Subscribe

Lenovo focuses on diversity in digital journey

Lauren Kate Rawlins
By Lauren Kate Rawlins, ITWeb digital and innovation contributor.
New York, 17 Sept 2018
Lenovo chief diversity officer Yolanda Conyers.
Lenovo chief diversity officer Yolanda Conyers.

Modernising business is not only about updating infrastructure and adopting new technology, but also about implementing policies that ensure diversity in teams.

This is the view of global tech giant Lenovo, which has focused on hiring people from different genders and races at all levels of the company; a policy that helps create better products.

"Diversity in our workplace enables us to better understand what people need and want from technology," says Yolanda Conyers, chief diversity officer, Lenovo.

"It means that we can better imagine, design and make the devices that deliver universal human experiences. Intelligent products - the products of inclusive transformation - rely on the inputs of the people who create them. The more diversity in these inputs, the more human the products will be."

At the Lenovo Transform 2.0 conference in New York City, group CEO Yang Yuanqing announced during his keynote that there are now eight distinct nationalities represented among Lenovo's top leadership committee and 20 different nationalities among its top 100 executives.

Only 18% of Lenovo executives are women, but the company plans to increase that to 20% by Q1 2019.

"Globally, our whole workforce is 35% women. While this is roughly on par with current industry standards, we are far from satisfied and doing much more to ensure gender equality at Lenovo, especially in our senior management," says Conyers.

Lenovo has been recognised for its company diversity by several boards.

It received a score of 100% on the 2018 Corporate Equality Index, a US benchmarking survey and report on corporate policies and practices related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer workplace equality, administered by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.

It has also been ranked in the top 100 companies for women to work for by Working Mother magazine, and in the top 50 best companies to work for by Fatherly.

Lee Highsmith, Lenovo commercial expert, believes diversity is extremely important.

"There are absolute paths of fostering diversity and opportunities for broad varieties of people to help them and help them help their peers. So people who have made it down that road help others find that same route. There is a great deal of effort behind that at the company," says Highsmith.

Conyers says each region in which Lenovo operates has different policies developed to fit the people who work there.

For example, in Slovakia, a day car is offered onsite for workers' children (at a minimal cost) during the three-month summer holiday.

In the US, new mothers are given 24 weeks of paid time off and new fathers are given eight weeks of paid leave. This policy is exceptional because the US government does not guarantee paid maternity or paternity leave.

In the US, Lenovo also provides holistic support for employees undergoing gender transition, such as medical and mental health benefits.

Share