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Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

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Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#71

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

terminalshort wrote: post #53

DEI is a blatant violation of title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and any company that engages in it or any form of racial discrimination by any other sickening PR sanitized name like "affirmative action" should be aggressively prosecuted. > 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 indiv…

This makes no sense to me. Surely DEI reinforces those 2 clauses?

Without DEI, it's just white men that will be hired and generally, it'll be friends of friends with no regard to their competency. DEI is an attempt to level the playing field as otherwise, racist/sexist employers will continue to be racist and sexist.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#72

Post by coldtea »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #67
coldtea wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since when implementing them gets them less capable stuff, hired to satisfy token quotas regardless of actual merit

I think you've got it back to front. DEI is to prevent the kind of favouritism/nepotism that prevails in a lot of society (e.g. "the old boys club"). A suitable example would be the recent hires by the U.S. administration - people are being given high ranking jobs just because they're loyal/friendly to a certain person and nothing at all to do with their competency to do the particular job. The purpose of DEI is to a…

Whatever DEI was supposed to accomplish in theory, in practice it was token hiring to make the PR (yes, not even the HR) department happy. And it very fast developed is own "old boys club" hiring one another and spreading through companies.

Humans gonna human.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#73

Post by alt227 »

acdha wrote: post #55
alt227 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, that said someone is the President of the United States. If he wasnt the president, these companies probably wouldnt be doing this. I still feel thats pretty relevant.

The part which is relevant is that he’s willing to break the law in unprecedented ways and has the full support of the Republican Party in doing so. Americans used to pride ourselves on the government not controlling businesses.

If he wasnt the President, he wouldnt be able to do those things.

Therefore the fact he is President is pretty relevant.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#74

Post by alt227 »

netruk44 wrote: post #43
alt227 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What about now during the current administration and after DEI has just been killed?

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#75

Post by Arodex »

mc32 wrote: post #63
Arodex wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

So instead rely on public education which fails many students in delivering a quality education, or, having given up, just pass them to let them figure life out once they graduate. It's not necessary that corps own the education, but they they have schools within a school to deliver the education that they are expecting from new graduates.

Public education is what made those great companies you fawn about.

Public education is also something you are responsible for as a citizen. If it is shit, it is so because you let it be. Assume your responsibilities instead of hoping for "enlightened" corporate lords to do it for you, peasant.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#76

Post by rtkwe »

shadowgovt wrote: post #39
rtkwe wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a hell of a lot of power vested in the executive branch especially in the DOJ to really mess with companies and the real protection against it's misuse was the agreement that the President didn't directly instruct and control who the DOJ actually indicted. It used to be a notable event when a president even appeared to hint that he was encouraging investigations (not even indictments) into specific companies…

And, of course, since businesses are fundamentally in competition, that puts them in an interesting position: even if it's a net negative for the entire industry to capitulate to the bullying tactics of the executive branch, you can get a leg up on your competition by having one fewer giant complicated court case to worry about (even if the case is guaranteed to lose, it still costs money to defend it).

Yes, there's a lot of pressure to stay on his good side, even if the charges are bogus and eventually beaten or just ends in a pay-off like many cases the process is still damaging/costly and there's large incentives to pre-comply. Look at Apple's little gift plaque for an example of that, not really a bribe unless more laws are broken but a nice little ego stroke none the less.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#77

Post by ChromaticPanic »

whynotminot wrote: post #12

While 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…

It's a very basic question. You can meet that by simply treating everyone with integrity and respect. This results in an inclusive workplace. It's not a trick question.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#78

Post by shadowgovt »

pfdietz wrote: post #46
shadowgovt wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But especially in the case of Google, those rights do not extend to setting the values, direction, or priorities of the company.

Nobody outside of the founders has enough of a controlling stake for that to be practically possible.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#79

Post by blueflow »

Arodex wrote: post #70
nailer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure why is being modden down. I was pressured to hire candidates based on their race and I’m sure the experience was not unique.

Yeah, because you know best. You never made any hiring mistake and you never have any bias whatsoever when you hire people. Who dared double-guess you, after you put all the effort of spending a few hours with each candidate?

It is racial discrimination by current legal standards. Fact.

Re: Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

#80

Post by guywithahat »

coldtea wrote: post #44
this_user wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't know why you're being down-voted, I've seen diversity hires placed in charge of projects and destroy them. When you weren't promoted for merit you stop believing merit matters, and quickly build diverse teams with no experience incapable of building things in a timely manor.
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