firsthand Health Inc
firsthand Health Inc Inclusion & Diversity
Frequently Asked Questions
Leadership diversity at firsthand is grounded in something structural: the career ladder is real, and it runs from the front line up.
firsthand deliberately builds its community leadership from within. Market Managers and other leaders are regularly promoted from frontline Guide roles, meaning the people managing teams of peers often started as peers themselves, bringing lived experience of serious mental illness, housing insecurity, or the corrections system into leadership positions. This path from firsthand Guide to leadership has given team members the ability to not only mentor and empower colleagues, but to exercise a service-oriented leadership style that enhances collective performance. It's one of the more meaningful ways diversity reaches into management: not as a recruitment goal, but as a natural outcome of promoting the people doing the work.
firsthand has a diversity manifesto and a documented equal pay policy among its verified employer attributes, commitments that are publicly stated and tied to the company's broader approach to equity. Pay equity is a named organizational priority, and firsthand actively works to ensure compensation reflects contribution rather than credential or title alone.
firsthand's recruitment strategy reinforces this from the start. When opening new community offices, firsthand hires people with lived experience of serious mental illness and deep roots in the communities they serve. The result is teams that are authentically connected to the individuals they support, because the mission naturally attracts people who know this work from the inside. Inclusion and belonging are measured in employee engagement surveys, alongside the seven standard engagement factors.
The company also offers DEI training for all employees, including a required annual program, manager workshops on topics like Allyship, and company-wide sessions on topics such as gender awareness, alongside casual affinity groups for LGBTQIA+ employees, women leaders, Southeast Asian employees and more.
firsthand Health Inc's Benefits
Has a diversity manifesto
Has a documented equal pay policy
Has a highly diverse management team
Hiring practices promote diversity
Practices include interviewer trainings on diversity/bias, People team members in deliberations trained to call out bias, and recruiting from a diverse array of boards and locations
Mandated unconscious bias training
Mean gender pay gap is below 10%
Offers diversity-based Employee Resource Groups
