This commitment has not changed since Lyft began in 2012, yet there have been many changes internally during that time. In the last year, we’ve expanded our service to 95% of the U.S., launched major cities in Canada, opened 12 new driver hubs and offices, and added nearly 1,000 team members. With that growth comes increased responsibility to put in place deliberate policies to ensure that the values of our company scale.

We have taken a number of steps, including releasing our first annual diversity report, hiring our first Chief People Officer and Vice President of Talent and Inclusion, creating Employee Resource Groups that help improve our workplace practices, and establishing a practice to ensure female and minority representation in final round interviews.

Today, we’re taking another step by committing to an annual third-party audit of team members’ pay to confirm that Lyft’s pay-for-performance philosophy transcends race and gender. We began this process last year, when we conducted our first such audit, and found a small number of discrepancies for less than 1% of employees.  As a result, we adjusted the pay of those employees, which included women, men, and those of different racial backgrounds.

As Equal Pay Day approaches, we believe it shouldn’t take an additional four months, seven months, or ten months for someone to earn what their counterparts do in a year just because of gender or race.