Racial Equity Initiative

Culture of inclusion

Strengthening a culture of inclusion is about a company-wide, sustained focus on understanding and practicing the behaviors that can improve the lived experience for all employees at Microsoft. Shared language and shared understanding go a long way in building the foundation for those culture shifts.

As June 30, 2024, the average Microsoft employee completion rate was 98 percent overall for required D&I learning courses on allyship, covering, privilege, and unconscious bias in the workplace.

The Race and Ethnicity Learning Pathway was introduced as a personalized, voluntary learning experience enabling employees to take ownership of their D&I learning journey. We also launched the Informed Allies Learning Pathway, which provokes moments of reflection, activation of basic inclusive behaviors, and drives commitment to action. Most recently, we added new interactive D&I Simulations where learners can practice skills acquired through other Microsoft D&I learning solutions.

Microsoft’s Inclusion is Innovation site conveys our unwavering commitment to directly address the systemic and cultural complexity of diversity and inclusion by showcasing the impact employees have when they can thrive.

Additionally, Microsoft’s Inclusion Journey site features learning courses and thought leadership videos from external experts who speak to how we can leverage our resources. This is to help accelerate diversity & inclusion across our ecosystem and create a culture of inclusion for our employees.

Career planning and talent development

Microsoft supports legal practices throughout our talent motions that help build workforces with a range of backgrounds, skills, and experiences, foster innovation, and serve business and customer needs.

We are unwavering in our efforts toward advancing representation at all levels, and it is even more critical now that we prioritize internal development and growth. Growing global networks, enhancing business acumen, building skills, and developing leadership have never been more important. With that in mind, we’re continuing to invest in programs internally and partnerships externally that give employees and their managers a variety of options throughout their careers to learn and explore across professional opportunities.

Aligned to our commitment to ensure equitable access to opportunity, part of our work is to provide robust and holistic leadership development options available to Microsoft employees. These opportunities help deepen understanding of career options and pathways, supported by managers who are invested in the success of all employees thriving at Microsoft.

To accelerate progress, we are providing external D&I coaches to executives. Since the initial coaching pilot was completed in FY21, more than 175 executives have participated in this program to date with more planned.

We are focused on enhancing the hiring and interview processes to include discussions on both culture and inclusion for management positions and employee hiring broadly. We launched an updated Inclusive Hiring Training available to interviewers and all hiring managers.

Broadening our work with suppliers

We recognize our work here is not done, and we remain focused on growing our utilization of diverse-owned suppliers to sustain our progress and strengthen the relationships we’ve forged.

We continue to encourage diversity, equity, and inclusion progress amongst our top strategic suppliers. We’ve done this by launching an online community and facilitating fireside chats that encourage best practice sharing amongst these suppliers while continuing to work closely with them to create opportunities in support of diverse-owned businesses.

In 2021, to ensure our new suppliers have the tools, resources, and support to be successful at Microsoft, we implemented a program called AMP’D (Advocates, Mentors, Peers for Diverse Suppliers) that focuses on supplier mentorship, advocacy, development, and access to capital programs through our banking relationships. Since then, AMP’D has evolved to encompass a wider range of diverse groups and has established the foundation for new programs designed to meet the changing needs of our suppliers and business.

We have launched a Microsoft-wide training program to drive awareness of inclusive buying decisions with specific actions employees can take to create a more equitable supplier ecosystem and drive our collective success.

Investment in financial institutions

We are using our own banking needs to grow our portfolio investment activity with Black and African American-owned financial institutions. In June of 2020, we committed to double the percentage of our transaction volumes through these institutions by 2023, which we exceeded. In addition, we have increased investment activity with Black and African American-owned asset managers.

We have also met our goal of creating a $100 million program focused on mission-driven banks. Since then, we have made investments focused on strengthening these institutions–directly enabling them to deploy increased capital in local communities. For example, we have committed to the Mission-Driven Bank Fund as an anchor investor in collaboration with the FDIC to Minority Owned Depository Institutions (MDIs), which directly enables an increase of funds into local community businesses, restaurants, housing, etc. We invested in the Southern Opportunity and Resilience Fund aimed at helping small businesses and nonprofits in southern and southeastern states with less than 50 employees navigate and rebuild from the COVID-19 health and economic crisis. We also invested in Scale Link (formerly Entrepreneur Backed Assets (EBA) Fund) to increase capital to MDIs and Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs).

Additionally, we have accomplished our $50 million commitment to create an investment fund focused on supporting Black and African American-owned small businesses. The fund focuses on investing to improve access to capital, increasing skill development, and reducing the technology gaps that exist today. Some of these investments include:

• Clear Vision Impact Fund investment with Siebert Williams Shank, created to enhance the positive impact that these companies have on their communities
• Morgan Stanley Next Level Fund, which primarily focuses on early-stage technology and technology-enabled companies with diverse or women members as part of the founding team
• BlackRock Liquid Federal Trust Fund (BLFT) created in partnership with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which uses a portion of its revenue to fund scholarships at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)