how women are more likely to be asked questions at the interview stage that ‘prove their worth’. A Yale Insights study at a major US retailer found that despite performing better than male colleagues, women were less likely to be promoted because their ‘leadership potential’ was judged to be lower than the same male counterparts they were outperforming. And, McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace report highlighted that women were more likely to face microaggressions than men. Microaggressions were more frequent and varied for women of color, reflecting a wider range of biases that they are subject to on a daily basis.

These three studies are just a limited snapshot of how biases impact the work environment for women or any underrepresented minority. They cannot and should not be the norm. At Cloudera, we are on a mission to create a more inclusive and equitable organization. During 2021, we focused heavily on programs such as listening circles, our equality survey and training modules to ensure that employees were both seen and heard.

Of course, we have more work to do. We need to get comfortable with having uncomfortable conversations. We cannot accept the status quo. Tackling our own biases, providing consistent and continuous allyship, doing the work needed to drive change and continuing to choose to challenge will help to create the foundations that enable us to #BreakTheBias.