Summary
The following is Insider's latest Diversity and Compensation Report, which provides critical data that enables us to track our diversity and equity progress on an annual basis.
The report looks at our U.S. workforce as of March 2023 as compared to the previous two years. In March, we had 792 full-time staff members, with 178 employees considered to be in leadership (defined as Director / Deputy Editor level and above). Any changes since March of 2023 (eg, new hires, promotions, departures) are not reflected in this report.
For the second year in a row, we have partnered with Littler Mendelson, a law firm that specializes in DEI and pay equity analysis, to help us analyze our pay and demographics data on a year-over-year basis. The goal is to provide insights and reveal trend lines that will enable us to continue to adjust our strategies to make progress going forward.
To maintain employee anonymity for members of groups with smaller representation, race/ethnicity is aggregated into three categories: Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC); white; and Undisclosed. For the same reason, Female and Non-Binary gender categories are combined for subgroup analyses.
Here are key highlights of the report:
- The overall racial diversity of our workforce has continued to see a slight but steady increase year-over-year, with the largest changes occurring in editorial.
- There has been an increase in new hires who identify as non-binary.
- We have continued to narrow the pay gap for female/non-binary employees.
- The overall pay gap for BIPOC employees has increased by 4 cents.
- Editorial has seen a pay gap increase of 5 cents since 2021 – to 15 cents.
- Divisions outside of editorial experienced a pay gap increase of 2 cents since 2021 – to 14 cents.
- Editorial has continued to see improved growth in BIPOC representation year-over-year.
- There has been little change in the demographic composition of our leadership team since 2021.
Demographics
Current Workforce
Figures 1 and 2 below demonstrate the evolution of Insider's workforce between March 15, 2020 and March 15, 2023.
When it comes to gender diversity at Insider, there have been few shifts since 2021.
Between 2022 and 2023, the representation of BIPOC employees at Insider has stayed the same.
Editorial and Non-Editorial Workforce
There has been little shift overall when we look at gender representation.
Figure 3
Over time, BIPOC representation within Editorial departments has increased, while Non-Editorial has remained consistent.
Figure 4
New Hires
We pay special attention to the demographics of new hires because they shape our future workforce. Our 2021 report accounted for 239 new hires. 2022 accounted for 345 new hires. The current report accounts for 113 new hires.
Since 2021, the percentage of female new hires has decreased.
Figure 5
Over this three-year period, the growth in the BIPOC population has seen little change.
Figure 6
In Editorial (Figure 7A), the number of female and non-binary new hires has remained relatively consistent. The number of male new hires dropped by two percentage points.
Figure 7A
In Non-Editorial departments (Figure 7B), the percentage of male new hires has increased, a trend since 2021.
Figure 7B
In Editorial, since 2021 there has been an increase in the representation of BIPOC individuals (Figure 8A). However, in Non-Editorial departments (Figure 8B), there has been a decrease in the representation of BIPOC individuals.
Figure 8A
Figure 8B
Compensation
Figures 9A through 11B provide insights into the relative pay of female and BIPOC employees. It's important to note that these figures highlight the existence of a pay gap but don't take into account factors that may influence pay difference, such as experience and job type.
From 2021 to 2023 (Figure 9A), we've seen an improvement in the gender pay gap. When it comes to BIPOC employees, the pay gap has widened slightly.
For female employees in Editorial departments (Figure 10A), since 2022 the pay gap has decreased by 3 cents compared to male employees.
The pay gap for BIPOC employees in Editorial departments (Figure 10B) has increased by 2 cents since 2022.
For female employees in Non-Editorial departments, there has been a 6-cent improvement in the pay gap since 2021.
BIPOC employees in Non-Editorial departments earn 86 cents on the dollar compared to white employees, down 2 cents since 2021.
Leadership
To maintain anonymity, race/ethnicity is aggregated into three categories: Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC); White; and Undisclosed.
Leadership Demographics
Overall, there has been little change in the demographic composition of our leadership team (defined as Director / Deputy Editor level and above) since 2021.
It's worth noting that some leadership employees chose not to disclose their race or ethnicity, and there are no members of leadership who identified as non-binary.
Figure 12
Figure 13
Both Editorial and Non-Editorial departments have similar race distributions. As shown in Figures 14A and 14B, white employees represent the majority demographic, with approximately 70% representation in both divisions. This is virtually unchanged since 2021.
Figure 14A
Figure 14B
Leadership Compensation
Leadership at Insider is defined as Director/Deputy Editor level and above. When examining the relative pay of female and BIPOC members of leadership, it's important to understand that these numbers alone may suggest the presence of a pay gap but do not take into account factors that could influence pay differences, such as experience and training.
The columns below illustrate the average pay for female and BIPOC leadership employees, while the "Equal Pay" line represents the average pay for male and white leadership employees. To make interpreting this data easier, the averages have been adjusted so that the height of each column represents the average number of cents that a group is paid in relation to one dollar of pay.
The gender and race pay gaps in leadership are smaller than the gaps reflected in the larger workforce. As depicted in Figure 15, on average, female employees earn approximately 90 cents for each dollar of male pay. The gender pay gap has slightly decreased since 2021.
Figure 15
In 2023, the average pay gap between white and BIPOC leadership is around 6 cents, an improvement from 2021, but down 3 percentage points from 2022.
Figure 16
How we'll continue to make progress
Training
In Editorial, we added new diversity focused training sessions, workshops, panels, and guides for 2022/2023. This includes programming around inclusive reporting on the trans community, sessions on how to cover disability, and talks on beating imposter syndrome. We continue to support applications to numerous external workshops and trainings, including the Maynard Fellowship Program and ONA's Women's Leadership Accelerator, among many others.
The Learning and Development team has continued to add more diverse coaches and a broader range of topics to their roster of coaches.
Mandatory DEI training and a revamped unconscious bias training for all of Insider will be rolled out in 2023.
Building Partnerships
Insider's newsroom has expanded partnerships with journalism organizations that focus on promoting diversity. In 2022, we established a partnership with the Trans Journalist Association and added a new school partner, Florida A&M University, a historically Black university. In addition, we will continue to strengthen our partnerships with organizations such as NLGJA, NABJ, and NAJA in the US. In the UK, we continue to work with the Aziz Foundation and the Journalism Diversity Fund.
Insider is continuing its Displaced Journalist Fellowship, along with our other dedicated fellowships (NABJ, TJA, NLGJA, and HBCU). The diverse voices and perspectives which these initiatives can provide us with will enhance our newsroom.
Insider has continued to invest in our team members, sending them to affinity conferences across the US and Canada where they can network, attend educational panels and learn from other journalists in the industry.
Investment in DEI
In order to further support our employees, we've promoted Fritzie Andrade to Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for all of Insider. In the newsroom, Kadia Tubman has taken over the role of Managing Editor, DEI. Together they will use the lens of DEI to work with staff and leadership to improve our work and culture.
Joel Marino, a five-year Insider veteran with a background in Latino and LGBTQ+ media, will oversee a new department – Workplace Experience (WEX) –that merges our learning and development efforts with our employee experience endeavors. The goal of the new department is to help bring theory into practice. Joel will work with WEX Manager Monica Araujo on in-office and virtual events, panels, outings, and more. Two big objectives are to get our hybrid workforce to connect more with each other, as well as coaching efforts to help our staff find mentorship.
Q4 of 2023 will see the relaunch of company ERGs. These will be in addition to currently existing ERGs (Women in Tech, Work in Progress and the UK DEI "All Inclusive" ERG).
