“If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.”

-Plato

The basis for feminism stems from a simple yet surprisingly groundbreaking concept: equality between the genders. In just two generations, women in the United States have gone from being barred from most higher education facilities to outnumbering men on college campuses. Not only are women beating men in terms of numbers, globally, women are more likely to complete the highest level of degrees.

With more women completing higher degrees and seeking careers, a burning question remains: Why does the gender pay gap still exist if women are, as Plato said, being taught the same things as men?

While education still remains the first step in countries with more drastic divides among the genders, the same can’t be said in most of Europe and North America. Perhaps a quandary better left to today’s great thinkers rather than those of yore, the fact still remains that women still earn an average of 20% less than men do. This problem, which varies drastically by country, becomes even more evident for women of color and women in impoverished nations.

“Justice is about making sure that being polite is not the same thing as being quiet. In fact, oftentimes, the most righteous thing you can do is shake the table.”

– Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Even if Plato was ahead of his time, there was one factor he didn’t take into account: Justice. For many women, the question of the pay gap can no longer be solely blamed on a lack of qualifications but rather, points to a greater issue, one that can only be changed by demanding the status quo be questioned, spurring a shift in cultural norms and opportunities for women.

A company culture that was born different

Culture is a concept born from duality. On the one hand, it’s the way things have always been done but on the other, it’s constant, changing, and always evolving. From the beginning, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging (DIB) has been an integral part of Glovo. It’s something that not only defines our company culture, but seeks to improve it on a daily basis.

From Day 1, new employees at Glovo are:

Taught the difference between diversity and inclusion,
Taught to detect inequalities and non-inclusive behaviours in a workplace and generate solutions to address them,
Recognise their own privileges and extend them to those of minoritized groups,
Reflect on their own biases when interacting with their team and hypothesise ways to mitigate them,
Create a safe space within the team where everyone feels included and comfortable,
Reflect on behaviours to increase their own allyship at Glovo.

Achieving our goal of becoming an industry role model in DIB will be a long journey that starts here. At Glovo, we have already put numerous initiatives and measures into place that help us to be a more diverse and inclusive company. We regularly assess our progress by analysing the impact of our DIB programs and initiatives through internal employee surveys.

Thanks to these efforts and more, Glovo was ranked in the top 25% of tech companies in terms of inclusion based on our Workday Peakon Employee Voice ranking.

2021 DIB Report

Following our 2021 DIB report, where we measured the overall inclusion score based on feedback from our 4,000 employees, we scored 8.5 out of 10. This rates us above the industry average and puts us on track to achieve our ambitious goal of being among the top 5% in DIB among tech companies and our mission to set the example for others in the industry.

Our DIB strategy at Glovo is founded on 3 main pillars.

People: collectively fostering an inclusive culture for all our people by equipping all colleagues with a diversity lens to help drive change. This is achieved through internal training, employee resource groups, and awareness events and activities.
Systemic: reviewing and re-building our systems, processes, and policies to foster fairness and through data tracking that proves impact. This is achieved by ensuring our values play an integral role in performance reviews, gap analyses, and by implementing inclusive policies and standards as well as an inclusive hiring process and inclusive physical working environment.
External presence: projects and participation in other initiatives beyond our day-to-day. This includes our Women in Tech program, PRIDE events and activities, volunteering through our Glovo Cares program, projects for hearing impaired couriers, partnerships and labor insertion programs.

Our internal analysis shows positive progress. For example, 40% of management positions are held by women and 30% hold leadership positions. Moving forward, we want to improve this number further and have set the goal to achieve 45% of Women in Leadership. Similarly, we aim to achieve an overall share of 25% of Women in tech positions (currently 21%) by 2025.

The gender breakdown at Glovo per the 2022 DIB Report

We plan to achieve these goals through a series of ambitious programs and internal employee resource groups like GloW. For example, our LeaderSHE program allows Glovo’s women to steer their career within the company. This initiative creates an environment that allows female workers to grow their network, develop their skills, and enhance their leadership potential. We also put an emphasis on recruiting programs to hire female data interns junior female engineers through our Data female program or our L1 Female Engineering Program. In addition, we plan new initiatives such as bootcamps for women who do not have a technical background but want to pursue a career in tech as well as scholarships for teenagers to name only two examples.

LeaderSHE Program

LeaderSHE is a mentoring program with the goal to accelerate women to the next level in their career to strengthen our pipeline of women in leadership at Glovo. The program started as a pilot at HQ in Barcelona, and due to its success rates, it’s now a global program with 65 mentees (3.6 % of our women at Glovo) and 50 mentors from 25 countries and all departments.

Women don’t need to be fixed, but they need to get lifted to a similar level of opportunity. That’s why with LeaderSHE, they are exposed to mentoring, training, networking and peer support groups, to help them get ready for the next step in their career.

GloW

GloW is Glovo’s internal resource group for women. The organisation aims to be a driver of positive change by fostering a safe and inclusive community, providing resources, and facilitating initiatives to help further develop talent and career opportunities, resulting in Glovo being a world leading startup for women to work at.

GloW’s main objectives are:

Raise visibility and awareness on gender equality issues
Help women of Glovo advance
Create a safe and supportive community

Click below to hear from the many voices of GloW.

The Future of Equality

While the gender pay gap remains an ongoing issue, at Glovo, we believe that equality goes beyond that and includes everyone, regardless of culture, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, of gender. Although being in the top 25% of tech companies is a positive start, we are still far away from achieving our goals and recognise that the journey ahead is still long, not only for us, but for all of our peers.

The first step each of us must take, as an industry, is to start by recognising our weaknesses and finding ways to improve them. Our goal at Glovo is to actively and intentionally create an inclusive environment for all, uplifting marginalised groups through concrete actions that give everyone an equal footing.

¨DIB is not just nice to have, it needs to be a part of everything we do – from our values to our ways of working, ingrained in our processes and systems.DIB is not just nice to have, it needs to be a part of everything we do – from our values to our ways of working, ingrained in our processes and systems.¨

-Oscar Pierre, CEO & Co-founder of Glovo

Closing the Gender Pay Gap