Today, I am sharing Microsoft’s 2024 Diversity & Inclusion Report, our most global and transparent report to date. This marks our sixth consecutive annual report and the eleventh year sharing our global workforce data, highlighting our progress and areas of opportunity.

Our ongoing focus on diversity and inclusion is directly tied to our inherently inclusive mission — to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, enabling us to innovate in the era of AI. As we approach our company’s 50th anniversary, we remain deeply committed to D&I because it is what creates transformational solutions to the most complex challenges for customers, partners and the world.

Key data

We gather a range of data, which is presented in specific ways throughout the report. In the following section, it is important to understand the distinction between our *Broader Microsoft business and our **Core Microsoft business.

New and expanded data

• Datacenters: As we lead the AI platform shift, our workforce continues to expand to include employees with varied backgrounds and roles, and we are sharing new data this year on a growing employee population in datacenter roles. The population of datacenter employees grew 23.9% globally and 28.9% in the US in 2024, more than tripling since 2020.
• In our most global report to date, we expanded new global Self-ID data to include Indigenous and military employees, as well as those with disabilities. For example, 5.7% of global employees in our core Microsoft business self-identified as having a disability, an increase of 0.2 percentage points year over year.
• We continue to have pay equity. For median unadjusted pay analysis, the data shows we have made progress in narrowing the gaps. This year we expanded pay equity analysis and median unadjusted pay analysis to not only include women inside and outside the US, but also include a combined view of women globally. Increasing representation for women and racial and ethnic minority groups at more senior levels, combined with maintaining pay equity for all, will continue to reduce the median unadjusted pay gap. 

Representation

• Representation of women in our core Microsoft workforce is 31.6%, an increase of 0.4 percentage points year over year. Additionally, the representation of women in technical roles is 27.2%, an increase of 0.5 percentage points year over year.
• Representation of women in our core Microsoft workforce rose year over year at all leadership levels except Executive.
• Leadership representation in our core Microsoft workforce of Black and African American employees at the Partner + Executive level grew to 4.3%, an increase of 0.5 percentage points year over year. Leadership representation in our core Microsoft workforce of Hispanic and Latinx employees at the Executive level rose to 4.6%, an increase of 0.8 percentage points year over year.
• In our broader Microsoft workforce, representation of racial and ethnic minority groups is 53.9%, an increase of 0.6 percentage points year over year.

Culture and inclusion in focus

Employee sentiment and engagement

• Our semi-annual Employee Signals survey focuses on employee experience and helps us deepen our understanding so we can adjust our efforts where needed. These insights show that employees continue to feel like they are thriving, with a global and US score of 76. Within Employee Signals, we focus on thriving, which we define as “being energized and empowered to do meaningful work.” This is designed to measure employees’ sense of purpose, which is important to personal and professional fulfillment. We survey employees on three dimensions of thriving: Feeling energized, feeling empowered and doing meaningful work.
• Our Daily Signals survey results indicate employee perceptions around Microsoft’s commitment to creating a more diverse and inclusive workplace increased two points year over year to an average score of 79.
• Since introducing the concept of allyship to employees in 2018, we have inspired and led a positive impact on our culture. As of June 2024, 95.6% of employees reported some level of awareness of the concept of allyship, up from 65.0% in 2019 when we first started asking employees about their awareness.

A commitment that spans decades

Our annual D&I report not only reviews our data, but also illuminates the intentional strategy and actions that have helped us make progress across our company’s journey.

Examples include:

• Being one of the first Fortune 500 companies to expand antidiscrimination policy and benefits to LGBTQIA+ employees in 1989.
• Announcing our Racial Equity Initiative in June 2020, outlining actions and progress we expect to make by 2025 to help address racial injustice and inequity in the US for Black and African American communities.
• Launching immersive D&I learning simulations in 2021, allowing employees to practice crucial D&I skills, such as recognizing and addressing bias, responding to microaggressions and demonstrating effective allyship.
• Building on more than a decade of helping to reskill military service members through our Microsoft Software and Systems Academy (MSSA), and this year expanding this skilling opportunity to train military spouses for portable, in-demand IT roles.
• Introducing pronouns and self-expression features in Microsoft 365, an innovation brought directly to fruition because we listened to, and collaborated with, customers, partners and employees who asked for these features.

A mission as bold as ours

At Microsoft, we’re guided by our mission, worldview and culture. Our mission is the why; it drives our actions. Our worldview is the what, shaping our strategy and products. Culture is the how, influencing everything with a focus on growth and innovation. Culture is also the who: Who makes up the workforce, who services our customers, who innovates the future of tech. The diversity of the workforce, combined with inclusion, unlocks individual and collective potential. This is what is necessary to stay relevant, compete at scale and win.

Every person. Every organization. Every day. Everywhere.

Here’s to making progress for the next 50 years.

Lindsay-Rae

Notes

* Broader Microsoft business: Includes the core Microsoft business, plus minimally integrated companies. Employees of joint ventures and newly acquired companies are not included in the data, including Activision, Blizzard, and King. LinkedIn was acquired in December 2016, GitHub was acquired in June 2018, and Activision, Blizzard, and King were acquired in October 2023. We provide standalone data for these three acquisitions. Nuance Communications was acquired in March 2022 and fully integrated in August 2023. 

**Core Microsoft business: Represents 88.4% of the worldwide broader Microsoft workforce. 

Tags: Diversity and Inclusion Report

Author: Lindsay-Rae McIntyre
Blog Article: Here