Foreword
At Okta, we are building a world where Identity belongs to you. This guides everything we do, including how we design our products, hire our employees, interact with our customers, and champion our communities. Diversity, inclusion, and belonging (DIB) are fundamental values that drive better business outcomes, growth, and innovation. We know that having a diverse workforce with a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives and creating a culture of belonging are critical to successfully building an iconic security company.
As we pursue progress, transparency and accountability are our guiding principles. The data and narrative in our fourth State of Inclusion report reveal our current landscape, identifying both areas of progress and opportunities. We recognize that transparency is the cornerstone of accountability, and through this report, we aim to hold ourselves accountable to our ongoing commitment to diversity, inclusion, and belonging.
Vijay Rao, Chief People and Places Officer
Key takeaways
DIB continues to be central to our corporate philosophy and operations at Okta. Fostering a culture of inclusion and belonging where all can thrive is imperative to our continued growth and success as a company. In this report you will see how we have worked to intentionally integrate equity into our policies and processes across the talent lifecycle, the evolution of our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), our efforts to expand and diversify our candidate pools, and more.
Over the last year, our efforts resulted in seeing progress in many areas. We introduced several new affinity groups and guidebooks to support our employees. We saw an increase in the representation of women and Latinx talent across the company and in leadership roles. This report allows us to not only celebrate our progress but also provides transparency around our areas for improvement. We know we have a huge opportunity to address the decline in representation of women in technical roles and Black talent at all levels. Although we have made progress in many areas over this past year, we know there is still more to do and we remain committed.
Lynnetta Smith, Head of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DIB)
Workforce
The foundation of our DIB work revolves around building balanced teams and improving representation and access to tech jobs.
Building Balanced Teams
We attract and value talent that reflects our diverse community of partners, customers, and employees. In order to build balanced teams, we take intentional measures to expand the pool of applicants to include women and members of underrepresented groups. Last year, we introduced a balanced slate approach in our recruiting process to specifically focus on the Director+ level.
Recruiting and Sourcing Partners
Our journey in building balanced and inclusive teams is supported by strategic partners and enhanced with an inclusive hiring process. Sourcing partners such as PowerToFly, Shift.org, Hiring our Heroes, AboveBoard, Black Professionals In Tech Network (BPTN), Out In Tech, Disability:IN, Women In Sales Everywhere (WISE) and COOP help us to build balanced teams, with a special interest in increasing representation of women and underrepresented groups.
To help facilitate a more equitable hiring process, we use the following tools and processes.
We use Gender Decoder to gender neutralize our job descriptions allowing us to remove bias in our posts.
We offer accommodations for people with disabilities so they are able to navigate through the application and interview process.
We leverage the power of AI to help us uncover and connect with underrepresented talent.
We share our total rewards with prospective employees so they can make informed employment decisions.
University Recruiting
Our university recruiting efforts enable us to expand our talent pool and help shape the future of Okta.
Industry Conferences
We participate in several career summits and job fairs including the Grace Hopper Conference, a gathering of women and non-binary technologists designed to bring the research and career interests in computing to the forefront.
Sponsorships
We sponsor ColorStack, an organization with a mission to increase the number of Black and Latinx Computer Science graduates who start rewarding technical careers.
Partnerships
We partner with community organizations such as Rainier Scholars, Students Rising Above, and Rewriting the Code, a network for undergrad, graduate, and early-career women in tech with 17,000+ members across 875 schools and partners.
Workforce Development Programs
Our workforce development programs serve as a critical component of our Build Balanced Teams strategy.
Fellowships and Opportunity Youth Internships
Since September 2022, we have hosted four Equity Accelerator fellows, 17 Year Up interns, and 13 Genesys Works interns. All four EA fellows had their contracts extended and two were hired into full-time roles at Okta.
Business Development Associate (BDA) Program
The Business Development Associate Program aims to attract, hire, and develop non-traditional talent to advance their sales careers within the Sales Development Org and beyond. We welcomed three new BDA's and promoted five since the last report.
85%
of employees that have joined Okta through the BDA program identify as people of color
56%
of BDAs are non-degree holders
86%
of BDAs with a degree are first-generation college graduates
Workforce data
The data here represents Okta’s workforce and leadership in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity as of January 31, 2024. Our gender data includes global employees, however, we only include data on race and ethnicity for US-based employees due to international restrictions on collecting this data in other countries.
Gender (Global employees)
Read gender data
Company overall in 2024 Women: 33.9%, Men: 66.1%.
