How Forrester Approaches Diversity & Inclusion

Discover how we are building an inclusive culture at Forrester. Our key initiatives include:

• Increasing our D&I fluency: We offer companywide training to equip employees and managers to play an active role in fostering a safe, respectful, productive, and inclusive work environment. To reinforce the training, we also hold a series of discussions for employees to reflect on their own experiences. In addition, we offer self-paced e-learning courses designed to support employee comfort and competence across three important diversity & inclusion themes: allyship, awareness, and inclusive leadership. Both instructor-led trainings and e-learning help increase our D&I fluency as an organization.
• Encouraging “Courageous Conversations”: Our Courageous Conversations series features expert-led conversations that explore important topics such as bias, identity, privilege, power, and impact to provide Forresterites with the perspective and tools necessary to promote diversity and inclusion.
• Boosting awareness and appreciation for different cultural backgrounds and ethnicities: Through cultural heritage celebrations, guest-speaker events, and facilitated discussions, we strive to increase our knowledge of issues connected to our D&I focus areas: race, ethnicity, gender, LGBTQ+, ability, and age.

Our D&I Leadership Advisory Council is made up of executive and functional leaders who work collaboratively to help institutionalize initiatives that accelerate D&I goals.

We continue to take steps toward providing a more inclusive experience for all employees. We measure inclusion sentiment in our annual employee engagement benchmark survey. We also leverage employee self-identification data to better understand employee engagement across identities and track our progress toward representation and inclusion goals. Employees’ candid feedback helps us understand what we’re doing well and where we can do better.

• Increasing race, gender, disability, and veteran representation across our candidate pipelines: We continue to engage with organizations including FourBlock, Mogul, Sistas In Sales, and Work Without Limits that prioritize opportunities for professionals and students of color, veterans transitioning to civilian careers, and people with disabilities.
• Enhanced candidate accommodation process: To level the playing field for all applicants and to ensure that all candidates are able to fully participate in our recruitment process, we proactively share information about accessibility features and accommodations available to candidates with disabilities during the hiring process.
• Training for hiring managers: We regularly conduct bias awareness trainings and workshops for managers to ensure that all candidates have an equitable opportunity to get hired.

• Producing research to help business and technology leaders embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion best practices: Topics include: creating inclusive experiences in design; improving digital accessibility for users; inclusivity in advertising; the business of belonging; and inclusive leadership, to name a few.
• Improving accessibility for our event attendees: Our slide presentation templates and content have been redesigned to be more visually accessible, with closed captioning available for all on-demand event sessions.
• Offering women’s leadership forums and mentoring: We hold networking sessions and mentor/mentee roundtables for women in leadership roles to share their experiences, challenges, and advice. For example, in partnership with Women in Security and Privacy (WISP), we provide scholarships to women to attend our Security & Risk event with the aim of advancing diversity in the cybersecurity field.
• Delivering inclusive client experiences on our digital platform: We believe all clients, regardless of permanent or situational disabilities, should have an exceptional experience on our client platform. We consistently work to maintain compliance of our client digital platform with Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act of 1973, conforming with WCAG 2.0 AA.