Let's call it "token representation not based on merit" and it doesn't sound that back walking them back
Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts
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Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts
#42I'm continually blown away that the modern titans of industry readily bow down to a glorified reality show egomaniac. Allying to price-fix is one thing, but surely they can ally to resist culture war nonsense from making its way into their employee handbooks?
MS (or any large company for that matter) didn’t participate in BLM discussions and get speakers to describe themselves and list their pronouns because they thought it was virtuous or right, they were just following the cultural zeitgeist in a way that they thought would make them more money. Walking it back is just the same behaviour manifesting in a different way. Investors don’t value DEI in the same way they did…
Also, increasing efforts to support DEI and also decreasing those efforts can both be good things.
You can fail to recognize a problem, and you can also overreact to it.
Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts
#43While there’s a lot of this era that’s deeply unfortunate, this kind of question on my yearly review would be incredibly vexing to me: > What impact did your actions have in contributing to a more diverse and inclusive Microsoft? What does this even mean? How do I show I did this? If I don’t interpret the meaning of this question correctly, do I fail the test and end up some HR watchlist? If I don’t succeed at whatev…
I feel like the general answer is going to be 'None', and that Microsft is not really going to care about that very much.
I used to work at Microsoft and I can tell you this was absolutely not true during my time there.
As an engineer, you needed to have an answer to that question or else you could not be promoted (at least in some parts of the org chart).
It was a box that your skip levels needed to see checked in order to approve promotions. My lead told me as much in exactly those words.
Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts
#44I'm continually blown away that the modern titans of industry readily bow down to a glorified reality show egomaniac. Allying to price-fix is one thing, but surely they can ally to resist culture war nonsense from making its way into their employee handbooks?
The only reason implemented these measures in the first place was because of pressure from the other side of the political spectrum. It's hardly surprising that pressure from the opposite direction will make them walk it back.
Especially since when implementing them gets them less capable stuff, hired to satisfy token quotas regardless of actual merit
Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts
#45I'm continually blown away that the modern titans of industry readily bow down to a glorified reality show egomaniac. Allying to price-fix is one thing, but surely they can ally to resist culture war nonsense from making its way into their employee handbooks?
Whatever they do, companies should not be doing quotas other than bringing in the people who will propel the mission. Instead, they should put their effort on pipeline. From kindergarten, drive kids to want to participate in a dynamic economy instead of pursuing selling themselves short and perhaps getting involved in the underground economy, dead-end jobs, etc. Go give it a go in all areas of the nation that are und…
Oh, yeah, let companies be in charge of education from the kindergarten.
You read cyberpunk novels and thought "yeah, I would love my country to be governed by megacorps from cradle to grave".
Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are obliged by the investors too
Not really. This is one of the things Google got right; organize your company so founders have a controlling interest and it doesn't matter fundamentally what the investors think, they can't steer the company. At best, they are trading baseball cards with your corporate logo on them.
> At best, they are trading baseball cards with your corporate logo on them.
Those baseball cards also come with some rights. The people running the company have a fiduciary responsibility to them. They cannot, for example, use the company as a piggybank.
Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts
#47Aside from the alleged "culture war" aspect, looking at the 2024 report you can see that the category "Asian" is at 36%. Roughly 5% of the US population can tick the "Asian" box on the census. There are a lot of people on both sides of the US political aisle asking why this is the case. Making it harder to tease that data out might limit blowback from low-effort attempts to smear the company.
Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts
#48While there’s a lot of this era that’s deeply unfortunate, this kind of question on my yearly review would be incredibly vexing to me: > What impact did your actions have in contributing to a more diverse and inclusive Microsoft? What does this even mean? How do I show I did this? If I don’t interpret the meaning of this question correctly, do I fail the test and end up some HR watchlist? If I don’t succeed at whatev…
Imagine the person asking this question to be a soviet commissar, and you get an accurate mental model to work with.
Bingo. I used to just write down some words that would appease anybody that looked at it for more than a second...
Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts
#49No matter how you might view the topic I hope we can all agree that this is vacuous nonsense: > “We are not doing a traditional report this year as we’ve evolved beyond that to formats that are more dynamic and accessible — stories, videos, and insights that show inclusion in action,” Oh, you wanted hard numbers? What about a TikTok video instead? Just be honest about this stuff. It’s insulting to the intelligences o…
The corporate slant on forcing staff back into the office is approached the same way. No numbers/data, all "vibes" -> "we want to bring the sense of connection and collaboration" blah blah .. vacuous indeed, totally omitting any shred of concrete substantiation.
Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts
#50yeah they dropped their “what actions did you take to further diversify and inclusion” question in biannual reviews last month
no one really liked those sorts of questions, always had to game it or make BS up. but on a personal level definitely furthers my desire to mot want to come out at work as a trans person