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Tech's DEI backlash is here

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Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#51

Post by MyShawdowySelf »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #10

DEI as a philosophy is fundamentally flawed. Its whole premise is alleviating racism in the workplace, yet its practical effect is giving certain races a favorable edge in the hiring process, independent of merit. Is this not in itself inherently racist? I raised this with colleagues on a few separate ocassions and was promptly shunned, yet they didn't have an answer. Most recently when he hired an engineer from one…

> Its whole premise is alleviating racism in the workplace

No, as a non american living in the US i find american obsession with race fascinating.

DEI is about every characteristic on which human can differ and how those difference play a role in the work place. Race is of course a factor , but so are neuro divergence, language, culture, gender and sexuality. Hell even things like "Don't schedule a meeting before 9 AM" is a form of inclusion for the non morning people.

> yet its practical effect is giving certain races a favorable edge in the hiring process, independent of merit.

Then that's a badly designed program. However the other side of the equation, if there some aspect of the workplace ( such as say every important meeting are at 8 AM) are needlessly preventing certain people of expressing their talent... we should also look into it.

> Most recently when he hired an engineer from one of these "favorable races" even when half of the interview panel recommended a no-hire.

Yeah sounds like a problem. Maybe look into the statistics to see if usually those type of candidate would have been rejected.

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#52

Post by Zanneth »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #27
fwungy wrote: post #6

Here's the problem: you can't change the hiring rules for more equity unless it applies to everyone equally. Otherwise you're just trading one arbitrary class for another. You need to basically destroy seniority and job protection for all, to make it fair. Furthermore, the people brought into replace the oppressive class must be held to a high standard so they don't repeat the offending behavior. DEI agendas can only…

DEI is a way to say you did something, without doing the expensive thing that is really required, which is extensive wealth redistribution. Fixing labor laws, minimum wages, parental leave, cash or securing good housing, etc is way more expensive. And a lot of it is not solvable in a timeline of a few decades, it would be a slow multi generational change.

I don't think giving a bunch of free money to people is a good solution either.

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#53

Post by dayvid »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #10

DEI as a philosophy is fundamentally flawed. Its whole premise is alleviating racism in the workplace, yet its practical effect is giving certain races a favorable edge in the hiring process, independent of merit. Is this not in itself inherently racist? I raised this with colleagues on a few separate ocassions and was promptly shunned, yet they didn't have an answer. Most recently when he hired an engineer from one…

DEI != affirmative action

Most DEI work I've seen at my company was in reducing HR complaints from women, LGBT and different ethnic groups. When it comes to hiring, it was in showing up at recruiting events and other areas to encourage people to apply.

I've done interviews and I think they're more fair/merit-based than other places. I view it as a positive. Also barely any minority applicants.

A lot of DEI was to counterract really annoying people on one side who were very racist, homophobic, sexist, etc. and ruin the environment or opportunities for people. I think this is just the pendulum swinging the other direction where some people are very vocal or unfair in dealing with men, white people, republican, etc. and/or creating an unproductive work environment getting mired in politics.

Also recession creates more economic pressure for results, but I honestly think DEI has barely had an impact in most companies and most revenue loss is hiring consultats or bad hires.

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#54

Post by dude187 »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #31
xvector wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some of the worst teams I've been on have been behind some of the most grueling & "selective" interview processes By this process we should just drop hiring bars altogether. But for every team I've worked at, hiring bars clearly worked. We filter out maybe 95% of candidates and none of them would work for our team. Everyone on our team is incredible at what they do. When I had to lower the hiring bar, it was destru…

[flagged]

What about his comment implies that? I don't get that at all

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#55

Post by MyShawdowySelf »

normalaccess wrote: post #47
MyShawdowySelf wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having actually worked at big tech companies with DEI initiatives, there have been many instances when we have had to lower the hiring bar to meet diversity requirements. Since we are throwing random samples of 1 on the internet, having been involved into some of those initiative at a large big tech company : Not lowering the bar was pretty much always top of mind, and we always made sure to be fair to ALL candidat…

I think this will add context to the discussion. Below are the recently leaked internal Red Hat guidelines. RED HAT ALLYSHIP COMMANDMENTS 1. Openly acknowledges PRIVILEGE and SYSTEMIC racism exist in trauma 2. Never questions the REALITY of our BLACK friends and colleagues 3. Rejects the idea that race is political 4. Accepts that WHITE people are responsible for dismantling racism 5. Only WHITE people are racist 6.…

Ok...

