Companies that want more diverse workforces need to grow them through, education and training. Remove the barriers to learning in these POC communities and map out clear pathways to knowledge.
What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft
81–90 of 972 posts
Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft
#82The increase from 3.7% to 5.6% black executives as a sign of lowering standards, when black people are 14% of the population in the country... Can we first establish what percentage of managers people genuinely think got their job based on merit as a baseline? An equal explanation might be that because Microsoft forced people to actually interview black people at all, more qualified black candidates were hired.
That represents the population at large, not the percentage of job applicants. Without knowing that number, you can't know how reasonable such a rule is.
Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft
#83It's telling that this person posted a job listing, interviewed dozens of candidates, realized they couldn't proceed because they hadn't interviewed any minority candidate, tried for months and were still unsuccessful at finding a single one , and the take away wasn't that they should fix their broken recruiting pipeline but that the corporate policy was what was wrong.
My friend works at PayP[redacted] and as a white female, _she_ was the minority hire. Somehow, in the SF Bay Area, almost all of their recruits that get to interview are [country of origin redacted]. It sounds like blatant discrimination, BUT if no one's complaining, is there an issue?
Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why are Asians doing so well? Why can't we replicate this for other groups? What _are_ the groups? "Asian" can mean anything. From India, China, Japan, many countries in Oceania, etc. I think the classification is fundamentally flawed.
As an outsider, it's obvious looking in that racial classification in the US is just crazy -- they took some racial stereotypes from 100 years ago, gave them neutral sounding names, and started pretending it's not racist to group everybody south of Texas as "hispanic". And then build official policy on top of these simplistic classes that fail to describe reality in any meaningful way, only serving to reveal to every…
I myself have to mark a checkbox saying "Hispanic OR Latino". I'm Latino, but NOT Hispanic. But I can also check "white". One is a skin color, another is ancestry, and yet another is geographical location...
Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft
#85"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.…
MS gives higher compensation for diverse hiring, it is not a far reach to believe it also affects promotions. Especially if you contributed to your boss's bonus
Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft
#86Posts 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 t…
> 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.
It is only one logical step to assume the opposite as well, that a company that thinks holistically about the hiring process, and questions whether or not managers are acting in a truly meritocratic way will give people confidence that cultivating their abilities won't be for naught if they have a racist/sexist manager.
The article states a lot of things based on feels but the one tangible point they make is that HR is not in fact insisting he hire someone based on an "additional random factor" just that they considered all the candidates.
Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft
#87At 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.
Quoted post unavailable.
I don’t appreciate the casual racism in your post.
Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft
#88I don’t work at Microsoft, but another large corporation, and have been told by my manager that right now it is difficult for a white male to get promoted and that we may need to do some strange maneuvers to make it happen if I’m interested in a promo. Was kind of taken aback by the bluntness.
Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why are Asians doing so well? Why can't we replicate this for other groups? Parents matter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_parenting
I actually don't think Tiger parenting is more special than, say, just investing in your kids more broadly. You don't have to be an authoritarian and still get excellent results by caring about the success of your children in society and also having the resources and means in which to perform that investment. More likely is that filters for immigration are very high, which means the average immigrant is more educated…
While parent's comment was certainly to some degree tongue-in-cheek, they are likely agreeing with you. Investment in your parents AND likely a higher than average weight on "a good life" being grounded in employment, education, and certain values are contributing factors to the end results
Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft
#90Posts 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…
When I do an interview, and someone can complete a simple coding exercise in 2 minutes, I feel very good about my ability to say they are better than someone who takes 20 mins on the same question. If you want to argue that it is impossible to judge merit, it is you who needs to provide proof.
And even if you were right, doing promotions based on coin flips would be better than on race.