Blink’s 2024 DEI Progress Report

2024 marks our fourth annual progress report on Blink’s DEI journey. As the country experienced a shift this year, with some notable headlines about companies stepping back from their internal DEI initiatives, we remain committed to our stance: We do this work because it’s not only morally correct but also a key lever to strengthening our business outcomes. 

“You don’t do DEI because you’re trying to be woke. You do DEI because it’s serving your business.” — Diana Scott, the Center Leader of the US Human Capital Center.

We know that this work requires everyone’s attention. That’s why, this year, we focused on embedding DEI principles across the organization, making them the foundation of our work culture and the products we create.

Each year, our internal culture survey helps us gather employee feedback on the state of Blink culture. Almost all our cultural pillars overlap with our DEI strategies, so the survey helps us hone our DEI initiatives for the year. In 2024, we focused on: 

• Shifting to a company-wide DEI mindset and increasing employee involvement 
• Developing DEI metrics to track meaningful progress
• Evaluating our raise and promotion process through a DEI lens 
• Making our DEI efforts more transparent to the public

How we encouraged a company-wide DEI mindset

For the last four years, a volunteer-based committee has powered our DEI work. As the committee’s impact seemed to wane, we evaluated and asked ourselves if there was a better approach. Ultimately, the committee helped us scratch the surface of incorporating DEI into our work, and now we’re ready to move to a more integrated approach that ingrains DEI into the company’s fabric. 

To get started on this effort, we gathered internal stakeholders from almost every department and level at Blink and hosted four strategic workshops. We asked participants: Why is DEI important to our company? 

The workshop series helped us land on six core beliefs and a common language to articulate our “Why” behind this work: 

• Diverse teams solve diverse problems best.
• Diverse teams are higher performing.
• A commitment to inclusion inspires and engages our employees.
• We want to design products and services that benefit all people.
• We want to increase our impact on our clients.
• We are a company that strives for continued learning and excellence.

With these beliefs clearly defined, we can ensure that our DEI work is focused and aligned with the broader business goals. Doing so is paramount to getting company-wide buy-in and showcasing how this work relates to every employee, not just a small committee.

We’ll use these beliefs to guide our initiatives and prioritize our efforts each year — because, as anyone working in DEI knows, the opportunities to make an impact often feel endless. 

How we developed metrics to measure meaningful progress

Once we established our core beliefs, we aligned them with business goals and metrics we could use to track our progress. Taking a holistic approach to our metrics was an important concept during development. 

Measuring company demographics like gender, race, and ethnicity is important. Still, we wanted to go a step further and track the impact our DEI efforts have on our design outcomes, end-user experience, employee engagement, sales pipeline, and company culture. 

How we enhanced our process for promotions

Increasing transparency and clarity around our raise practices was a focus in 2023. At the end of that year, we surveyed employees again, and our managers flagged a need for additional clarity — this time around promotion evaluations. That feedback led us to:

Clarify criteria and update our promotion submission form

We held internal discussions to help identify the most important factors for promotion, like unique skills and contributions to projects. We determined that having a specific degree is less important, and traits like working on weekends, which other companies might value, are not something we want to encourage. These discussions helped managers clarify proper promotion criteria while reducing unconscious bias that might prevent some from advancing. 

We also updated our promotion submission form, now available to all employees, to help managers focus on essential questions to guide promotion discussions. 

Evaluate our promotion equity 

We completed our first promotion equity analysis this year (following a well-received pay equity analysis in 2023). We examined promotion data by gender, race, and ethnicity. Due to our small sample size, we collapsed categories, and for gender, we used the legal status of male/female.

When it came to race and ethnicity, we compared white employees to an aggregated group of all other employees. Our results showed no difference in promotion between male/female and white/non-white employees. These results supported our belief that the structures and processes we had implemented were functioning as intended without hidden bias.

How we made our DEI efforts more transparent to the public

In 2023, we launched a new DEI page on our website. In 2024, we took a closer look at it using our user-centered design process to find ways to improve the content. Blink’s Chief Design Officer, Scott Lambridis, led feedback sessions with six key stakeholders — two DEI experts and four clients — to gather input.

The response was positive overall, especially regarding our focus on equity and choice of images. The most valuable takeaways, however, were suggestions like adding more detail on how we weave DEI into our mission and a clearer view of our DEI journey. We used these insights to shape the company-wide DEI workshop (mentioned above) and plan to revamp the page soon.

In addition to the four areas of improvement, we continued to see company-wide progress throughout the organization.

Hiring numbers 

In 2024, we saw 48% BIPOC hires (a 10% decrease from the reported number in 2023) and a slight increase in female-identifying hires, from 66% in 2023 to 68% in 2024. 

These numbers are based on candidates who applied through our portal and chose to complete the employee information survey but do not account for a significant number of sourced candidates. As we continue to diversify the Blink workforce, sourcing to expand our candidate pools remains a primary focus, particularly in underrepresented areas. 

Blink’s fourth annual pro bono program 

This summer, as part of our pro bono program, we partnered with Soul Science Lab to redesign the tool they use to bring music and education to students who might otherwise lack access due to funding cuts.

Mission-driven design work wins awards

This year we were proud to be the recipient of Silver Anthem Awards for our work with Partner to Decide and Lumen Learning. Anthem Awards highlight companies doing purpose- and mission-driven work. 

Internal learning opportunities at an all-time high

This year, we saw a record number of internal events and content that highlighted DEI across our work, including:

• Engaging external speakers such as Terrell Cobb, who spoke on the intersection of Juneteenth’s history and design, and Jeff Main from Point of Pride, who spoke on the importance of trans allyship.
• Three thought-provoking newsletters on privilege, Juneteenth, and Pride feature content curated from employee submissions.
• A new “What’s Inspiring in DEI” segment during weekly staff meetings, where we spotlighted topics like equitable design projects, the importance of inclusive language in tech, and key insights employees gained from DEI-related courses.

DEI at ConveyUX

For our 13th Annual ConveyUX Conference, our conference program manager took special care to weave DEI considerations into the event’s foundation. We brought together diverse speakers and attendees with sessions that explored DEI topics such as Culturally Inclusive AI, The Journey to Include People with Disabilities in Research, and The Power and Value of Belonging.

New bias training

We also implemented bias training ahead of our annual employee review process to help managers recognize the subtle ways bias can influence their evaluations. The training allowed them to mitigate that bias more effectively when conducting reviews.

As we look forward to this new year, we’re excited to build on our newly established DEI beliefs and work with department leaders to refine our focus areas for 2025—allowing us to drive an even greater impact on our community and business outcomes.  

DEI is a shared effort at Blink, and I’m grateful to those who continue to advance this work. Here’s to a new year of strengthening our processes and measuring our progress to make tech a more equitable and inclusive space.