Genuinely, if you have a point to make i am happy to hear it and discuss it.

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#56

Post by rglover »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #43
rglover wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this not in itself inherently racist? Yes. It's assuming that the non-white person is in some way incompetent or lesser than (soft bigotry of low expectations) and needs a boost from the feigned-benevolence of the white man (or opportunistic "person of color"). FWIW, I'm mixed-race (white/black) and was mouth-agape at how this got as far as it did the past few years.

I don’t think it assumes that the candidate is in any way not as qualified. It assumes the candidate is not as likely to get hired because of bias in the hiring process.

> I don’t think it assumes that the candidate is in any way not as qualified. It assumes the candidate is not as likely to get hired because of bias in the hiring process.

That's the sneaky part. There's an assumed "bias," but it's rarely rooted in fact or backed by statistical evidence and more of a religious statement. At best, it's admission of a guilty conscience [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XASNM1XEQPs

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#57

Post by MyShawdowySelf »

xvector wrote: post #23
giraffe_lady wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you should take some responsibility for your own resentment rather than passively saying another party has "fostered" it. I'm not a fan of corporate and especially tech DEI initiatives either, I don't think they're an effective way to achieve their stated goals. But the hiring bar thing just does not match my experience at all. Some of the worst teams I've been on have been behind some of the most gruelin…

> Some of the worst teams I've been on have been behind some of the most grueling & "selective" interview processes By this process we should just drop hiring bars altogether. But for every team I've worked at, hiring bars clearly worked. We filter out maybe 95% of candidates and none of them would work for our team. Everyone on our team is incredible at what they do. When I had to lower the hiring bar, it was destru…

> By this process we should just drop hiring bars altogether.

I don't think the parent comment is negating the need to hiring bars. IMO two important points :

1 - DEI and hiring bars are not opposed to one another. Actually well designed DEI program are meant to make sure the hiring bar are free of un neccesasary blockers.

2 - I think that mostly what the parent comment was trying to say, "hiring bars" is a nebulous term thrown around. Every team "saying/thinking" they have ha hiring bar doesn't mean that there actually have one. Just rejecting 99% percent of the candidate doesn't imply a good hiring bar... since you might selecting the bottom 1%...

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#58

Post by anonporridge »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #43
rglover wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this not in itself inherently racist? Yes. It's assuming that the non-white person is in some way incompetent or lesser than (soft bigotry of low expectations) and needs a boost from the feigned-benevolence of the white man (or opportunistic "person of color"). FWIW, I'm mixed-race (white/black) and was mouth-agape at how this got as far as it did the past few years.

I don’t think it assumes that the candidate is in any way not as qualified. It assumes the candidate is not as likely to get hired because of bias in the hiring process.

If the pool of candidates doesn't itself have the race or sex proportions that you're hoping to hire, then you intrinsically have to lower your standards at least for the underrepresented group.

Then you end up with a wider range of quality levels among the underrepresented group (because you had to scrape deeper in the barrel to fill your quota, and the overrepresented group ends up being in the higher quality band (because scooping the cream off the top filled the quota).

This has the really perverse effect of creating a true observation (in the context of your organization) that the average quality of the underrepresented group is lower than the average quality of the overrepresented group. e.g. the asian men you hired are all the cream of the crop and the black women you hired are everything from the cream to the dregs.

I suppose you could artificially hire lower quality overrepresented groups to correct for this, but then you're really setting yourself up to be outcompeted by companies that only hire the highest quality employees they can.

Re: Tech's DEI backlash is here

#59

Post by MyShawdowySelf »

xvector wrote: post #19
feedforward wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a grift on top of the hard work of those that actually drove a company to success Where does the profits and dividends sent off to the idle class aristocracy fit into this constellation? Your resentment seems to mostly be that some dufferent people might be at the workplace.

I am fine with different competent people at the workplace. I am frustrated with having to forcibly hire a no-hire candidate to meet a diversity quota. I am annoyed by the fact that DEI is not targeted by layoffs but ostensibly contribute less to the company than engineering. I find it ridiculous that no one can criticize these initiatives without being labeled racist and fired by HR.

Again... more data of 1... At my company DEI was very VERY much targeted by the layoff...
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