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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

#51

Post by roguecoder »

dleslie wrote: post #20

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.

That has not been my experience at all in comparison to other fields I've been in. My managers especially have often left early to pick up kids, or take a day to care for sick children. People talk about their children vomiting the night before to excuse their sleep deprivation. Every programming job I've had comes with maternity and paternity leave. Two-income households are far more common than stay-at-home parents, and the pay is sufficient people can afford childcare.

It is at least much less hostile than most of the rest of America.

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

#52

Post by maxxxxx »

chaffe2 wrote: post #5
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.

Also, your physical presence is pretty much required if you want to have any sort of career progression. But it's great if you don't care about it and just want a steady paycheck that isn't eaten up by high cost of living.

That's an important issue to consider.

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

#53

Post by ravenstine »

twblalock wrote: post #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-…

Not to say anyone here is wrong, but I'll weigh in with my experience, which is success with a team that was a mix of remote and on-site. Maybe it was just a unicorn, but it worked quite well. The downside to that, though, is the remote workers have to be prepared to feel a certain amount of disconnection from the rest of the team who are probably having lunches together and group activities that leave out those who aren't physically present. Otherwise, I think it ultimately comes down to how the team and the leaders of the organization view the remote employees – not as synonymous with freelance "techies" working in their underwear, but playing on the same field as everyone else and having as much value to bring despite not having their butt placed in a specific chair.

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

#54

Post by xxXXxx- »

dleslie wrote: post #45
whipoodle wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It blows me away that this so rarely comes up and yet it's a problem literally all of us will face, unless we get different careers or die. Even GP doesn't mention age, apparently the oppression of ugly people is a more pressing concern. It really fills me with dread how much we don't want to talk about this. And I turn 36 soon.

I've had a few heated fights with hiring managers over candidates being immediately dismissed upon the discovery that they were over a certain age.

Wow! Hiring managers should really know better. Age >40 is a protected class in US employment law.

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

#55

Post by [deleted] »

roguecoder wrote: post #51
dleslie wrote: post #20

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.

That has not been my experience at all in comparison to other fields I've been in. My managers especially have often left early to pick up kids, or take a day to care for sick children. People talk about their children vomiting the night before to excuse their sleep deprivation. Every programming job I've had comes with maternity and paternity leave. Two-income households are far more common than stay-at-home parents…

[deleted]

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

#56

Post by maxxxxx »

xxXXxx- wrote: post #54
dleslie wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a few heated fights with hiring managers over candidates being immediately dismissed upon the discovery that they were over a certain age.

Wow! Hiring managers should really know better. Age >40 is a protected class in US employment law.

In what way?

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

#57

Post by Blackthorn »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #36
Blackthorn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 diff…

I don't have the expertise to point out specifics that form the fundamental basis of the research, sorry.

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

#58

Post by RestlessMind »

twblalock wrote: post #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-…

> That means including the remote workers in all of the meetings, code reviews, etc.

That also assumes that everyone is in the same time zone (+/- a few hours). How would that work when someone in Europe / Asia is working with colleagues in the USA? Even collaborating between east coast and west coast colleagues get harder because you only have 9-9:30 - 2:30-3 PST window, which is then consumed by lunch etc.

> 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.

Absolutely agree with this one.

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

#59

Post by jasode »

roguecoder wrote: post #49
devmunchies wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is dangerous thinking. Its skin-deep diversity. This makes it ok to look at a person and assume they have a typical middle class upbringing, but you don't know anything about that person. They could have grew up doing hard labor on an almond farm in central California and then lived a few years in haiti before going to college. Diversity does increase innovation, but its a diversity of experience and a diversity…

You can't have a representative group without diversity of gender and race. They may not be sufficient, but they are necessary precursors. Additionally, of course, a system that even implicitly excludes people on the basis of gender or race is inherently unjust, whereas experience can reasonably be a requirement for a particular position when it results in necessary skills.

>You can't have a representative group without diversity of gender and race.

I think devmunchies' point is that if you have a finite set of job positions... e.g. 3 jobs, you might have the following situations:

Group 1:

  1) white man (Democrat Stanford grad)
  2) white woman (Democrat Stanford grad)
  3) black man (Democrat Stanford grad)
Group 2:

  1) white man (Democrat Stanford grad)
  3) white man (Libertarian Kansas kid self-taught)
  2) white man (South Africa bootcamp grad)
Depending on what's important, Group 2 would be seen as "more diverse and representative" even though the skin color is all the same. In that case, diversity of thought is valued more than diversity of skin color.

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

#60

Post by j45 »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #46
j45 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes it harder to develop a unified national identity if any one group believes they are the truth path and owners of universal values like kindness and goodness. The thing is, we all have in common these universal skills of kindness, goodness, neighborliness, hard work, love of family, value of education for children, value of opportunities, etc. Looking in a place like Canada, while not perfect, it is a lot bet…

We can look at places like Scandanavia (historically) for an example of a very healthy populace in a monoculture, and the present struggles there for problems with diversifying a monoculture. You seem to have a very strawman version of what a monoculture means: you don't have to be putting down other cultures, but taking advantage of in-group feeling by, eg, dressing alike can confer a greater sense of community, whi…

Um, not really a strawman or reasoning bias, my world viewpoint is one from a lens of diversity. I don't believe I said anything against monoculture, or at all, and I would appreciate it if words aren't put in my mouth on that.

In the interest of a productive conversation, it would be nice if we can talk about diversity first as it's the topic at hand.

I'll try my best to not trivialize or presumptively interpret your words and the motivation behind them, especially where it seems holes are being poked to lessen the relevance of having a conversation about openly entertaining a viewpoint that may not align with your own as may be happening.

It's not clear to me what's giving the presumption or perception of authority to be tell anyone how their experience is or is not valid and how it may be trivialized into an empty platitude.

A two way street of respect isn't easy and participating in it requires both parties to do work, even if one finds it a chore and wishes everyone should just be like them.

I believe deeply in, and practice meaningful intercultural exchange to bring societies together, beyond entry level introductions of sipping chai lattes and yoga. This isn't easy, of course as every group has it's idiot fringe.

Not being sure what your perspective or experience is. I'm a visible minority in both numbers and other ways. From that experience, I can share a bit more.

This experience includes being part of a monoculture that can require perceived outsiders to be twice as monocultural as native monoculturalists to be monocultural enough from the monocultural authorities.

Diversity requires being open minded to find commonalities from all citizens participating in it, reluctantly or not. Some may say that form of diversity may be a universal monocultural.

My points are based on direct experiences that shouldn't be trivialized or summed up nicely in a few sentences to fit another's mental model.

Happy to hop on a skype call if you want to chat. I excel in environments where two people are willing to look at themselves as much as wanting others to only look at themselves, and totally open to learning more about monoculture.

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