we value your difference.
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At Palo Alto Networks, we commit to creating an environment where our employees feel safe and secure to be their authentic selves at work.
We embrace diversity because it is vital to the continued success of our company. We know innovation cannot succeed without diverse representation and an inclusive, empowered workforce.
Our success is dependent on our diverse and inclusive culture.
Palo Alto Networks remains dedicated to our efforts to celebrate diversity and, just as important, dedicated to ensuring our culture is inclusive and sustains our diverse workforce. Leveling the playing field and making equitable choices for our employees is our active priority. Simply put, our workforce must reflect the world in which we live, and we are always pursuing that as our North Star.
I&D is Our P.U.L.S.E.
Palo Alto Networks inclusion and diversity focus areas are centered around P.U.L.S.E.—Psychologically Safe. Understand. Listen. Support. Elevate. We all know that PULSE in essence means many different things: a heartbeat, the health of an organization, surveying teams to assess engagement. We are taking an holistic approach, and centering our efforts on all of the above, with a deliberate call to action on these key elements. This program aims to engage employees through micro-learnings, podcasts, learning circles, personal stories, events, articles and through our Learning Management System.
Psychologically Safe
Understand
Listen
Support
Elevate
Psychologically Safe
We have established and will continue to foster environments in which our employees feel safe to be their authentic selves. We currently have 11 employee network groups (ENG's), including our two newest ENG's, Kehila (Jewish ENG) and Aloha 'Aina (Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander ENG).
Our ENGs foster a diverse, inclusive workplace aligned with our company values. More than 27% of our global workforce were members of at least one ENG in fiscal 2022. ENGs are employee initiated and driven, allowing us to amplify our I&D efforts through a grass-roots approach and passion-led commitment across the company. Our executives host quarterly listening sessions to actively understand and support ENG needs and priorities through transparent and open communication. It ensures that our diverse communities have a place to build familiarity, and bonds of representation that allows environments that encourage psychological safety.
Understand
Palo Alto Networks strives to be the best place to work, for all employees. We’ve enabled our Allyship initiative to help build and further strengthen our understanding of one another, through insightful workshops and personal storytelling. Allyship is fundamental in how we work together, and how we can each bring our best selves to work.
Listen
What Palo Alto Networks continues to do well is listen. We’ve taken swift action based on the needs of our ENGs, our employees, and our extended communities to understand what will and can make us better. Comparably recognized our CEO as #15 out of 100 large companies on the Best CEOs for Diversity list, as well as making the list for Best CEOs for Women and Best Companies for Diversity. We also listened to inputs from employees who identify as LGBTQ+, veterans and persons with disabilities and as a result of action taken have earned recognition from the Human Rights Campaign, Disability:IN and Military Friendly. We know that keeping our ears open to our communities benefits us, and allows us to make pivots where needed. We will continue listening to each other, learning from one another and making our worlds safer while removing barriers, and taking our needs as a company and as a community seriously.
Support
We aim to be the inclusion leader in cybersecurity. We know that advancing inclusion and diversity requires commitment and action at all levels of the organization. Through FLEXLearn, we’ve enabled several learning modules to support our employees and leaders in growing their leadership skills, and leveraging our mentorship and executive sponsorship programs.
Elevate
We are committed to uplifting and educating future generations that will continue to diversify the cybersecurity industry. Our pledge is to champion diversity through strategic partnerships that create pathways into technology and cybersecurity for anyone, regardless of background, so that they can explore their curiosity earlier in their education and in easily accessible ways. Through our work with cybersecurity education programs, strategic partnerships and recruiting channels focused on attracting candidates with diverse backgrounds, abilities and expertise, we are able to build an industry ecosystem that promotes equity, diversity and inclusion. We have dedicated resources to focus solely on building partnerships that best suit our corporate strategy, and align to our initiatives across the board. To date, we have maintained partnerships with NSBE, AfroTech, Techqueria, DisabilityIN, SHPE, NCWIT, VetsInTech and have gained new partnerships with Sistas in Sales which focuses on bringing diverse women into the tech and sales industry.
Our people in action.
Actions speak louder than words.
Getting ahead of tomorrow's cybersecurity threats requires a diverse and innovative team of problem solvers. We know that we still have some way to go and that one of the steps toward improving diversity is understanding and being transparent about where we are now.
Our journey requires focused effort and a measured, multi-year approach that will continuously evolve based on our progress and the need to adapt to changing societal conditions.
We openly share where we are today and the progress we’ve made. We know we have more work to do to realize our ambitions, but we’re committed and will provide updates on our journey and progress on this webpage and our blog.
Our progress and commitments*
- PANW is a fair pay company: validated by external audit year over year
- There is no differential in our promotions for under-represented talent, validated through our performance cycles
- There is no differential in our ratings distribution for under-represented talent, validated through our performance cycles
- Since the beginning of FY21, 86% of our roles have included at least 2 diverse candidates at interviews prior to moving to offer.
- FLEXLocation offers employees the opportunity to work from where they are most productive. We see value in in-person collaboration and our managers and senior ICs work from their local offices three flexible days per week and are available to support employees and create a sense of inclusion if they wish to go in. Many of our roles can operate fully remote, giving increased access to diverse markets and populations.
- We created FLEXBenefits to represent the uniqueness of our individual employees - a stipend that can be spent in hundreds of ways that represents each of our employees, uniquely.
- We added amazing industry leaders to our board who bring extensive experience in complex, global organizations, including one of Forbes’ “100 Most Powerful Women” who became the first Black woman to join our already gender diverse board, now 33% women.
- For our executive team, we raised the representation of women to 36%, an increase of 4.9% YoY.
- 40% of FY22 External Hires for VP and above are diverse.
- Our 2020 graduate class was 52% women, 21% Under-represented Talent from over 100 schools.
*As of October 1, 2021.
Diversity trends
- Women
- Men
All data is self-reported and current as of Aug 1, 2023
All gender data, unless otherwise stated, represents employees globally
Diversity by role
- White
- Asian
- Hispanic
- Black
- Two or more races
- Other
All data is self-reported and current as of Aug 1, 2023
All race/ethnicity data, unless otherwise stated, represents U.S. employees only
Diversity by job level
- White
- Asian
- Hispanic
- Black
- Two or more races
- Other
All data is self-reported and current as of Aug 1, 2023
All race/ethnicity data, unless otherwise stated, represents U.S. employees only
FLEXWORK for inclusivity
FLEXWORK is our way of working that celebrates and enables the individuality of each person. FLEXWORK programs were developed in full collaboration with our employees with inclusion and diversity at the core. It’s been a journey of disruption that has yielded the best of our values. Our employees are able to create a work environment that fits their personal circumstances through our FLEXLearn, FLEXBenefits and FLEXLocation programs.
We continue to offer flexibility and choice whenever possible for employees to balance their needs at work with their needs at home.
