BELONG@GONG: Our FY24 Update on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging

At Gong, our mission isn’t just about helping revenue teams — it’s about building a foundation of insights that fosters growth. Yes, our platform is powerful, but it’s our people that make us exceptional. We understand that teams only flourish when employees feel valued, empowered, and seen. Raving fan employees = Raving fan customers!

In my role as Chief People Officer, my mission is to fuel Gong’s growth by nurturing a high-performing culture where innovation meets inclusion, and every Gongster has an opportunity to thrive, make an impact, and belong. 

While Gong has always been proud of its culture of belonging, we know it’s important to show instead of tell. In 2020, we took the significant step of tracking, measuring, and reporting how our company is living up to its values. We introduced Belong@Gong as a company priority along with our first annual report: our public pledge to cultivate an environment of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB).

Over the past year, we’ve continued to lead with transparency and a commitment to equity. 2023 marks our fourth year of conducting a comprehensive, global pay equity analysis. This practice isn’t just procedural; it’s foundational to our commitment to ensuring fairness across the board, addressing any disparities in pay related to gender or race. 

Our employee-led resource groups, Gong Circles, have continued to evolve over the last year, building support, growth, and empowerment among Gongsters — especially for those from underrepresented groups. In 2023, we expanded this community by introducing “The Village,” a new Circle designed to meet the unique needs of parents, caregivers, and families, providing support for diverse life stages and responsibilities.

To celebrate the many identities that make up our workforce, Gong hosts a variety of cultural events and educational opportunities. This year, we embraced eight key commemorative dates and months, including Lunar New Year, Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Pride, and Diwali. Through 15 curated cultural events featuring a mix of employee and external speakers, we engaged both our internal communities and wider audiences. 

The best leaders have a strong sense of empathy — understanding and celebrating diverse perspectives and backgrounds. This year, in alignment with our Leadership Principle of Cultivate  Belonging  And  Diversity, we’ve continued to expand leadership development programs — with a particular emphasis on allyship and inclusivity. 

This initiative included partnering with our DEI consulting partner to craft and deliver a 90-minute live, interactive training session for our global people managers. These workshops focused on how to lead inclusively, show up as allies to underrepresented colleagues, and unlock the full potential of their teams.

We also rolled out a dedicated DEIB training for our global people team, highlighting the importance of leading by example. This training equipped our HR team with the expertise to lead these efforts, laying the groundwork for meaningful, systemic change.

We’ve also reimagined our Belong@Gong onboarding experience, making it more interactive and integrating essential DEIB 101 resources. From their very first day, new team members are immersed in our culture of belonging and equipped to actively contribute to our DEIB objectives.

Continuing our support for The Neighborhood — our Circle for Gongsters who identify as Black/African American — Gong once again sponsored attendance at AfroTech, an annual five-day conference in Austin, TX, designed for Black professionals in the tech industry. Our ongoing investment in this and similar initiatives underscores our deep commitment to the career growth and success of our underrepresented employees.

Lastly, we’ve introduced an extensive menu of on-demand DEIB learning content available through our Learning Management System (LMS). This platform offers our team the flexibility to explore and deepen their understanding of DEIB principles at their own pace, focusing on areas that are most impactful to them. We also created a persona-based journey for our people managers to continue their DEIB learning journey.

We understand that numbers tell the real story, no matter how much a company says it values DEIB. So, what do Gong’s numbers look like?

At the end of FY24, women represented 44% of our global workforce, marking a small decrease (1%) from last year. When it comes to senior leadership, women’s representation in Director+ roles have held strong at 39%.

As for our Underrepresented Group (URG) numbers? They’ve remained consistent year-over-year at 30% of the US workforce. In Director+ roles, URG representation increased by 5%, to 28% of our leadership.  

Our #nosugar assessment is this: while we’ve made many strides this last year, there is always room and need for improvement — especially when it comes to diversity in leadership roles. And we’re committed to the investment and focus to make this happen in FY25.

As we move into the new fiscal year, we plan to build upon the foundation we’ve laid, focusing on attracting and retaining a diverse talent pool and intensifying our efforts to develop, support, and retain our underrepresented employees. So, let’s take a peek at some of what’s to come…

This coming year, we’re focusing our recruitment strategies to better support the creation of a diverse workforce. We plan to develop a global comprehensive competency question bank that enables our hiring teams to conduct equitable and consistent interviews rooted in the core competencies required for success in the role.

We are also launching partnerships with organizations dedicated to diversity hiring in our hub cities, broadening our outreach, and ensuring we attract a wide variety of talent.

Enhancements made to our family planning policies, including our updated US Parental Leave policy which now provides up to 20 weeks of paid leave, catering to all paths to parenthood—including birthing, non-birthing, adoptive, and foster parents. Additionally, employees across our global offices can now benefit from financial assistance for fertility and family forming through our Carrot program.

To promote belonging and inclusivity within Gong and build upon the FY24 focus on allyship for people managers, we are introducing our Belong@Gong Allyship Learning Series. These events will help us become better allies while also celebrating and honoring our diverse backgrounds during commemorative months. 

Building on this, we are excited to introduce ‘Voices@Gong,’ a quarterly series to spotlight diverse employee perspectives and experiences to foster a culture of recognition and appreciation for the diversity within our Gongster community.

We plan to expand mentorship and sponsorship opportunities globally, providing resources to extend Circle-led mentorship programs. We will also launch targeted mentoring programs — such as an initiative for technical senior women.

I am deeply proud of our continued investments and the work we’ve done to ensure that Gong is a place of community, growth, and belonging for all. I look forward to the changes these initiatives will bring and can’t wait to share our progress with you in the year ahead!

Interested in joining the Gong team? Check out our open opportunities here. 

Links to previous Belong@Gong annual updates: FY23, FY22, FY21