Company overall in 2023 Women: 32.6%, Men: 67.4%.
Leadership (Director level and above) in 2024 Women: 35.7%, Men: 64.3%.
Leadership (Director level and above) in 2023 Women: 34.3%, Men: 65.7%.
Leadership (VP level and above) in 2024 Women: 29.6%, Men: 70.4%.
Leadership (VP level and above) in 2023 Women: 27.6%, Men: 72.4%.
Tech workers in 2024 Women: 23.5%, Men: 76.5%.
Tech workers in 2023 Women: 28.9%, Men: 71.1%.
Non-tech workers in 2024 Women: 37.9%, Men: 62.1%.
Non-tech workers in 2023 Women: 34.2%, Men: 65.8%.
Hybrid workers in 2024 Women: 38.6%, Men: 61.4%.
Hybrid workers in 2023 Women: 31.9%, Men: 68.1%
Race and ethnicity (US-based employees)
Read race and ethnicity data
Company overall in 2024 White: 57.9%, Asian: 27.6%, Hispanic or Latino: 6.8%, Black or African American: 4.0%, American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.1%, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: 0.3%, Two or More Races: 3.4%.
Company overall in 2023 White: 58.3%, Asian: 26.8%, Hispanic or Latino: 6.4%, Black or African American: 4.3%, American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.1%, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: 0.3%, Two or More Races: 3.8%.
Leadership (Director level and above) in 2024 White: 64.3%, Asian: 23.0%, Hispanic or Latino: 6.6%, Black or African American: 2.2%, American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.2%, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: 0.2%, Two or More Races: 3.5%.
Leadership (Director level and above) in 2023 White: 67.4%, Asian: 22.2%, Hispanic or Latino: 4.7%, Black or African American: 2.6%, American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.2%, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: 0.2%, Two or More Races: 2.8%.
Leadership (VP level and above) in 2024 White: 61.0%, Asian: 25.2%, Hispanic or Latino: 8.9%, Black or African American: 1.6%, American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.0%, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: 0.8%, Two or More Races: 2.4%.
Leadership (VP level and above) in 2023 White: 63.8%, Asian: 24.6%, Hispanic or Latino: 6.5%, Black or African American: 2.9%, American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.0%, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: 0.7%, Two or More Races: 1.4%.
Tech workers in 2024 White: 45.4%, Asian: 43.6%, Hispanic or Latino: 4.2%, Black or African American: 3.7%, American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.0%, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: 0.3%, Two or More Races: 2.9%.
Tech workers in 2023 White: 46.2%, Asian: 43.7%, Hispanic or Latino: 4.0%, Black or African American: 3.4%, American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.0%, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: 0.1%, Two or More Races: 2.6%.
Non-tech workers in 2024 White: 65.0%, Asian: 18.8%, Hispanic or Latino: 8.0%, Black or African American: 4.0%, American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.1%, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: 0.4%, Two or More Races: 3.7%.
Non-tech workers in 2023 White: 64.9%, Asian: 18.1%, Hispanic or Latino: 7.6%, Black or African American: 4.5%, American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.1%, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: 0.4%, Two or More Races: 4.3%.
Hybrid workers in 2024 White: 43.1%, Asian: 44.5%, Hispanic or Latino: 5.3%, Black or African American: 4.2%, American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.6%, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: 0.0%, Two or More Races: 2.2%.
Hybrid workers in 2023 White: 41.2%, Asian: 46.1%, Hispanic or Latino: 3.9%, Black or African American: 5.2%, American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.6%, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: 0.3%, Two or More Races: 2.8%.
Internally, employees can self-identify under various categories such as veteran status, disability status, gender identity, and sexual orientation, which we may use to assist in determining the appropriate benefits to offer based on our workforce composition.
87 US Okta employees have self-identified as veterans.
Board Representation
Read Board Representation data
Tenure as of January 31, 2024 Less than 5 years: 5, 5 to 10 years: 1, 11+ years: 3.
Age as of January 31, 2024 50 or less: 2, 51 to 60: 2, 61+: 5.
Independence as of January 31, 2024 Independent: 7, Employee: 2
Gender Women: 3, Men: 6.
Underrepresented community (URC) URC: 3, Non-URC: 6.
A member of an underrepresented community is an individual who self-identifies as Black, African American, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Native Hawaiian or Alaska Native, or who self-identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.
