IDEA Q2 2022: #UntilWeAllBelong Toolkit

In every journey, headwinds are inevitable. We’ve experienced our fair share at Twitter –– and across our industry— and yet our focus remains steady. We’re continuing our work to support our Tweepforce with our global Business Resource Groups (BRGs) front and center. As we welcome change, our commitment does not waver: we’re on a journey to become the world’s most inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible (IDEA) tech company.

Along the way, we’ve experienced a global pandemic, war outbreaks, waves of inequity and unfair treatment, and violence toward historically-excluded communities, and ongoing global uncertainty. Each new challenge adds more urgency to our work –– to do even more and keep showing up for our Tweeps around the world when and where they need us most.

While the global macro-economic environment has triggered a slowdown in hiring across the industry, we’re still making progress against our 2025 Tweepforce representation goals, just not as fast or evenly as before. (Take a look at our Q2 2022 diversity data.) As  we navigate the challenges, our new reality also presents an opportunity for us to double down on inclusion. In fact, during times of macro-economic uncertainty, investments in the principles of inclusion and allyship improve outcomes for everyone.

Calling all allies

Simply put, it's during times of uncertainty when allies are needed most. That’s why we’re focused on empowering even more allies to stand in solidarity with Tweeps and continue to cultivate a truly inclusive culture. To recap, our allyship principles are:

1. Learn. Challenge your assumptions. Seek out information that expands your worldview.
2. Ask. Ask people about their unique lived experiences. Learn the personal journeys of others.
3. Show up. Go where you’re invited. Be present, engage authentically.
4. Speak up. Your voice has power. Use it to intervene on behalf of and advocate for others.

Allyship is not who you are, it’s what you do. At Twitter, we’ve introduced a portfolio of IDEA learning and development courses in recent years to underscore our first principle of allyship and empower all Tweeps with the knowledge and understanding to show up and do the work every day. Today, we share how we got there.

#UntilWeAllBelong Toolkit

We introduced the first iteration of our Inclusion & Diversity (I&D) trainings in 2019. Initially designed as an allyship resource, the coursework eventually evolved into three learning modules:

• Allyship 101: A deep dive into our four principles.
• Words Matter: Geared towards unlearning microaggressions.
• Healthy Conversations: Learn the skills and practices that make everyday conversations on tough topics healthy and straightforward.

As Tweeps dove into the coursework, they shared feedback and we learned a lot. Here’s our key takeaways:

1. There’s a high demand for this type of coursework. It should be ongoing and always-on.
2. Not all courses should be mandatory for all Tweeps – but managers are expected to understand the fundamentals.
3. We’re a global company, but regional context matters.
4. We need to meaningfully embed equity and accessibility into everything we do.

Based on those findings, our IDEA and Learning & Development (L&D) teams joined forces to create the #UntilWeAllBelong Toolkit. It’s a new, expanded portfolio of self-paced e-learnings that empowers Tweeps to double down on their IDEA learning journey and ensure that our entire Tweepforce is equipped with the tools and resources to drive inclusion at the individual and team level. The toolkit complements the many outstanding courses available for Tweeps via our L&D team including our leadership development programs for Women (WELead and Chief) and underrepresented Tweeps (The Power of Choice and McKinsey’s Black & Latinx Leadership Academy).

The #UntilWeAllBelong Toolkit is available to all Tweeps, from day one, as they begin (or continue) their IDEA learning journey with us. It’s also required coursework for all managers at Twitter. We took this approach with managers because of the unique role they play in promoting the health of their teams and fostering a truly inclusive environment. It introduces five new e-learnings that focus on IDEA topics frequently requested across our Tweepforce:

• Allyship 101: Practicing authentic allyship is critical. This e-learning will introduce you to Twitter's Four Principles of Allyship and ways you can practice allyship right now.
• Anti-Racism 101: Begin to understand and practice anti-racism as a mindset and learn how to apply it to your everyday work.
• Breaking Down Bias: Having biases is a normal part of the human brain function. But we all need to work to recognize, unpack, and interrupt those biases to maintain a more inclusive and diverse workplace.
• Inclusive Leadership: Anyone, regardless of level of seniority, role, or tenure can be a part of creating an inclusive workplace. Learn the principles of Inclusive Leadership.
  
