At TikTok, we see it as everyone's responsibility to champion diversity and inclusion, both in our organization and on our platform. Embracing diversity is more than just a cornerstone of our culture; it fuels the creativity, drive, collaboration, and excellence of our teams around the world. Inclusion motivates us every day to do right by our peers and communities, setting the bar high for our leaders as we strive to become the most inclusive company in tech.
With team members working from home this past year, we've looked for new ways to stay connected and bring Team TikTok together virtually. For our internal events and initiatives, we've regularly engaged outside experts across civil society, advocacy, and academia to share insights and best practices, especially on critical issues like inherent bias and psychological safety. As part of these efforts, we recently hosted TikTok's first Inclusion Summit for hundreds of employees across the Americas and Australia. Here's what we learned!
The Mission of the Inclusion Summit
Organized by our Diversity & Inclusion team, our first Inclusion Summit aimed to engage employees around three key pillars: Learn, Live, and Lead. The week-long event featured a number of engaging sessions for employees, including "The Business Case for Diversity" (on the importance of diversity and inclusion to company success), “Belonging & Psychological Safety” (on choosing social justice over bias), and "Cultural Agility: Working Effectively Across Cultures" (on the keys to inclusive communication). The Summit also shed light on how leaders can foster diversity and inclusion both on our platform and in our organization.
By creating the opportunity for employees to learn about and appreciate one another's differences, we hoped to strengthen our shared vision to build a diverse community on TikTok that inspires creativity and brings joy around the world. We also wanted to further foster a culture where every employee feels safe, valued, and empowered to bring their authentic self to work each day. As Belinda Frazier, global Head of Diversity and Inclusion at TikTok, explained:
"We believe in championing diversity and inclusion both on and off platform, and we want to lead by example. The Inclusion Summit provided a space to have the uncomfortable conversations, to learn from one another, to challenge our own thinking, and evolve our D&I roadmap to support our growing organization."
Employee Reception
With 600+ TikTok employees across numerous functions joining a total of 12 different sessions, we were floored by the positive reception and engagement from so many on our team. With a peak of over 500 live viewers for a single session, members of Team TikTok were excited to join and learn from important discussions.
Naureen Rizvi, who works on our Trust & Safety team, attended a session led by Dr. Sarah Saska that highlighted the need for more inclusion within products. "Whether it's skin color, the hijab, or other forms of expression, we need to have representation in the features we create," says Naureen. "Having these discussions is part of life at TikTok because we spend less time celebrating our wins, and more time looking forward to ensure we're addressing important topics and building a more inclusive community."
Lamtharn "Hanoi" Hantrakul, a Research Scientist on our Intelligent Creation team, also shared his thoughts on the week's events. "The Summit emphasized how addressing race, gender, and cultural bias extends across the organization, from how HR approaches hiring to how research teams like mine develop machine learning algorithms. The most eye-opening takeaway for me was enlarging this scope to include neurodiversity, especially in the design of creative tools."
Leadership Lessons from the Summit
Throughout the Summit, we hosted listening sessions with trusted outside experts and TikTok team members to help our colleagues prioritize ways to learn, live, and lead. While it's difficult to narrow down the key takeaways to a simple "Top Three," here's what some of our leaders had to share:
"Hiring a diverse team can lead to greater success. Inclusive hiring is the responsibility of every employee. We have to be thoughtful about our hiring processes to give candidates the best experience possible." - Sherry Wang (Talent Acquisition at TikTok in Los Angeles)
"Managers need to have the hard conversations and take responsibility for promoting an inclusive workplace among their teams and when recruiting for new roles. Through our actions today, we have the opportunity to shape diversity at TikTok now and in the long term." - Dan Habashi (General Manager at TikTok Canada)
"We must reflect on the diversity of the communities we serve. If we don't have a real understanding of our users’ perspective, we can't build products that serve them. Diversity isn't just the right thing to do, it's business critical." - Brett Peters (Content Partnerships and PRIDE ERG Co-President at TikTok in Los Angeles)
Working at TikTok
Looking back on the first of many Inclusion Summits to come, we're grateful for the experts and TikTok team members who shared their stories and initiated important conversations about fostering an inclusive workplace and community. In realizing our goal to become the most diverse and inclusive place in tech, we see it as a top priority to provide ongoing training, resources, and knowledge to our employees. If you share in our vision and are interested in joining our team, follow TikTok on LinkedIn and visit our jobs page to browse open positions around the world!
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