Methodology, Use of EEO-1 Report Data, and Definitions
Historically, our State of Inclusion report disclosed data from a reporting period from September 1 to August 31. Beginning with this year’s report, we adjusted our report to align with our fiscal year, therefore the data reflects a single point in time on January 31, 2024, the last day of our fiscal year. We believe that this reporting methodology will represent a more accurate view. The data and the language we use to describe race and ethnicity in this section of the report are based in part on data contained in our EEO-1 reports.
Tech Workers: Our tech workforce is defined by job duties and not department, and includes all employees in technical occupations in engineering, security, and technology. We categorize all of our jobs into three groups: tech, non-tech, and hybrid based on market data to ensure we are competitive. Hybrid is defined as roles that are partly technical.
Underrepresented Groups: We define underrepresented groups as US-based employees who self-identify as Black, Latinx, Hispanic, American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and Multiracial (two or more races).
Workplace
Fostering an inclusive and equitable culture is crucial for our success. We are dedicated to enhancing our systems and structures to promote fairness, flexibility, and a feeling of belonging.
Integrating equity
Like the popular aphorism, “A rising tide lifts all boats” suggests, we see benefits for all by integrating equity, inclusion, and belonging into our systems and the employee lifecycle. Equitable policies and processes foster a diverse and inclusive workplace and promote fairness and equal opportunities, which, in turn, enhance employee morale, productivity, and overall organizational success. As we work to support the most marginalized, we have found that the benefits in doing this impact the broader employee population too.
This year, we introduced three new guides to continue to enable managers and individual contributors to integrate equity into the ways they work.
The Trans and Nonbinary Inclusion Guide
Created to help foster dialogue and understanding of transgender issues in the workplace. It provides guidance for transitioning employees, their colleagues and managers, and gives a starting point for building awareness around a topic that is still evolving in the workplace. We set out to offer a guide that could ease the process of changing your name in Workday for transitioning employees, but we saw that it also was a great resource for any employees going through a name change for any reason.
The Inclusive Event Guidelines
These guidelines promote awareness and provide resources for organizing events in an inclusive manner, serving all employees and attendees of our events. Specifically, the guidelines outline best practices around accessibility and providing accommodations, choosing safe event locations, and general event guidance to create an inclusive event. They have been used for Sales Kick Off (SKO) and Oktane. One example is that we will serve mocktails at all welcome receptions and dinners at SKO to support employees who are abstaining from alcohol because of pregnancy, religion, or other reasons.
The Caregiver and Manager Checklist
Designed to assist our valued caregivers and their managers during a pivotal time – the process of taking a leave of absence. These guidelines serve as a starting point for caregivers and managers to have discussions about taking leave with suggested timelines to ensure smooth transitions, caregiver and manager suggested checklists for the leave and the return, and additional resources, such as email/agenda templates and caregiver wellbeing offerings. This checklist was originally designed for parents, but we found that it actually supports all people who go on leave for any reason.
Our Customer Identity Cloud, powered by Auth0, and Workforce Identity Cloud teams launched commitments aligned to their teams’ inclusion goals.
Inclusive Leadership
Codifying inclusive management attributes into career ladders, establishing best practices for feedback and recognition.
Talent Development
Hosting a Women in Engineering offsite, which focused on skill building and amplifying the subject matter expertise of women across Engineering and Technical Program Management.
Balanced Podium
Intentionally closing the visibility gap by featuring opportunities for women and people of color to showcase their expertise. Over 50% of on-stage Customer Identity Cloud presenters at industry events, customer panels, and all-hands were women or people of color.
Employee Resource Groups
Okta’s Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and affinity groups embody our core values and drive towards a more inclusive and equitable culture through their efforts around awareness, engagement, education, enablement, and coalition building. The focus areas this year have been manager enablement, professional development, and business integration.
Here are our ERGs and examples of how they drove impact this past year, inside and outside Okta.
APJ Circle
Committed to educating, engaging, and celebrating the rich tapestry of cultures within our organization to foster a more vibrant and inclusive workplace, promoting cross-cultural understanding.
“We're getting there. We still have work to do, but we're taking the right steps to get there.”
-Anonymous Employee
Employee Engagement Survey
Affinity Groups
In addition to formal ERGs, employees have the opportunity to form less formal groups that have fewer structure requirements. The community expanded with the following new groups: Asian Employee Network, Black Employee Network, Jewish Employee Network, Latinx Employee Network, and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Employee Network. We are actively working to identify leaders and develop structures for the following groups: Ally Collective, Experienced Workers@Okta, and Disability Affinity Network.
