RingCentral, the Silicon Valley-based global provider of unified cloud-based communications and collaboration solutions. has earned a Comparably diversity score that ranks among the top 5% of U.S. companies of its size.
The company’s workforce is, in fact, diverse in a number of respects, and we spoke to several RingCentral employees about how diversity has become a foundational part of their culture and one of their engines of innovation.
Nothing could be more pertinent to the national conversation at this moment in time, and it’s important to understand how companies, like RingCentral, cultivate a diverse and inclusive workforce when many organizations are still struggling to define what it means to be diverse.
“When you peel back the curtain and show people what it’s like to work here, we think you’ll see a pretty healthy, diverse, and dynamic culture,” says Stephen Stewart, Director of Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing. “Don’t get me wrong, we have things to work on and we always strive to get better. We’re innately curious and want to help each other out, and those intentions create a culture that leans into inclusiveness pretty naturally.”
“Learning to work together is a life skill that is key to development from early on,” says Sangeeta Walsh, Senior Director of Platform Marketing. “It’s a good tool for human kindness, and it’s also a good career skill.”
“We’re a company built on innovation,” says Evie Goldstein, Lead UX Writer/Content Strategist on RingCentral’s innovation team. “It’s hard to innovate if you’re not coming to the table with new ideas. If you have people of different backgrounds and different experiences, they come to the table with new ideas, and if everyone loves new ideas – as they do here – then everyone’s suggestion gets heard.”
RingCentral’s workforce makes diversity look simple and ultimately beneficial to the bottom line. But there’s real complexity in how they arrived there, and how they continue to lead in that field.
“We’re always very mindful of trying to create both a diverse workforce and an inclusive work culture. I know those things often kind of get lumped together but I think they’re pretty distinct,” Stewart says. “We’re very conscious of everything we do as we find talented candidates and engage with them. We are looking for people who are culture adds, not just culture fits. That’s how we continue to get better as we grow.”
“The company does an amazing job of hiring smart passionate people, and there’s a natural desire to up-level everyone around you. They recognize when someone is adding value and are eager to help them grow in career development,” Goldstein says, adding that she has had mentors at every stage along the way of her time with RingCentral. “Our people are eager to work and appreciative of collaboration. That’s how we have great days.”
As for how other organizations might represent diversity well, everyone we spoke to at RingCentral agreed that one thing is of utmost importance: any diversity advertised in a company’s employer brand needs to be the real thing and not just lip service.
“Build it internally. Create honest diversity first, and then promote it,” Stewart says. “Don’t let your advertising lead your efforts – it never works. People can smell inauthenticity from a mile away.”
“There are a lot of ways to look at diversity. There’s cultural diversity among Americans, different religions, and people from other countries,” says Walsh. “We’re global, and diversity in our workforce gives us better visibility as to address the global scale.”
As for the future, RingCentral is staying the course as the road ahead of us all begins to twist and turn and – hopefully – ascend to a better place for all the citizens of the working world.
“The roadmap from here is to continue to be as open and transparent and honest and authentic as we possibly can be as we share information about ourselves on different platforms externally,” Stewart says. “We’re just going to try and do all of this with a sense of compassion and humility because we know the world is a different place now than it was a couple of months ago.
As so many companies continue to work at figuring out what diversity means and how to honestly incorporate it into their organizations, RingCentral’s success is a model of how a diverse workforce can truly be an engine of innovation and growth when built honestly and authentically.