• Words Matter: Microaggressions communicate messages of exclusion, based on someone's identity. They are not always intentional or obvious so it's important to be aware of them and how they impact people.

To ensure the coursework is globally inclusive, our IDEA team offers live sessions that serve as companions to the e-learnings and allow for exploration and workshopping of regional/country issues or with a particular team. For example, following all-team participation in our ‘Breaking Down Bias’ e-learning, teams can opt to participate in a Bias Disruption Workshop. This allows Tweeps who work together to explore their IDEA maturity levels–– both as a team and individually–– and where bias may show up in their working environment, as well as develop a charter of practical interventions and behaviors to disrupt that bias.

The courses in the #UntilWeAllBelong Toolkit were designed for Tweeps, with our unique culture and needs in mind. But the coursework covers important topics that are timely and relevant beyond the walls of Twitter–– many companies and communities grapple with the same themes. And because this work takes all of us, we’re pleased to share the courses from Twitter’s #UntilWeAllBelong Toolkit publicly here today for anyone to take.

While we’re proud of this new offering, it's just the beginning. The toolkit and coursework is intended to grow and evolve with us as we drive our work forward.

Prioritizing equity and accessibility

At the end of last year, we expanded the remit of our team from Inclusion & Diversity (I&D) to Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Accessibility (IDEA). We did this to reflect work that’s already underway to center equity and accessibility across all that we do.

• Equity lens
  We define Equity as ensuring that each individual has access to what they need to be successful, acknowledging that, given our unique identities and different relationships to power and privilege, we all start from different places. Distinct from equality, this concept of fairness and justice takes into consideration historical and current privilege, marginalization, and challenges systemic oppression.
  
  Tactically, that means we practice "equity-mindfulness" by centering the needs and experiences of our most vulnerable populations–– both in the annual planning process (with the help of equity impact assessments) and on an ongoing basis (through equity primers).
  
  Building on our longstanding public work in pay equity and our internal efforts around performance and promotion equity, our IDEA business partnering team (working across Twitter to create equitable and meaninful connections) is currently piloting an equity training aimed at developing equity fluency in program design. We’re excited to share more about that program in upcoming blogs.
• Accessibility
  Making Twitter more accessible is all of our work. Our Center of Excellence for Accessibility  regularly hosts internal trainings and provides support to embed accessibility principles across Twitter including Marketing and Communications, People, Studio, Twitter Next, Customers, Real Estate & Workplace (REW), and ArtHouse teams. This work complements the efforts already underway on the product accessibility team (AET) to ensure our service is accessible to everyone who uses Twitter. As we build on this work, we hope to eventually evolve the materials into a stand-alone e-learning focused on accessibility that will become part of the #UntilWeAllBelong toolkit for everyone to experience.
  
  In addition to launching workshops to support our business partners, our Center of Excellence for Accessibility also launched an accessible meetings and events policy and a new internal, streamlined process to enable meeting and event hosts to provide accessibility features for in-person and virtual events, as well as meetings by default. The new policy has removed the burden on Tweeps with disabilities to request accommodations for company-wide meetings/events.

Taking our toolkit public

Transparency drives the work we do at Twitter. It’s how we make strides in serving the public conversation. That’s why, with the publishing of today’s IDEA Q2 Report, we’re making the resources in the #UntilWeAllBelong Toolkit available to everyone. We believe equipping candidates, customers, peers, and the people who use our service the opportunity to join us on our IDEA journey will create a stronger, more equitable world.  So, while learning is the first step to our allyship principles, it’s also a critical part of cultivating a culture of belonging – wherever you are. Taking our toolkit public is one step forward but our work is not done.

Change is inevitable, but while the road ahead is long – progress is certain. And we won’t stop #UntilWeAllBelong.