Airbnb’s mission is to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere and that’s why we’re dedicated to enabling the empowerment, development and leadership of women and allies at Airbnb and in communities around the world. In celebration of National Equal Pay Day in the United States, we’re proud to join California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom and the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls in the California Pay Equity Task Force’s Pay Equity Pledge as they launch their effort to develop comprehensive resources, guidelines and best practices to companies around the state. Additionally, we are excited to sign the Equal Pay Employers Principles to Pay Equity letter and share some of our best practices around pay equity in the United States.
Working toward a more equitable world is an active and ongoing process, not a static goal. As our community of employees, resource groups, and global partners helps us identify new ways to grow, we’re making commitments to build a more diverse and welcoming Airbnb. Joining California Pay Equity Pledge and the Equal Pay Employers letter is an extension of the ongoing work at Airbnb, as outlined below.
California Pay Equity Task Force Pay Equity Pledge
In an effort to promote compliance around the California Pay Act, the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls launched a statewide Pay Equity Task Force made up of advocates, employers, stakeholders and other experts from both the public and private sectors to tackle pay equity. While Airbnb is a leading organization in this space, we believe it’s important to share these resources and have taken this pledge.
Conduct an annual company wide gender pay analysis
Airbnb has conducted a pay equity analysis annually since 2015 and each year, we continue to refine our approach to develop an even more sophisticated and precise analysis. In 2019, our analysis included all employees globally and considered annual equity grants in addition to base pay. We factored in level, job type, time in role and performance rating, as we compared men and women globally in similar roles with similar amounts of work experience and compared race and ethnicity for teams within the United States, as the only country where we collect race/ethnicity data.
Review hiring and promotion processes to reduce unconscious bias and structural barriers
Within our hiring, promotion and calibration processes, we use structured, competency based practices to reduce bias throughout, are expanding our “Diverse Candidate Slate” rule in a locally relevant way around the globe to ensure women and, in the U.S., underrepresented minorities are presented on candidate slates to hiring managers, collect interview feedback immediately after interviews to reduce groupthink and interviewer bias, and offer unconscious bias education to employees, among other tactics.
We talk openly about bias-busting techniques at the beginning of our performance and promotion calibration discussions to identify and reduce bias. And because research shows women and people of color are more likely to consistently rate themselves lower over time, we proactively removed numerical ratings from our self-reviews.
Promote best practices
While we’re proud of the work we’re doing at Airbnb, we think it’s important to have ongoing dialogue and explore avenues to further achieve our goals. To that end, we are committed to continuing broad based unconscious bias education and using research based practices to reduce bias. Furthermore, last year we announced an expansion of our global parental leave policies and family benefits so that fathers, adoptive and surrogate parents can more equitably support caregiving.
While this week marks Equal Pay Day, we believe these are important tenants to keep at the forefront of workplace conversations throughout the year and look forward to working with these groups moving forward.