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Tech companies: make remote work part of your diversity and inclusion efforts

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Re: Tech companies: make remote work part of your diversity and inclusion efforts

#11

Post by jdc0589 »

throwaway91111 wrote: post #6
CabSauce wrote: post #3

I honestly think remote work is pretty detrimental to innovation and progress. Many of the best projects that I've worked on started as hallway conversations. Obviously, this isn't true for everyone and all situations... It's just like, my opinion... man.

Thankfully the vast majority of work has nothing to do with innovation. I'd love to hear your argument for "progress", whatever that is.

innovation is relative. Sure, innovation on a global or market scale might not be common or necessary, but within the context of a single company the definition is broader.

Re: Tech companies: make remote work part of your diversity and inclusion efforts

#12

Post by notahacker »

thedevil wrote: post #9
maxxxxx wrote: post #2

Ain't not gonna happen. From what I can tell from articles and company brochures diversity means young, good-looking people in an open office all staring at the same screen. There will be no diversity regarding introverts, shy, disabled, fat, ugly or other types of people.

This made me wonder: What does it take to become a protected/victim group? Ugly and socially-unskilled people are not protected/victim groups even though their lives are harder. My current hypothesis is that the main reason that a group gets that status is that they have an emotionally compelling victim-story (although I think there's some randomness due to political movements). Under this hypothesis, the struggles o…

Conventionally ugly and socially-unskilled people might get rough treatment from their peers, but generally haven't been subject to special laws against them, pogroms or even the relatively mild insinuation they should be avoided as a group because of their "immorality" or "agenda".

Also, appearance and social skills are gradients which don't fit neatly into groups, and many people who might widely be considered to sit at the ugly/unskilled end of the spectrum have absolutely no desire to identify as such.

Re: Tech companies: make remote work part of your diversity and inclusion efforts

#13

Post by mrkurt »

maxxxxx wrote: post #2

Ain't not gonna happen. From what I can tell from articles and company brochures diversity means young, good-looking people in an open office all staring at the same screen. There will be no diversity regarding introverts, shy, disabled, fat, ugly or other types of people.

That's pretty cynical. This is not a zero sum game, improving diversity makes things better for everyone. Because properly improving diversity means you're making an environment that focuses less on "type of people" and more on "type of job".

As an example, a lot of effort goes into a good interview process. When you work hard to minimize unconscious bias in interviews, you're making the interview process and criteria fit the actual job better. Bad interview processes select for people just like the interviewer, good interview processes select for the actual job and don't filter on tangential stuff.

Re: Tech companies: make remote work part of your diversity and inclusion efforts

#14

Post by bearcobra »

spacelizard wrote: post #10
CabSauce wrote: post #3

I honestly think remote work is pretty detrimental to innovation and progress. Many of the best projects that I've worked on started as hallway conversations. Obviously, this isn't true for everyone and all situations... It's just like, my opinion... man.

I disagree, a good office culture extends beyond meatspace. I've worked at plenty of companies where the general atmosphere was... not good. These are places where the "hallway conversation" was either nonexistent or didn't extend beyond small talk about TV or the weather. If your employees aren't comfortable sending instant messages to each other, they definitely aren't going to be comfortable being in the same room…

One of the problems I have with instant messages is you can't tell if you are interrupting the other person. Some people may be able to ignore the message, but I think for many this kind of notifications create a sense of urgency and push them to reply still. Being conscious of this, I try to avoid sending IMs. In person, interactions give me way more signals about the other person's current state. Because of that I'm about 1000x more likely to say hi to a random co-worker walking down the hall than I am to send a random IM.

Re: Tech companies: make remote work part of your diversity and inclusion efforts

#15

Post by maxxxxx »

mrkurt wrote: post #13
maxxxxx wrote: post #2

Ain't not gonna happen. From what I can tell from articles and company brochures diversity means young, good-looking people in an open office all staring at the same screen. There will be no diversity regarding introverts, shy, disabled, fat, ugly or other types of people.

That's pretty cynical. This is not a zero sum game, improving diversity makes things better for everyone. Because properly improving diversity means you're making an environment that focuses less on "type of people" and more on "type of job". As an example, a lot of effort goes into a good interview process. When you work hard to minimize unconscious bias in interviews, you're making the interview process and criteri…

I am a little cynical about the diversity efforts because I think they will maybe expand the favored groups a little but it's still OK to discriminate against a lot of other groups. I even wonder if we are removing some people from the "in" group and moving others in but in total the number of people that are "in" doesn't change that much.

Re: Tech companies: make remote work part of your diversity and inclusion efforts

#16

Post by Karrot_Kream »

CabSauce wrote: post #3

I honestly think remote work is pretty detrimental to innovation and progress. Many of the best projects that I've worked on started as hallway conversations. Obviously, this isn't true for everyone and all situations... It's just like, my opinion... man.

Someone needs to tell all of those open source project things about this. They've been doing it wrong the whole time!

Re: Tech companies: make remote work part of your diversity and inclusion efforts

#17

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

forinti wrote: post #8
klenwell wrote: post #4

A big part of the rational and moral justification for diversity initiatives and affirmative action programs, as I understand them, is as a means to help correct the history of institutional racism and discrimination in this country. So while the idea that meeting and working "with folks from all over the world—Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, South Africa, the Philippines, Mexico, and others" is appealing, for me…

I think more emphasis should be given on the benefit that diversity brings to the organization. A university or a company with lots of young white middle-class people will miss a lot of ideias that people from other backgrounds might bring.

This gets trotted out a lot, but has anyone actually compared the benefits of diversity versus monoculture in terms of long-term corporate performance?

If we look at something like nations, its not immediately clear that diversity is a benefit: sure, it brings a plethora of perspectives and components from which the nation can draw, but it also makes it harder to develop a unified identity from which cooperative actions can extend and is a frequent source of internal conflict. At first blush, both of these factors are present in companies as well.

I'm not "anti-diversity" or whatever pejorative people are going to trot out to ignore the question, I just don't know that we should be basing pro-diversity arguments on dubious claims.

Re: Tech companies: make remote work part of your diversity and inclusion efforts

#18

Post by dleslie »

maxxxxx wrote: post #2

Ain't not gonna happen. From what I can tell from articles and company brochures diversity means young, good-looking people in an open office all staring at the same screen. There will be no diversity regarding introverts, shy, disabled, fat, ugly or other types of people.

Particularly, anyone over the age of 35.

Re: Tech companies: make remote work part of your diversity and inclusion efforts

#19

Post by jklinger410 »

forinti wrote: post #8
klenwell wrote: post #4

A big part of the rational and moral justification for diversity initiatives and affirmative action programs, as I understand them, is as a means to help correct the history of institutional racism and discrimination in this country. So while the idea that meeting and working "with folks from all over the world—Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, South Africa, the Philippines, Mexico, and others" is appealing, for me…

I think more emphasis should be given on the benefit that diversity brings to the organization. A university or a company with lots of young white middle-class people will miss a lot of ideias that people from other backgrounds might bring.

Has anyone ever done a study showing that teams with diverse backgrounds manage to come up with better ideas than homogeneous ones?

I hear this line of logic quite a bit, that "white middle-class people" can only think within their demographic. It seems like a rather regressive kind of logic, that someone's perception, ability to empathize and problem solve, is limited by stereotypes about the demographic they belong to.

Re: Tech companies: make remote work part of your diversity and inclusion efforts

#20

Post by dleslie »

Remote work is a boon for anyone with kids. You get to cut the commute out of your day, and so long as day care is nearby, recoup that time with your family.

But AFAICT, the tech industry is generally hostile to the notion of having children, or aging past thirty-five.

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