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What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

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Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#21

Post by heavyset_go »

logicalmonster wrote: post #2

According to the Microsoft 2021 Annual Diversity And Inclusion report, 34.9% of employees identified as Asian in the US, far exceeding their overall representation in the US population. Why are Asians doing so well? Why can't we replicate this for other groups? And doesn't trying to hire more of other races imply that mathematically speaking, fewer Asians must be hired and promoted to achieve greater equality? Please…

US immigration policy selects for high earners, the highly educated, the highly skilled and experienced, and the already wealthy.

My guess is that there are a lot of immigrants from Asia that fall into any of those camps.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#22

Post by milesskorpen »

"I was pretty sure my corporate vice president would be more likely to promote people who had hired more of them and thus made his contribution to the annual D&I report look good."

Statements like this carry a lot of weight in this essay: He's "pretty sure" and "assumes" an awful lot. He also seems fairly ineffective at navigating bureaucracy. Taken to extremes, lots of corporate policies can seem a bit overbearing. This essay reads to me like he's reading corporate D&I policies to be maximally inflexible and frustrating in ways that are unlikely to be the case (at least from based on my personal experience working in large corporations + a short stint at MSFT many years ago).

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#23

Post by Decker87 »

At this moment in time I think companies can gain a major hiring advantage by simply hiring the best regardless of race/gender. So many large companies are shooting themselves in the foot distorting incentives and saying "no" to people who are the wrong color/gender.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#24

Post by mnd999 »

It kinda makes me sad. It’s great that companies want to improve D&I but, assuming everything in that article is true, they’re making a hash of it.

They’ve forgotten Goodhart’s law, and as such they’ve create a metric everyone is trying to game which ends up being counterproductive and unfair to everyone. Let’s not forget it’s equally unfair to promote someone before they are ready and then stack rank them against more experienced colleagues as it is not to promote someone who is ready.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#26

Post by whatshisface »

mikkergp wrote: post #18

Posts like this seem reactionary and equally anti-intellectual. Sure I know that a lot of the DE&I stuff is frustrating for people. But it seems like if you really want to dig into this you need to take broader approach. Can you actually prove that people are in any way capable of measuring merit, especially for leadership decisions, which is pretty squishy to begin with? It seems to me like throwing some extra diver…

>Can you actually prove that people are in any way capable of measuring merit, especially for leadership decisions, which is pretty squishy to begin with?

It sounds like you're agreeing with the author here, because he says,

>I fear that when large companies hire and promote people based on group identities, it discourages individuals from cultivating their abilities.

It is only one logical step to go from one to the other. The idea that the promotion process is so random that the introduction of an additional random factor (D&I status is totally uncorrelated to performance) can't make it any worse would nullify anyone's faith in performance incentives.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#27

Post by fallingknife »

These practices are explicitly against federal law. When are judges going to start enforcing the law?

> It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer -

    (1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or

    (2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
edit: not letting me reply down chain. source is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#29

Post by outside1234 »

This is a real thing.

It is hard for anyone that is not "diverse" to get promoted at the highest levels of Microsoft. Almost all CVP promotions are "diverse" now in a way that is pretty overt.

I am a huge proponent of D&I, but it is hard not to feel discriminated against and feel like there isn't much of a career trajectory for me.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#30

Post by outworlder »

> Imagine you work under a black executive at Microsoft. Does a graph like this one make you more or less likely to think they got to where they are because of their accomplishments?

And then they show a graph where only 5.6% of the execs are black (up from 3.7%). It's a pitiful number.

Yes, it's still more likely they got there because of their accomplishments, bigot.

> From 2021 to 2022, I worked as a manager in Microsoft’s AI Platform division.

Wow. A whole year. In large companies that's barely enough time to understand all the unspoken lines of communication, let alone pass judgment on a company's culture.

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