Asian Employee Network
The Asian Employee Network aims to create and hold space for Asian employees to be recognized and have their voices heard. In 2023, we hosted workshops to empower employees of color to speak up, gave employees the opportunity to learn about the history of Asian contributions to society, and honored our heritage by coordinating with our global community to host events for major holidays like Lunar New Year and Diwali.
Middle Eastern North Africa Group
The Middle Eastern North Africa Group was founded with the purpose of establishing a safe space for anyone at Okta who self-identifies as a member or ally of the Middle East and North Africa community. Our immediate goal is to provide fellowship and support for the numerous employees who are currently affected by the global surge in anti-Arab and Islamophobic sentiment.
Latinx Employee Network
The Latinx Employee Network is dedicated to building a supportive and uplifting environment, creating networking opportunities, engaging in professional development, discussing topics that affect our community, sharing our culture through cultural enrichment opportunities, volunteering our time, and being in familia with our members.
Jewish Employee Network
The Jewish Employee Network aims to build a community for Jewish employees at Okta, develop programming and activities, and be representative of the community outwardly at Okta. This year we saw membership grow to over 60 employees.
Black Employee Network
The Black Employee Network works to foster honest discussions about the political and social barriers that Black employees experience globally. In 2023, we focused on employee recognition through a social media series called Black& which highlighted the intersectionality of our members and a short documentary called Shades of Black which was an incredibly impactful collection of stories from our members that was shared at Oktane. We also participated in NBA Heritage Night Games across the US and hosted a fireside chat with Renel Brooks-Moon: the PA announcer for the San Francisco Giants and the first female of color to announce a World Series game.
Career Development and Growth
In an effort to provide more visibility to our internal roles, we made enhancements to our internal career website to showcase roles and share weekly updates in our #internal-career-mobility Slack channel. Internal applications have increased 62% and the percentage of internal hires has increased 4% year-over-year.
Additionally, we hosted two internal career conferences to give employees the opportunity to focus on their individual career journeys. We featured a new course, Demystifying Career Growth at Okta, that focused on creating visibility to the processes that influence performance reviews and calibrations. We also hosted a panel discussion about non-traditional career pivots to demonstrate diverse career paths.
Learning and Development
Fostering awareness and facilitating learning is a crucial step toward cultivating a more inclusive culture. In line with our principles at Okta, we embrace a growth mindset, are forward thinking, learn quickly from mistakes, and enable individuals and teams to achieve their full potential. In the last year, Okta implemented numerous courses and learning opportunities to strengthen our commitment to continuous learning.
Designed by a group of industry experts to help recognize the power of language and apply precise language, specifically around gender, race/ethnicity, and LGBTQIA+ communities, in order to create a more inclusive and equitable workplace. Participants demonstrated a 38% increase in knowledge/capability between pre- and post-session surveys, on average.
Organized in partnership with the Pride Employee Resource Group to help teams learn foundational LGBTQIA+ concepts and what allyship looks like in practice. Participants demonstrated a 35% increase in knowledge/capability between pre- and post-session surveys, on average.
Developed for employees to learn about antisemitism, the cultural context of antisemitism in the media, and how antisemitism broadly impacts DIB work.
Provided for managers to break down the talent calibration philosophy and process, describes how SEEDS biases can undermine calibrations, and enables managers to practice integrating an inclusion lens through sample scenarios.
Benefits
Okta’s benefits programs ensure all employees feel valued, connected, empowered, and supported to deliver their best work in a dynamic, global work environment. We offer a number of employee experience programs to support employees and their families, regardless of geographic location or family structure.
This year, we focused on:
Expanding Women’s Health and Family Forming Support
Launched menopause and low testosterone support programs globally through Carrot, our fertility healthcare and family forming service partner.
Mental Health
In addition to our robust mental health support infrastructure, we spotlighted the importance of mental healthcare and wellbeing during Mental Health Awareness Month. Over 600 virtual attendees from 17 different countries attended mental wellbeing keynote speaking events, meditations, and family wellbeing events.
Neurodivergent Coverage
Added neurodivergent coverage in the healthcare plan for employees in the UK. This support gives employees and their covered dependents access to timely assessments, guidance, and medication review for a range of conditions, as well as group sessions and help in navigating support.
Bereavement Leave
Expanded our Bereavement Leave policy to include reproductive loss events such as failed adoption, failed surrogacy, miscarriage, stillbirth, or an unsuccessful assisted reproduction.
