Diversity and Belonging at Checkr in 2019
Our mission at Checkr is to build a fairer future by improving our understanding of the past. In other words, we believe all candidates, regardless of who they are, should have a fair chance to work. To achieve this goal and build the best product and company, we need a diverse set of perspectives and lived experiences in the room. That includes bringing in people of different races, genders, sexualities, ages, abilities, education levels, and caregiver or veteran statuses—along with people who have criminal backgrounds. These varying perspectives, life experiences, and points of view approach problems from new angles—and ultimately, lead to creativity, innovation, and disruption.
Beyond bringing in the best talent, we also strive to create space and opportunities for diverse perspectives to be heard and considered in shaping decisions across Checkr. All that said, we understand that diversity and belonging are evermoving targets. That’s why we’re releasing our first diversity and belonging book, to share our current standing, and more importantly, as a way to hold ourselves accountable to furthering our efforts.
In this book, we walk through our experiences with diversity and belonging, along with the mistakes we’ve made and success we’ve seen. Specifically, we share the challenges we’ve run into as we’ve changed our recruiting model to attract more candidates from underrepresented groups and shine a light on our fair chance hiring efforts. This is also the first time we’re sharing our demographic data with the world. Here’s where we currently stand:
The following data reflect the state of Checkr’s full-time employees as of September 2019.
At Checkr, we categorize fair chance talent as people whose reportable conviction histories may inhibit their chances at work.
Key learnings and the road ahead
We’re heartened by the data we’re reporting on this year. There’s still a long way to go, but we feel motivated by the recruiting model we’ve built and its ability to successfully increase the diversity at Checkr. That said, we are concerned about the pace of our fair chance hiring program. While 6% of Checkrs identify as fair chance, the bulk of this population is highly concentrated within a few teams. This isn’t a sustainable model as we scale, and we need to bring fair chance talent across the organization. Like other technology companies, improving the diversity in our technical roles—not only in terms of gender and race or ethnicity but also fair chance talent—will be important to our long-term success.
We’ve made significant headway on our diversity goals, but we know there’s still work to be done when it comes to creating a sense of belonging for everyone at Checkr. That’s why we’re devoting ourselves to further supporting women, people from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, and fair chance talent by creating more channels for feedback and ideas, articulating clear paths for career growth, and building an environment where they feel empowered to be their authentic selves. This takes a lot of trust and community building from both ends—and honestly, while we’ve made incredible strides, we still have a lot to learn before we have a true sense of belonging at Checkr.
We’re committed to figuring this out. We will listen, learn, and experiment to decide on the right approaches to improve and go to great lengths to build a culture of belonging together. As part of that, we’ll need to figure out how to tap into the collective Checkr Resource Groups to be more actively engaged in shaping our policies and culture. We expect that within one year of this publication, we’ll have a lot of lessons learned and more progress to report.
Success for us looks like a company that empowers its employees to openly be themselves and in their own time, share their stories, and be respected and appreciated for the unique perspectives they bring to Checkr. We’re looking forward to getting there together.
