Help Scout Remains Committed to DEI

It’s been a tumultuous ride for all of us working in the tech industry. The boom times of 2021-2022 were followed by the bust of 2023-2024. Phrases like “economic uncertainty” have dominated the landscape, and with it has come a natural tightening of business practices. Layoffs, paused hiring plans, repurposed budgets — it’s been a brutal time to be part of this ecosystem. 

As companies have tightened their wallets, the popular line item to cut has been DEI initiatives. It’s not easy to pinpoint why we’re seeing this backslide, but we have a few ideas.

Whichever way the wind blows 

While people have been working tirelessly to promote DEI work since before 2020, George Floyd’s murder was certainly a catalyst for wider attention and recognition of the need for this work, and the pendulum finally swung in favor of DEI. Companies of all sizes issued statements, gave money to anti-racism causes, and made DEI a priority within their organizations. Just three months after George Floyd’s murder, DEI roles had increased by 55%

And then, when the economy fell out from underneath us, leaders both in the tech world and in politics looked to point fingers and place blame, namely at employee-first initiatives like remote work and DEI. In this year’s Lattice State of People report survey, only 15% of respondents said DEI programs are a priority — an all-time survey low and a 2% decline from the 2023 results.

But blaming DEI initiatives is a cop out, full stop.

We’ve long believed at Help Scout that diversity, equity, and inclusion are critical to the success of our business — we need a team made up of a variety of people from all kinds of lived experiences to make our products better and to represent our customer base. This was a radical view ten years ago when we conducted our first demographic and inclusion survey and shared the results publicly. Five years ago, it was the norm. Now, it's radical once again. Issues like this are the true test of a company's values. It's easy to say you stand for things when it's popular. But what happens when the wind changes direction? Do you change with it or stand firm?

Whether you agree with them or not, our company’s values are part of our DNA. They will not change. Help Scout is not Help Scout without them.

It’s undeniable that we are in a dramatically different time than when I wrote our last DEI update in 2021. While we haven’t been as publicly vocal as we have been in years past, Help Scout hasn’t wavered in our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, which to us means creating a workplace that truly works for everyone — and now is the time to reaffirm our company’s position.

Vision and goals

Our vision for DEI is that Help Scout is a company where everyone can thrive in their careers and feel like they belong.

To achieve this, we’ve been focused on three goals:

  • Equitable treatment of all team members around performance, career growth, compensation, and feedback.

  • Continuously creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels like they belong.

  • Continuously building and retaining a diverse company across all teams and levels.

Furthermore, we take pride in our Help Scout for Good program where we offer our product at a steep discount — and in some cases give it away for free — to support organizations working to make things better for the next generation, underrepresented groups, the environment, and their local communities.

Issues We Care About Screenshot

Infuse DEI throughout, not as a separate program

At Help Scout, we aim for DEI to be the lens through which we create any process, practice, or policy. Our CEO, Nick Francis, is accountable to this work while the responsibility of it day to day belongs to our People team. DEI isn’t siloed or on a separate team, which has been the right approach for us. According to the 2024 CultureAmp report on DEI, their data “suggests that DEI efforts that are integrated into the way the business operates are more impactful than one-off events,” and we agree.

At a company-wide Town Hall late last year, we shared this slide with the team to reiterate the ways in which DEI is considered and applied across the company. We hold up our DEI lens as we consider our employee experience, hiring initiatives, our performance management practice, and even how it’s embedded in the product.

Town Hall DEI Slide Image

We’ll highlight several new initiatives we’ve implemented since our last DEI update in 2021.

Performance management 

In 2023, the People team set out to create a performance management process that aligned with both our company values and our business needs. We also knew we wanted to make sure it was fair and equitable for all teammates. Here are some of the ways we do this:

  • Data analysis after each cycle to identify if there are any areas of concern around race and gender in performance assessments.

  • Audit of promotions/merit increases by different demographics to ensure equity and fairness.

  • Career ladders in place for all teams and clear and consistent expectations. 

  • Providing equitable access to continuous feedback from managers and peers by encouraging use of Lattice, our feedback tool.

Funded employee resource groups

Since Help Scout’s early days, we’ve had identity-based Slack channels where teammates from underrepresented groups have found community and support. In 2024, we launched a pilot program for any of these groups to transform into a more official Employee Resource Group that would include a stipend for the leader and a budget for events/programming. We were excited to see our women’s ERG (#WhoRuntheWorld) and BIPOC ERG (#HuesofHelpScout) step forward to pilot the program. 

It’s been great to see these two groups put together programming with more intention and company-backed resources. Some highlights have been:

  • An in-person workshop about intersectionality and allyship with DEI leader Sema Burney at our company retreat in Montreal.

  • A book club to celebrate International Women’s Day. 

  • A virtual transcribe-a-thon where teammates helped transcribe documents from the Smithsonian’s collection of Freedmen's Bureau records.

  • A session on financial literacy led by some wonderful friends at YNAB

  • An end-of-the-year virtual yoga session to help reduce stress.

To assess whether our funded ERGs were making an impact, our ERG leaders surveyed each group with the following question: “Would you be disappointed if this ERG didn’t exist?” We were happy to see the data — both groups were a resounding 80% yes. We used this data to make the case to continue funding ERGs through 2025.

We continue to survey our team

We’ve been conducting regular demographic and inclusion (D&I) surveys since 2016, and that work won’t stop. We find the data we receive from this survey to be mission critical to our DEI work and to understanding where we’re making improvements and where we need to pay more attention.

Our 2024 D&I survey results showed several improvements over our survey in 2023: 

  • Our overall inclusion score went up 4%, from 79% to 83%.

  • Most other factors also increased, notably Voice (+11) and Growth (+10).

While our score around decision-making went up seven points from the previous year, it’s at 65 overall and we feel there’s still room for improvement there. To address this, we’ve created a dedicated section for “decision records” in our internal company wiki and a new channel in Slack called “decision-records” where everyone can stay in the loop and gain context about decisions being made. 

DEI 2025 Post - Q3 2024 Survey Image
Help Scout D&I Survey, Q3, 2024
DEI 2025 Post - Q3 2023 Survey Image
Help Scout D&I Survey, Q3, 2023

What we’re planning for 2025

As we head into the new year, we’re excited about our continued commitment to building a company where all of our teammates can be successful. 

Given that a successful DEI strategy lies in integrating it into your company’s core priorities, the People team will continue to embed DEI into existing programs in order to have a bigger impact. We’ll be creating an in-house training that teaches our Help Scout company values, and we plan to incorporate how inclusion and equity are part of those. We also have ongoing manager training and development, and we plan to include relevant topics to help managers better support all of our teammates.

Staying the course

There’s no denying we’re entering uncharted territory when it comes to DEI in the workplace. It feels like every day we’re seeing news story after news story about companies either dismantling DEI practices or doubling down on their commitments.

Help Scout is proud to be another company unwilling to waver in our beliefs that working for diversity, equity, and inclusion means we’re creating a healthy culture that benefits everyone.

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