DEI
Creating a diverse environment, sense of belonging and a place where employees can bring their whole selves to work
DEI Goals & How We Measure Them
Kensho has two primary goals for its DEI efforts with clear strategies for how to achieve and measure each.
Goal 1
We work to ensure that every Kenshin feels comfortable and confident to bring their full authentic self to work.
We tackle this goal through our policies, benefits, flexible work schedules, special programs and culture activities within Kensho, several of which are described in more detail on this page.
We measure progress on this goal through retention rates as well as bi-annual survey results, in particular, responses to how strongly different Kenshins agree with statements such as “I can be myself at work,” “My team has a climate in which different perspectives are valued,” and “I work in an environment where people with diverse backgrounds can succeed.”
Goal 2
We work to broaden Kensho’s diversity by recruiting candidates from groups that are underserved in tech, specifically women and people of color.
Our approach to achieving this goal includes campus recruiting at historically Black colleges and universities, diversity-focused referral bonuses, working with recruiting platforms that focus on candidate diversity, creating an interview process that seeks to minimize unconscious bias, and efforts to improve our offer acceptance rate for candidates from these groups. To measure progress, we track all stages of our recruiting pipeline—from application through the interview process, offer stage and onboarding.
DEI Programs & Initiatives
DEI at Kensho is dynamic and evolving. Below are just a sample of the programs we sponsor.
Kensho has hosted a number of workshops and training sessions for its employees on topics including:
Adaptivity and Resilience, Influential Communications, Effective Meetings, Apology Training, ReWork with the Adaway Group (Whiteness at Work series)
In 2020, we introduced an Onboarding Allies program, which pairs a veteran Kenshin with a new employee to help introduce them to Kensho culture and social events, in addition to the individual team onboarding new Kenshins receive.
Allies make sure every new Kenshin feels welcome and meets people from other offices, teams and projects, and introduces them to fun Slack channels and social events, like our weekly drink cart.
One of our most popular and longest-running programs at Kensho is our Lighting Talk series. Employees gather once a month to present for 5 minutes on any topic—serious, lighthearted or somewhere in between—as long as it’s not related to work. Recent Lightning Talk topics have included Venezulean heritage, working in a mine, Purim celebrations, why you should have a pair of chopsticks, and sign language for video chats, just to name a few!
Also in 2020, our parent company, S&P Global, started a monthly Courageous Conversations series, which is open to all Kenshins. As part of the series, guest speakers have included well-known and respected authors and scholars, including Isabel Wilkerson, Professor Ibram X. Kendi, Dr. Robin DiAngelo and Dr. Michael Eric Dyson among many others. The sessions are used for discussing, understanding and confronting systemic issues that impact our society and our colleagues from underrepresented groups.
DEI Policies & Benefits
In additon to the benefits above we also have policies to support the employment environment we want. They are Equal Employment Opportunity, Code of Business Ethics Training and Annual Unconscious Bias Training.
Parental Leave
Benefit
Matching
Reimbursement
(Child & Adult)
Coaching
& S&P Global