Intel Offers $4K Bonus for Women, Minority, Vet Hiring Referrals

Intel (INTC) again is putting its money where its mouth is on diversity hiring, pledging now to double to $4,000 the cash bonus paid to employees for referring women, minorities, and veterans to its workforce.

The cash incentive follows an earlier $300 million vow by the chip giant to fund a diversity initiative not only to remake its own workforce and executive ranks with more women and minorities but also to support similar efforts by others in the IT industry.

In addition, the company two months ago pledged $125 million to back women and minority-led startups, launching a special fund led by Lisa Lambert, Intel Capital vice president and managing director.

“Intel is committed to increase the diversity of our workforce,” Intel said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal. “We are currently offering our employees an additional incentive to help us attract diverse qualified candidates in a competitive environment for talent.”

The vendor is hoping the additional bonus will boost its efforts to attract women and minorities to apply for jobs. Recent reports point not only to the under-representation of women in technology but also to the inability of many tech companies to retain women in staff, management and executive-level positions.

“This is not the first time we have offered employees referral incentives for diverse candidates, and it’s a commonly used recruitment tool for businesses,” Intel said. “Today, it’s one of many programs we are deploying to attract talented women and underrepresented minorities to Intel.”

Last January, Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich told attendees in a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that its new Diversity in Technology Initiative will remake its own workforce and executive ranks with more women and minorities and also support similar efforts by others in the IT industry.

Intel is directing the $300 million at building a hiring pipeline of women and minority engineers and computer scientists, supporting practices to hire and retain women and under-represented minorities, and funding programs for similar efforts within the IT and gaming industries.

Intel’s goal is to remake its workforce by 2020, particularly with what Krzanich calls a “more balanced representation” in senior executive positions.

In May, Krzanich followed up on the earlier pledge in a keynote address at the Push Tech 2020 Summit in San Francisco–a confab of Silicon Valley executives and activists discussing minority and women hiring for executive-level positions–disclosing that more than 40 percent of Intel’s hires to that point fit its diversity initiative, up from 30 percent last year.

Intel has a number of partners with which it is collaborating on the initiative, including the International Game Developers Association, the E-Sports League, the National Center for Women in Technology, the CyberSmile Foundation, the Feminist Frequency and Rainbow PUSH.

At the time, Krzanich acknowledged that a struggle still remained with executive-level minority and women hiring.

“I am not going to fool you,” Krzanich said. “This is hard work. “This isn’t rocket science. It’s harder.”

In addition to its diversity initiatives, Intel has pledged $5 million over the next five years for a program to teach computer science and engineering to students in the Oakland (CA) Unified School District, which is 65 percent black and Hispanic. Students in the program who complete an internship will be guaranteed jobs at Intel, the company said.