How We’re Building A Culture Of Belonging At Lyft

This post is part of Jopwell’s “From The Desk Of” series featuring the leading voices in corporate America sharing their thoughts, insights, and experiences around building more diverse and inclusive workforces.

If you grow up in a community where you’re seeing people who are consistently left out – folks who have tremendous promise but haven’t necessarily had the opportunities to realize that promise – you gain a particular understanding and appreciation for belonging in its many forms. That’s been true for me, and it’s also true for Lyft. Since day one, we’ve worked hard to put people from underserved communities that have seen opportunities pass them by in the driver’s seat (pun intended), and we’ve connected people who’ve had trouble exploring their cities with work, school, and appointments.

I define belonging as knowing that you’re becoming exactly who you’re meant to be with the capacity and ability — free from barriers and roadblocks — to remain true to yourself along the journey. At Lyft, we strive to provide this for our drivers, our passengers, and our team members. I was employee number 300 at Lyft. We are now more than 2,000 strong, with offices across the country. As we grow, we have to ensure that no matter whether you’re joining a small market hub in Chicago or our second-largest office in Nashville, you feel welcomed and protected so that you can actualize who you are meant to be. To do it, we’re building a community that revolves around the idea of belonging by focusing on what I call the five Ps.

1. Practices.

When I applied to join Lyft two and a half years ago, I wondered what my interview experience would be like. I had a positive experience, and I want to make sure everyone else feels the same way — and that, no matter what seat they are sitting in, they are safe. We want to judge people on their talent rather than their identity, so we need to be consistent in our selection and hiring practices. For example, for director-level and above candidates, we’ve adopted a version of the Rooney Rule that requires an organization to interview at least one minority or woman candidate, and to have this identity reflected on the interview panel.

2. Programming.

We know that when people join communities, they want to see representations of themselves and their experiences. This helps limit impostor syndrome — the questioning of whether they belong or feel safe in the community. So we create programing that helps facilitate this. For example, Lyft recently supported our Unidos ERG group in their efforts to orchestrate a month-long Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, full of both educational opportunities and cultural celebrations that much of the company participated in. We also hosted Black In Tech and Latinx events; leveraging the opportunity to share our community's story of belonging with communities we're looking to build a deeper connection with. We also made the decision to move all-hands company meetings and events to work hours, so that parents and caregivers are able to thrive in this community while also balancing work and family.

3. Policies.

Our team has champions who align with leadership to create safeguards for people of every background. For example, Sam Carrington, who works on our customer service team and identifies as a queer trans man, wanted a policy to protect folks in our trans and gender nonconforming community. With Sam’s help, we took a real grassroots, cross-functional approach to bringing our gender inclusion and affirmation policy to fruition. With the help of our LGBTQ employee resource group and our legal and people teams, we tapped into the expertise of our community partnerships, drafted the policy, and got executive team buy-in. Then we asked our benefits team for how to make sure our insurance carrier would support it. We’re using this as a precedent for future policies, and we hope other companies will too.

4. Partnerships.

It’s not enough to expect underrepresented talent to find us — posting jobs, going to job fairs and conferences, and then opening our arms and saying, “Come work for us.” We must make sure that we are building meaningful relationships with community-based partners who champion relationships in an authentic way. For example, when creating our gender inclusion and affirmation policy, we shared it with the Transgender Law Center, the Equality Federation, and Human Rights Campaign to get their input and feedback. And together with the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, we are acting locally but thinking globally through workforce diversification, ultimately building bridges for our communities to make our cities more rich and diverse. We rely on these organization to show us how to be good corporate citizens, both internally and externally.

5. Public accountability.

Lyft knows that it is important to publish our diversity statistics on a yearly basis. The diversity page of Lyft’s website shows that we’re doubling down on resources to ensure that we improve and iterate on our processes. We were conscious not to tokenize someone’s experience on that page, and the videos we created empowered our team members to tell their stories and show how they are leveraging their skill sets and job functions to impact change Lyft.

If I could add another “P" that would help frame our entire approach, it would be purpose. My challenge to the tech industry is to push ourselves to understand how the skills and experiences of underrepresented groups of people ultimately benefit organizations, and more broadly, our communities. It’s not enough to pursue diversity for the bottom line; that’s just a byproduct. Instead, we pursue diversity because as we actualize our vision for what our world could be - the ability to reimagine our cities - we first have to consider the experiences of the people who live in those cities. I&D isn’t just good for businesses – it’s good for our communities, and for our future. That’s what makes our work meaningful, and that’s what transforms purpose into promise.

Lyft is a Jopwell partner company