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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

#31
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…

Obviously, not everyone lives in this country.

Assuming the US, I'm also regularly amused that Americans think they invented racism.

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

#32
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!

Open source development as "obvious" proof of remote work superiority is often brought up but proponents don't realize they aren't the same.

E.g. open source project like Linux kernel where volunteers choose what they want to work on, with little or zero effects on careers for missing deadlines has different dynamics than businesses.

If we want to convince businesses to adopt remote work, the Linux kernel is not a relevant example. Businesses have:

1) finite budget

2) deadlines

3) pressure to innovate for marketplace acceptance or go bankrupt

We need a better explanation for why business-related success of Google Pagerank/Bigtable, Apple iPhone, Facebook, etc comes more from teams in the office rather than remote workers on Skype. The Linux project -- even though it is "successful" -- is not that explanation.

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

#33
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.

It's interesting - I know someone who has gotten good at somehow locating, interviewing and hiring some very skilled and talented people who might not interview well because of their perceived social awkwardness.

People wonder where he's finding all these great people, but the reality is he was able to connect with introverts, and drilling down into people's capabilities beyond surface impressions.

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

#34
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!

Open source is wonderful but to be fair, it's rarely innovative. Nearly always, at least as the broadly used software like Linux, Apache, Firefox, etc go, it was developed in a traditional company environment before being released as OSS, or it's a clone of existing commercial software.

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

#35
Companies have to be serious about a culture of remote work for this to happen. That means including the remote workers in all of the meetings, code reviews, etc. It means making a conscious effort to include the remote employees even when doing so is a pain for the onsite employees. Otherwise the remote employees become second-class citizens and miss out on a lot of what is going on.

For that reason, I think remote-only companies are probably easier to run than companies with a mix of remote and onsite workers -- at remote-only companies, it's not possible to intentionally or accidentally exclude the remote workers from things they ought to be involved in.

Also for that reason, adding a culture of remote work to the kind of company where any onsite employees can grab a room and start whiteboarding stuff is going to be very difficult.

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

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This has been extensively studied. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=diversity+causing+bette...

Could you point out specific articles?

There seems to be a lot about learners, evolution, and theory on that page, but actual measurements seem sparse. (Only 2 in the first 10 are even on this topic.)

One of the relevant links mentions:

> Empirical research on whether and how diversity is actually related to work group functioning is limited, however, and the evidence is mixed, depending in part on what kinds of differences constitute the "diversity" in question (see Milliken and Martins, 1996; Pelled, 1996, for reviews). Researchers have examined the impact of diversity in identity group memberships, such as race and sex (e.g., Cox, 1993; Jackson and Ruderman, 1995); organizational group memberships, such as hierarchical position or organizational function (e.g., Bantel and Jackson, 1989; Ancona and Caldwell, 1992); and individual characteristics, such as idiosyncratic attitudes, values, and preferences (e.g., Hoffman, 1959; Meglino, Ravlin, and Adkins, 1989; Bochner and Hesketh, 1994). Although certain types of diversity appear to be beneficial, studies focused on race and gender have demonstrated both positive and negative outcomes (see Williams and O'Reilly, 1998, for review), suggesting that certain conditions may moderate these outcomes. To date, however, most scholars have only speculated as to what these conditions might be. As a result, consultants and managers interested in diversity have had to rely largely on some combination of common sense and good faith for the rationales they advance about why and how companies should address the issue.

(The other relevant link is a book, which doesn't have an abstract in the same sense.)

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

#37
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…

so I completely agree that the culture is key. i also agree that given an healthy culture, remote doesn't matter that much

but in the absence of a working culture remote just can be a compounding factor for dysfunction. its also more difficult to enculturate someone remotely. i think thats why 'senior contributor moves to montana and continues to be really effective' is such an unsurprising atory.

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

#38
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!

[deleted]

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

#39
From what I can tell, most diversity efforts are more like a fig leaf. They don't want to change how the company works so it can be more diverse, they want to fit more women and minorities into how things work now. It's all about status quo, and maybe having an "event" or hosting a "girls who code" type class in the office space, that sort of thing. And don't get me wrong, doing those kind of things is perfectly noble and good, nothing wrong with it. But ultimately this only seems like an issue the industry wants to fix if it doesn't have to really do much of anything.

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

#40
post #33
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.

It's interesting - I know someone who has gotten good at somehow locating, interviewing and hiring some very skilled and talented people who might not interview well because of their perceived social awkwardness. People wonder where he's finding all these great people, but the reality is he was able to connect with introverts, and drilling down into people's capabilities beyond surface impressions.

I just experienced this in an interview. The first 50 minutes were horrible, he barely said anything useful, but then suddenly he woke up and it turned into a really good conversation. Not sure how this happened though.
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