As an update to a post I made a couple of weeks ago titled “It’s Time For Change,” I wanted to share some of my thoughts about how we as an industry got here and what we at Logitech plan to do about it. While this is incredibly complex and can seem overwhelming, we can’t let complexity cloud our judgement about the right thing to do, allow it to avoid the tough decisions needed, or enable a continuation of the convenient ‘status quo’.
Gaming companies that do not work to actively prevent, route out and stop all instances of discrimination and harassment undermine their own cultures and hurt the people that work there.This behavior can also make its way into games and the communities of gamers who play them. This combined with the lack of representation in the industry, the games themselves, and the anonymity of online play threatens to destroy a safe and inclusive environment for everyone.
The gaming industry has grown up fast, maybe too fast. Within the last few decades, the growth rates have been explosive, catapulting gaming from hobbyist subculture to a mainstream activity. Now, more than ever it’s critical to ensure that our industry provides representation for all.
At Logitech, a major part of our business is dedicated to gamers around the world with a focus on products and services that allow them to maximize the joy of gaming. We directly benefit from the games industry and as such, we recognize that we have an obligation to step forward and do our part to create positive change.
We haven’t done enough ourselves to advance diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). And yet, we are only one voice. Industry wide change will require collective action by all gaming companies.
That’s why we are publishing our efforts with the goal of moving ourselves, and we hope others, to create the changes needed. Our plan has three tenets that build off a post our CEO, Bracken Darrell made on Juneteenth acknowledging the need to end systemic racism and level the playing field for all. They are to…
- Speak Up, Speak Out: Be a voice for change even as we change ourselves
- Transparently measure and report our improvement
- Support other activists for this change
Here are some of the first steps we are taking to achieve this.
- In the coming weeks, we will publish our annual Logitech Sustainability Report for FY21. In the report, we outline our internal practices around DEI such as training, talent reviews, compensation reviews, paid time off to “Speak Up, Speak Out”, supplier diversity, involvement and commitments to our communities, and more. For the first time, this year’s report will also incorporate a comprehensive DEI section that details employee demographics globally such as gender and ethnicity/race (US only) across our Board of Directors, Leadership Team, People Managers, STEM and revenue-generating roles. Sharing our company representation in this annual report, and building on it year-over-year, is an important step toward publicly identifying and eliminating barriers to full representation and inclusion of people from all backgrounds and communities. Our job now is to take swift action and our Logitech Community & Advocacy team drives this action in partnership with DEI champions and allies throughout our businesses.
- We are actively supporting organizations with a mission of driving equity, equality and inclusion. To further advance our impact and refine the scope of our future giving, we recently established a $30M Donor Advised Fund (DAF) called the LogiCares fund. The LogiCares Fund is sponsored by the Tides Foundation, an organization with a mission of accelerating the pace of social change, and working with innovative partners to solve society’s toughest problems. Our Gaming team drives recommendations for charitable contributions from the DAF towards activities specifically related to inclusive gaming.
- We will increasingly highlight marginalized groups and support streams/conversations around equity and representation, including conversations with our partners and gamers around how we can celebrate and continue building toward the world we know is possible in gaming. Our next event will take place in October for “World Diversity Awareness Month.” We’ll be publishing details as we get closer to that date.
- We are also evolving our annual industry event, held in the Spring, which brings together executives and leaders from our major partners and across the gaming industry. Together, we will have an open conversation on how we can drive meaningful change and share best practices around DEI initiatives.
- Finally, we’re developing a Partnership Code of Conduct & Framework. We believe in living our values and have begun work on a code of conduct and evaluation framework that will guide our partnership decisions going forward. We will share the process we used to create this and the outcome with others in hopes that it will inspire future conversations.
These steps are just the beginning of an increased focus on representation and equity, and we look forward to sharing our progress as well as new programs and commitments we’ll make going forward. Our goal is to embed DEI in everything we do, but we have a lot of learning to do along the way.
We know we don’t have all the answers, but we are committed to learning openly and transparently and sharing our progress. We know we can’t go it alone and hope other organizations, regardless of size or place in the gaming industry, will join us.
If you’re interested in collaborating on our work, please send me a direct message with your name and organization details.
