Skip to Content
Tally logo

Tally's Plans for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging

We have also shared the demographic makeup of Tallizens, our people managers, leadership team and board.

Tally

December 7, 2020

Earlier this year, we joined the Fintech Equality Coalition, a working group of financial technology companies that are committed to working on action-oriented goals to enhance access to financial services, as well as jobs and career advancement, for underrepresented groups—particularly the Black community.

As part of our commitment to being an actively anti-racist company, we have been re-evaluating how Tally operates to see where we can do better and how we can more effectively implement change. Our three core values—Change Shoes Often, Don’t Say Nothing, and Own the Outcome—have been important guiding principles.

  • Change Shoes Often is our commitment to having empathy for our peers in the workplace and Tally’s members. Empathy is the foundation of inclusion. We believe that empathy develops when we’re genuinely curious about another person’s life and have a desire to actively understand and invest in their experience without judgment.

  • Don’t Say Nothing is our commitment to creating an environment where everyone feels psychologically safe to speak up, to challenge, to cheer and to converse. When we see or hear negativity, regardless of how minor it may seem, we seek to understand and address the root cause. We believe having a culture where everyone feels empowered and capable of identifying and correcting toxic behavior is crucial to our growth as a company.

  • Own the Outcome is our commitment to being invested beyond our individual roles, our individual experiences or titles. This applies to the work we do to help millions of Americans pay off their credit card debt faster while saving money on interest. But we also committed to being a company where everyone feels welcome and can thrive. 

We recognize that the fintech industry needs to improve access to jobs, career advancement, and financial services, not only for underrepresented groups, but especially for people in the Black, Latinx, and Native American community.

Here is an overview of our work-in-progress plans to improve and scale our efforts at making Tally a place that is inclusive, diverse and where everyone can feel a sense of belonging. We are also making a commitment to publicly publish our employee and leadership demographic data annually. Below is our 2020 report.

Tally’s Plans to Improve and Scale Its Inclusion, Diversity and Belonging Efforts

Increasing Internal Data Collection

For the last three years, Tally has tracked and measured employee engagement, satisfaction, and concerns across all demographics. These surveys included optional self-identification opportunities for racial and ethnic groups, as well as gender.

Starting this summer, we decided to increase the frequency of our internal data collection while improving how we report the findings internally. The purpose is to open up more lines of communications with our employees, while also sourcing real data to inform our various decisions across the organization.

Learning & Development Opportunities

At Tally, we believe that one of the most meaningful things we can do is learn and grow together. We believe we will never be “done” with the work of ensuring Tally is an inclusive and diverse workplace, nor will we ever be “done” striving to be actively anti-racist. We aim to converse, challenge, and cheer each other on as we grow together.

Here are some of the learning opportunities that we’ve hosted in 2020:

  • Optional company-wide book club reading “Redefining Realness” by Janet Mock

  • Optional company-wide documentary screening of “13th”

  • Optional company-wide live broadcast of a seminar with Ibram X. Kendi on “How to Be an Antiracist” 

  • Company-wide psychological safety workshop completed in September 2020

  • Psychological safety workshop for managers in November 2020

  • Women of Tally (employee-led affinity group) sponsored training working on how to speak confidently that’s specific for women. 

Next year, we plan to offer more learning and development opportunities throughout the year that will help Tallizens grow professionally and personally.

Supporting Employee-Led Affinity Groups

At Tally, we are very supportive of employees who want to build community within the company and do good in the communities where we work and live. Here are examples of what our employees have accomplished and how Tally plans to keep on encouraging and support them.

In 2018, a couple of Tallizens took the initiative to form Women of Tally, an employee-led affinity group for all female-identifying employees. With financial backing from the company, this group provides community, professional development and charitable work opportunities. We recognize that this was easier to set up when we were a smaller company. So as part of our plan, we will be rolling out clearer guidelines that will empower more employees to form affinity groups and get funding as we continue to grow as a company.

Finding More Opportunities to Support Charitable Work

Over the summer, Tally’s Design team donated in-kind services to create the program and digital swag bag materials for When Founder Met Funder, an event supporting Black women founders and CEOs hosted by the Cultural Leadership Fund, AllRaise and Y Combinator. We plan to empower teams to take on projects such as this that benefit the greater community.

Diversity & Inclusion in Hiring

At Tally, we believe that one of the biggest impacts we can have to remedy the inequities in the fintech industry is to hire individuals from underrepresented backgrounds and create an environment where those individuals can thrive doing amazing work, solving hard problems, with great teams.

An inclusive recruiting and hiring process is a cornerstone of our diversity and inclusion efforts. To create a robust, inclusive hiring process Tally:

  • Works with Jopwell, a recruiting platform dedicated to representing and advancing careers for Black, Latinx, and Native American students and professionals

  • Aims to increase our diversity by building a remote workforce outside of our San Francisco headquarters and expanding the pool of qualified candidates

  • Works with our recruiters and hiring managers to ensure a diverse pipeline of candidates is presented to hiring panels for all open roles 

  • Require all hiring managers and any Tallizen participating in an interview panel takes unconscious bias training before meeting with candidates

  • Require that each open role includes a diverse panel of interviewers

Tally’s Employee Demographic Data

Here’s a picture of the demographics of the Tally Team as of today (Dec 7, 2020), with 102 full-time employees.

The demographic data below is collected using the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) questions and selections, plus some optional questions and selections (including but not limited to selections related to gender, race, and ethnicity) during an employee’s onboarding process.