To learn more about Okta’s benefits that support our employees, visit our Total Rewards page.
Employee experience
In April 2023, Okta celebrated the one-year anniversary of our global recognition program, Oktappreciate. With this program, we prioritize peer-to-peer recognition, enabling and empowering employees to acknowledge their colleagues' exceptional work and collaboration in real time. We offer a points system that can be redeemed for gift cards, swag, or charitable donations through Okta for Good. We ensure recognition reflects the collective achievements stemming from our commitment to living our values, supporting active community engagement and outstanding professional accomplishments.
We continue to amplify employee voice through a twice annual survey that asks about key areas of engagement, culture, company, and leadership. Through this intentional listening strategy, we are able to assess the direction of some of our company wide initiatives such as Diversity, Fair Evaluation, and Inclusion. We saw high participation rates with 83%+ of employees responding to give feedback on various aspects of their experience at Okta. We also review the survey data by gender, race, and ethnicity, with special attention to how employees rate their sense of inclusion at work. This inclusion index gives us a better view into any patterns of positive, negative, similar, or disparate experiences based on identity factors. Leaders use the inclusion index to set annual commitments to improve manager effectiveness, psychological safety, and career growth opportunities.
Since the inception of Oktappreciate
83%
of active users gave at least one recognition to a colleague
96%
of active users received at least one recognition
315,000+
total recognitions were given out across the globe
Pay Equity
At Okta, we are committed to the principles of pay equity, meaning that employees are paid the same when they perform the same or similar job duties as others taking into account factors such as job level, job family, tenure, and geography. In 2023, we conducted a pay equity analysis of employees in the ten countries with our largest employee populations, including the United States, to ensure we are aligned with pay equity principles. As a result of this global pay analysis, we made appropriate pay adjustments where needed.
We view pay equity as a continuous journey, and therefore continue to refine our methodology. We continue to pursue the goals of increasing representation for women and underrepresented groups at more senior levels and of ensuring pay equity for all.
Okta is a great place to work
Okta scored 85/100 on the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, the foremost benchmarking survey and report measuring corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ+ workplace equality in the United States.
#37
in Fortune Best Workplaces in Technology™ 2023
#71
in Fortune Best Workplaces for Millennials™ 2023
#25
in Fortune Best Workplaces in the Bay Area™ 2023
#59
in Best Workplaces for Parents™ 2022
Marketplace
We are committed to ensuring diversity and equity are key focus areas as we participate in the market around us. This includes the products we create and interactions with our customers and community.
Web Accessibility Program
We continue to improve our digital accessibility. In 2023, we held internal training sessions, ranging from introductory accessibility crash courses, to “screen reader ride-alongs,” to in-person real-time accessibility audits. We had our first accessibility awareness week in May in line with Global Accessibility Awareness Day, an internal hackathon featuring an accessibility hackathon track, and we’ve shifted our marketing efforts to consider and test for accessibility much earlier in our digital process.
Inclusive Language
Communication is key to fostering inclusion and belonging. The Inclusive Language Project launched in 2020 and the team is diligently working to eliminate non-inclusive terms from our code, product, and documentation.
In 2023, the team reduced non-inclusive language, enforced inclusive language, and prevented non-inclusive language from entering our code repositories. This effort has touched many teams at Okta, and has had a broad and long-lasting impact. This initiative, along with our employee inclusivity training and Slack reminder bot, has made huge strides in making Okta an inclusive place to work.
“I am encouraged to see the diversity efforts growing, particularly around people of color and the LGBTQ+ community.”
-Anonymous Employee
Employee Engagement Survey
Okta for Good
Okta for Good is our social impact and sustainability arm, with a mission of building a safely connected world where everyone can belong and thrive. Through the mobilization of our people, products, and company resources, we facilitate the digital transformation of nonprofits, promote the establishment of more equitable communities, and cultivate ecosystems that foster enduring positive change for both people and the planet. To learn more about our impact on the community and employees, check out Okta for Good’s 2024 Social Impact Report.
Cyber Workforce Commitment
In October 2023, Okta launched its Cybersecurity Workforce Development Initiative, focused on finding and developing the best cybersecurity talent, and providing equitable access to thriving careers in tech.
To address the growing gap in cybersecurity talent, we committed $1.6 million in philanthropic grants to organizations globally that are providing tech career opportunities for women, people of color, veterans, and other jobseekers from underrepresented communities. We also announced 5,000 educational grants for unemployed tech workers, including veterans and military spouses.
Learn more about life at Okta
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