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>Our company has been tracking diversity and reports on "# of non-male identifying employees" and "# of non-white employees". You don't think this is kind of d

>Our company has been tracking diversity and reports on "# of non-male identifying employees" and "# of non-white employees". You don't think this is kind of disgusting?

divrsthrowaway 7y ago
It's definitely strange to me, but I'm not really informed as to this part of the industry. I'm on the spectrum and spend most of my time reading/working on technical details. I kind of wan't to avoid a subjective analysis here and just see what other companies do for these types of concerns (if they have them).
natalyarostova 7y ago
Isn't it funny how these things go? I also have the same disgust reaction as you. Yet when I talk to my wife/friends about their startups being all male, our private and friendly conversations about how to build a more inclusive environment feel productive and healthy. Yet when this natural and friendly desire to build these environments is matched to anodyne corporatized language and KPIs, it begins to feel (and I want to emphasize that this is an emotional reaction) gross and forced. I wonder how we can preserve sincerity at scale...
- gizmo686 7y ago
  When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Your friendly conversations are about building a more inclusive environment. All else being equal, that results in a more diverse workforce. Measuring inclusivity and fairness is hard, so coorporations instead optimize for a more measurable metric: demographic diversity. The easiest way to optimize that metric is discrimination. Coorporations, being optimization machines look for the most effcient way of optimizing the metric that is (broadly) legal, which still looks fairly discriminatory.
  - natalyarostova 7y ago
    Sounds about right.
itronitron 7y ago
It's incredibly shallow and also those numbers are easy to balance without having a diverse organization, just hire a non-white-male-identifying-employee as an admin assistant for every white-male-identifying-employee. If the company actually wants a diverse workforce then they need diversity at all levels of the company. Is the board diverse? How about the C-Suite and managers? If the levels with higher authority in the organization are diverse then it is much easier to justify the composition of different groups as being due to local market conditions.
sarakayakomzin 7y ago
you're right, they should go with the alternative of grabbing a few color swatches from Home Depot and hold it up to their company photos.
ambivalents 7y ago
The language is a little gross and simplistic, but the numbers should be measured and monitored somehow. Speaking as an extreme minority at my company I hope leadership is at least aware of where to improve (assuming they have bought in to the idea that a diverse workforce = a better workforce, which isn't always a given).

>Our company has been tracking diversity and reports on "# of non-male identifying employees" and "# of non-white employees". You don't think this is kind of disgusting?

divrsthrowaway 7y ago

It's definitely strange to me, but I'm not really informed as to this part of the industry. I'm on the spectrum and spend most of my time reading/working on technical details. I kind of wan't to avoid a subjective analysis here and just see what other companies do for these types of concerns (if they have them).

natalyarostova 7y ago

Isn't it funny how these things go? I also have the same disgust reaction as you. Yet when I talk to my wife/friends about their startups being all male, our private and friendly conversations about how to build a more inclusive environment feel productive and healthy. Yet when this natural and friendly desire to build these environments is matched to anodyne corporatized language and KPIs, it begins to feel (and I want to emphasize that this is an emotional reaction) gross and forced. I wonder how we can preserve sincerity at scale...

gizmo686 7y ago
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Your friendly conversations are about building a more inclusive environment. All else being equal, that results in a more diverse workforce. Measuring inclusivity and fairness is hard, so coorporations instead optimize for a more measurable metric: demographic diversity. The easiest way to optimize that metric is discrimination. Coorporations, being optimization machines look for the most effcient way of optimizing the metric that is (broadly) legal, which still looks fairly discriminatory.
- natalyarostova 7y ago
  Sounds about right.

itronitron 7y ago

It's incredibly shallow and also those numbers are easy to balance without having a diverse organization, just hire a non-white-male-identifying-employee as an admin assistant for every white-male-identifying-employee. If the company actually wants a diverse workforce then they need diversity at all levels of the company. Is the board diverse? How about the C-Suite and managers? If the levels with higher authority in the organization are diverse then it is much easier to justify the composition of different groups as being due to local market conditions.

sarakayakomzin 7y ago

you're right, they should go with the alternative of grabbing a few color swatches from Home Depot and hold it up to their company photos.

ambivalents 7y ago

The language is a little gross and simplistic, but the numbers should be measured and monitored somehow. Speaking as an extreme minority at my company I hope leadership is at least aware of where to improve (assuming they have bought in to the idea that a diverse workforce = a better workforce, which isn't always a given).