At Equinix, we strive to foster a culture where employees can feel empowered and secure while advancing meaningful careers and doing their best work. Investing in talent is key to the continued growth of our company. Our focus on talent includes developing pathways to reach diverse communities, building robust platforms to connect and engage with new talent, and continually improving the employee experience while maintaining our culture and values. We are dedicated to attracting, hiring and developing the best talent who support our organizational goals and work to create a more accessible, equitable and sustainable future.

Attracting Top and Diverse Talent

We are focused on creating multiple pathways to reach new talent from diverse communities. In 2022, we continued investing in partnerships, tools and systems to grow and support our inclusive hiring practices. This also included an EECN-specific career page to provide potential employees with an overview of our active networks, highlighting there is a network for everyone. These efforts contribute to a growing and resilient talent pipeline that enables us to scale our efforts at every level where we are looking for talent.

We continued to improve our hiring processes with 25% of our U.S. new-to-career hires from Hispanic/Latinx and Black communities.

Integrating Inclusive Hiring Practices

In 2022, we provided bias training workshops for every hiring manager to establish the importance of reaching out to diverse pools of candidates.

We take a global stance, implementing guidelines and best practices around new hire offers that promote a consistent process. When determining new hire compensation, we do not take into consideration the current salary of a candidate nor increases based on previous salary—offers are determined based on the value a candidate brings to Equinix. We partner with compensation managers to determine the offer based on the following considerations:

1. Candidate qualifications, competencies and potential, measured against internal benchmarks
2. Industry and market data
3. Location of the position
4. Value of in-demand and key skillsets
5. Supply and demand; the availability of and competition for relevant talent

Recruiting Through Employee Outreach

In 2022, we engaged the expertise of our Equinix Employee Connection Networks (EECNs) while holding space for regional differences. Partnering with and leveraging these groups has helped us progress against our aspirational representation targets. These adjustments and additions to our recruitment approach have effectively increased the diversity of our candidate pools, resulting in better qualified and more diverse candidates. For example, in partnership with GenteConnect and BlackConnect, we piloted a “Red Carpet Employee Referral Program” in the U.S., providing a high-touch and seamless experience for referrals.

Constructing Pathways for Diverse Talent

Our “Pathways Program” works to open global pipelines for historically marginalized communities and improve and accelerate the hiring of diverse talent. The program is made up of seven initiatives–the Career Transition Program, Returners Program, Military Program, Disability Initiative, Athlete Career Transition (ACT), Government Training Initiatives and supporting refugee hiring that target the occupational communities as described below.

Our Pathways initiatives help to address industry issues and skills gaps through hiring, providing opportunities to those in a job search, or from industries in decline. A dedicated sourcing team was put together to support hiring for Pathways, increasing diverse pipelines with 40+ hires, including 58% diverse hires, 37% female and 76% historically marginalized communities. These efforts contributed to a resilient talent pipeline that enables us to scale our efforts throughout our business.

Military Program

In 2022, we hired 63 veterans globally through our Military Program. We are proud to be recognized with the Military Friendly Employer gold rating, leveling up from silver in previous years. We have pursued additional avenues to include veterans in our hiring process, including the Warrior Care Program, Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and Military Adaptive Sports, which is much like Skillbridge for differently-abled members of the military and their families.

In 2022, we accepted 82 Skillbridge candidates with 70% diversity among candidates, including 18% female representation. Of the eligible Skillbridge candidates, 62% were hired as full-time employees.

Hiring of Refugees

In June 2022, we extended our efforts to support the hiring and placement of refugees with relevant work. In 2022, we hired two refugees and are committed to increasing this talent pipeline.

Talent Development

Investing in talent is key to the continued growth of our company. We foster a culture where our employees can find belonging while discovering meaningful careers and doing the best work of their lives. Our efforts toward talent development reached new levels of engagement in 2022, even as we built out further elements of the program. We saw a total of 50,620 learning hours across all our talent development programs, a 54% increase from 2021.

LinkedIn Learning

With over 17,000 video-based leadership, professional and technical courses available to all Equinix employees in 11 languages, this online learning resource provides our employees with an on-demand library of relevant content they can access to improve their performance in their current roles and build their skills for their next roles. In 2022, we grew our library of customized, role-specific learning paths and leveraged LinkedIn Learning videos in our leadership programs. Our utilization rates for LinkedIn Learning are in the 75th percentile when compared to other global technology companies. Over 7,000 Equinix employees used LinkedIn Learning in 2022 to learn new skills, with an average time of 3.5 hours of learning per employee

Leadership Development

Leadership Coaching

This six-month program provides unlimited one-on-one coaching with a professional certified coach for selected leaders spanning across first-level and mid-level leaders. In 2022, we expanded our audience and invited over 120 leaders to participate, including leaders of our EECNs. The coaching is focused on helping our leaders develop critical leadership skills outlined in our leadership success profiles, such as shaping strategy, developing others and leading change.

Equinix Management Essentials

This six-month, cohort-based learning journey is targeted at developing first-level leaders focusing on themes such as coaching, decision-making and inclusive management. In 2022, the global rollout of this program saw over 750 managers participate, and 100% of respondents gave positive feedback. Additionally, self-assessments conducted after the program indicated an average 20% increase in manager effectiveness.

Archimedes

Aspiring senior leaders can participate in our Archimedes Leadership Development Program. The program builds leadership skills in the following three areas: leading self, leading others and leading the business. Over a three-month period, 52 global participants attended focused sessions with senior Equinix executives and leadership experts at our Redwood City headquarters. Together, they worked to solve real Equinix business challenges, developing resilience and honing business acumen within a highly collaborative environment. There was also a focus on wellbeing, including an introduction to wellbeing rituals for leaders to share with their employees, knowledge building and reflective journaling. Overall, the program received a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 94, and all participants commented on the value of combining wellbeing with leadership development and appreciated the opportunity for connection with peers and executives.

Bridging Performance Review Processes

Our global approach to measuring performance and growth is conducted through our Grow, Perform, Succeed (GPS) program. From “Quarterly Conversations” to year-end assessment and rewards, GPS is a cornerstone of how we align our people with our business strategy. It is also our way to support our employees’ personal and professional growth.

In 2022, we made systemic changes to the GPS program to increase objectivity in performance management by defining and measuring goals. Our focus for this update was to ensure everyone’s workload is balanced and they stay accountable while continuing to drive objectivity. There is a consistency check on the leadership level to ensure employees are assessed equitably, and employees have an avenue to revisit if they feel they were unfairly assessed. We have achieved a 95% adoption rate for our GPS measurements.

Voice of the Employee