Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I)

Just like those we serve, Care.com is comprised of mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. We come from different backgrounds, practice different faiths, have different skin tones, orientations and physical abilities. We don’t just believe that this diversity makes us better at what we do and a more rewarding place to work, we know it does. Because again, we are just like all the families and caregivers we serve. We understand their needs, because they’re our needs too. We face the same struggles making us driven to deliver the best solutions. And we know from experience that working as a team makes us unbeatable.

We’re not only dedicated to this culture of diversity, equity and inclusion, we’re fiercely committed to cultivating and nurturing it through all we do from recruiting, employee engagement and training to product development to procurement, and to community engagement and advocacy. We will never be satisfied that we are doing enough to ensure an inclusive world both inside and outside Care.com, so our work in these areas will never be done. And we proudly accept that challenge.

DE&I Within Care.com

Diversity is hardwired in Care.com’s DNA, having been founded by a four-person team that included three women of color. We have always and continue to believe that diverse perspectives and teams are essential for healthy, thriving organizations, and that representation matters through all levels of the Company from the leadership through the broader team. Today, across our corporate team, 40% of our senior leadership and our Vice Presidents are women and 26% of the team are people of color. Among the professional caregivers employed by the Company, more than 90% women and more than 60% are from underrepresented groups.

Ensuring we maintain this commitment starts with our Talent Acquisition team, each of whom is or is getting certified in DEI Recruiting to remove bias in their process. We believe that taking every opportunity to widen the net and remove unconscious bias will help ensure we attract and retain the best talent. For example, we utilize Textio, industry-leading technology, to craft gender-neutral job descriptions and Hackerank, an engineering pre-screen to focus solely on a candidate’s coding capabilities.

Once team members join Care, we have a rich and varied benefits package to support employees from all backgrounds and at all stages of life. Not surprisingly, our team has access to the full suite of products and services we provide our enterprise clients, including: membership in our digital platform; access to backup care for children, seniors, and pets; concierge care planning; and a wide array of resources ranging from lactation support to financial planning. In addition, we offer a suite of support services and resources for same sex couples, transgender employees and those transitioning.

We are also increasingly mindful of valuing and supporting neurodiversity across our teams, from recruiting through workplace support. This includes employing tools like Hackerank that focus on assessing skills required for the role, as well as training and seminars on topics such as “Understanding Colleagues with Autism,” which help foster a supportive culture. All employees have 24/7 access to specialists and resources from our own service offerings, and our WFH protocols are centered on a “remote equal” approach that fosters quiet work environments, reduced face-to-face interactions and meeting agendas in advance, as often as possible. All new employees and managers go through multiple hours of training focused on creating and sustaining a culture of inclusion and identifying micro-aggressions, and every employee must certify annually that they have read and will adhere to the Company’s Policies and Guidelines surrounding conduct and behavior.

While our commitment to DE&I starts at the top, maintaining it is a responsibility shared by each member of our team. In the last year, our employees rallied behind the creation of our first Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) which currently include Black@Care, LatinX@Care, LGBTQ+@Care, and Diversity@Care, an umbrella ERG for those employees who seek to be better allies to their peers. Each ERG sets its own mission and objectives, and all provide a safe space for conversation, sharing, education and outreach. We encourage our employees to take this outreach into the community, with three paid days off annually to volunteer, give back and peacefully support causes of importance to them. Additionally, the Company has long observed MLK Day as an official holiday and added Juneteenth to our holiday schedule in 2020.

Finally, we established a Diversity Council comprised of senior leaders from across the organization and ERG leaders to regularly review our DE&I efforts, including recruitment and retention, goals, and ERGs, as well as external programs, such as procurement and advocacy (see below).

DE&I Within Our Products and Services

Equity is a recurring issue in caregiving with women disproportionately shouldering the care responsibilities in their families (for both children and seniors) and the caregiving workforce being overwhelmingly female (90+%) and women of color (50+%). It is our mission to provide flexible, accessible and affordable care solutions that enable mothers (and fathers) and adult children to find and manage care solutions that suit both their unique families and their unique schedules. Additionally, we have a cross-functional team working to identify and address any unconscious bias permeating our platform and/or marketing and advertising.

We also believe it is our responsibility as an industry leader to help drive conversation with families, clients and the general public. To that end, we have hosted webinars and podcasts with notable experts and authors on a wide range of topics including talking about racism with children, women in the workforce, and the care ecosystem, among many other subjects.