"The best ever inclusive account in Thoughtworks history"?

A global data and digital content company founded in the early 2000s brought Thoughtworks in to help modernize their primary systems, while protecting revenue streams. The team scaled to around 140 consultants, and had impressive diversity metrics with women or gender-diverse folks making up 42% of the group. However, there was still considerable room for improvement, especially when it came to representation at the leadership level. We had diversity, but where was the equity and inclusion?

Amy Lynch (Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion for Thoughtworks Europe) highlighted this issue — an all-male Client Leadership Team (CLT) — and everyone collectively acknowledged the need to improve, and quickly. Introducing the idea of a rotating CLT member from one of the teams was our first play, but that was only a small first step. 

The CLT invited Amy to present her vision of what “the best ever inclusive account in Thoughtworks history” might look like. Her vision was based on the “five factors of radical inclusion”: representation, accountability, growth, awareness and practices.

From this inspiration, a number of short, medium and long-term initiatives were kicked off: 

Measurable goals and leadership accountability

Amy coached every CLT member to set two or more goals explicitly targeted at increasing equity and inclusion among the Thoughtworkers on the account. Together with Amy we curated some example personal goals, and leaders were encouraged to make theirs public to the entire project team. 

Micro inclusions

A micro inclusions awareness session was conducted for the whole team and a micro inclusions crib sheet was added to the account onboarding content for new team members, making the same guidance available to all, present and future.

Meeting inclusivity

Our regular account All Hands meetings, and all other whole-team meetings, were moved to Google Hangouts. Why? Because, at the time, the automatic closed captioning was far better than on Zoom, and members of the team had reported this as being an issue for them. 

Making inclusion a priority

Going forward, we added a monthly Social impact (which incorporates DEI, social change and sustainability) section to our regular CLT connections. Topics covered included inclusive video conferencing etiquette and details on Thoughtworks Europe and IME social impact activities and events.

Transparency

Finally, and most importantly, we started reporting our DEI commitments and progress directly to our client stakeholders during Quarterly Business Reviews. These reports highlighted the value diverse teams brought to the client, alongside metrics like NPS and engagement scores. We shared the six goals the CLT had set, and asked the client to hold us accountable:

• Diversity in our teams – Further improve our percentage of women/gender-diverse individuals staffed in Thoughtworks teams. 

• Diversity champions – Ensure all teams have a diversity champion supported by our European diversity lead.

• DEI training – Require all new Thoughtworks hires to attend an induction session focused on mitigating bias, addressing microaggressions and promoting micro inclusion.

• Inclusion training – Run a dedicated annual inclusion training session for all Thoughtworkers staffed on this account.

• Equality in hiring – Focus hiring efforts on women/gender-diverse candidates.

• Equality in career progression – Support the career progress for women/gender-diverse team members explicitly through the CLT.

Collaboration followed

This explicit statement of intent allowed us to consolidate our engagement with those working for better DEI in the client organization. While we were building their new platform, they were hiring for tens of new roles; these roles would initially be staffed with Thoughtworks teams, and gradually replaced as they hired. Having seen the outcomes that our high-performing, diverse teams were achieving, they wanted to see what they could learn from us. This led to several collaborative opportunities with key stakeholders:

• We met with several C-suite leaders to share insights into the Thoughtworks DEI journey with learnings and recommendations.

• We held discussions with Engineering Operations and Delivery leadership and Women in Technology employee network leads to understand how to accelerate gender equity efforts.

• We also met with the Culture & Engagement Lead to explore embedding DEI into their people practices.

We recognize we still have a lot of work to do, we have made progress, but have only completed half of our initial goals. Successes include: 

• Support for W/GD colleagues has seen them contribute more explicitly to architecture forums.

• Talks have been accepted at UK and international conferences based on the innovative approaches our W/GD team members have developed.

• We have seen an increase in W/GD leaders participating in technical leadership training, and being promoted into more senior grades.

At the time of publication, we have seen a significant increase in gender diversity on our client leadership team with 50% now identifying as W/GD. Across the account, 38% identify as W/GD and we remain committed to embedding equity and inclusion into everything we do. We also encourage everyone to hold us to account when we fall short.

The most incredible outcome of this work has been that the more we do, the more we keep the best of Thoughtworks culture alive and thriving across our teams. We’ve seen firsthand that diverse teams deliver, and what is more, that we can have fun, learn and ship great software while we’re at it.