6 ms·

>Fewer than half of HR leaders (38%) think that building a more inclusive culture is an effective way to retain and advance women. This is a really interesting

by jdhn 6y ago

>Fewer than half of HR leaders (38%) think that building a more inclusive culture is an effective way to retain and advance women. This is a really interesting stat, I wonder why that is.

collyw 6y ago
> building a more inclusive culture What does that even mean?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cluse 6y ago
  An inclusive culture is one where you feel like you belong, and you don't feel a pervasive sense of being alienated, a sense that other people don't want you to be there. The sense that your contributions aren't valuable to the team. If you don't know what this feels like, good. Over time it really wears you down.
  - danmur 6y ago
    It's only an inclusive culture if everyone feels like that, though.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - collyw 6y ago
    What does it mean to "build" one? Every places where I have worked people have been treated respectfully by the company, though certain individuals can be arseholes. The main place I am thinking of was a female boss who treated the mainly females team below her like shit. Plenty of them left and why wouldn't they? (Those wouldn't be classed as "tech jobs" though, it was wet lab biologists).
    - kube-system 6y ago
      > What does it mean to "build" one? It goes beyond institutional policy -- it is social in nature. Don't hire assholes. Guide your subordinates away from doing things that might isolate others. Organize interactions that encourage different groups of people to interact and build rapport with each other. Demonstrate to your employees that it is valuable to be inclusive. The only people with the power to build an inclusive culture are the people with institutional power.
      - collyw 6y ago
        > Don't hire assholes. So you become more inclusive by excluding people? Do you see the inherent contradiction in this? And who gets to decide who is an asshole? > Organize interactions that encourage different groups of people to interact and build rapport with each other. But you have just avoided hiring one very poorly defined group. > Demonstrate to your employees that it is valuable to be inclusive. Sound like virtue signalling to me. Out of interest would my opinions be welcome in your "inclusive" workplace? Would you build rapport with me and respect these opinions? I have a hunch that I wouldn't feel very included.
        kube-system 6y ago
        > And who gets to decide who is an asshole? These things are not as ill-defined as you assert. I think we can all come up with a generally agreed upon description of what it means to be an asshole. Someone who does not treat others with respect, is cruel, demeaning, etc. > So you become more inclusive by excluding people? An "inclusive culture" is referring specifically to the culture among the people working at an organization. The population at large includes many people who are insistent on intentionally excluding others. An "inclusive culture" has never meant "hire anyone no matter what they do!". Don't confuse "inclusive culture" with "a culture that results from including everyone". Those are two different things. >> Demonstrate to your employees that it is valuable to be inclusive. > Sound like virtue signalling to me. One of the primary roles of a leader is to signal expectations, some explicit, and some implicit. Call it what you want, the point is: a leader's subordinates will learn the bounds of acceptable and unacceptable behavior from the norms that you set.
  - dx87 6y ago
    I wonder what their criteria is for "inclusive". My current company has a lot of surface level diversity that most people look for, but I feel isolated because I went to the military while the vast majority of other employees went to college. Our life experienes as adults are so different, that it's hard to connect to anyone.
    - collyw 6y ago
      >I wonder what their criteria is for "inclusive". less white men
    - hellisothers 6y ago
      I feel you, there was a book I can’t find at the moment that a coworker recommended to me on the subject of people from poorer/rougher backgrounds in tech/white color jobs and how their learned experience can isolate them in ways they don’t even realize. You could be told you’re argumentative or uncomfortable to talk to because of intense eye contact but growing up you were told that is important to maintain. On the one hand this saddens me as I realize a level of inclusivity where people don’t feel these little micro-exclusions is essentially impossible. On the other being aware of them in others broadens empathy and aware of them in yourself can help you select better.
      - bradlys 6y ago
        I hope you can find this book because I'm one of those people who came from the rougher background and live in SV. I'd be interested to at least read a book summary! I have a peer who also came from a rougher background and she says I'm fucked because I still act like someone from that background on certain behaviors... and people from that background are looked down upon quite heavily here. I have almost nothing in common in terms of background with the SV tech people. They're almost all rich kids.
        hellisothers 6y ago
        Pretty sure this was what I read https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/46074.Limbo https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/46074.Limbo
  - throw2021_01 6y ago
    Wow, that sounds so good! As a man I would love to join such a culture. At the moment I have no other choice but to simply be good at what I do and thus earn the respect of peers.
    - evgen 6y ago
      Well you do get to start at the baseline of your peers assuming that you are competent and have some right to be there, which is frequently not the case with regard to women and other minorities in tech. It is easier to 'be good' and earn this respect when you have to spend less time justifying your presence. Of course, you are clearly someone who would be oblivious to this.
- growlist 6y ago
  One that's hostile to people that are not a minority group.
- kube-system 6y ago
  A leader who builds an inclusive culture takes efforts to consider how their words, actions, and influence makes people feel like they belong on the team, whether they're an outlier or part of the majority. Often, team members will self-isolate themselves into cliques, which is not only isolating for outliers, but can hurt the productivity of the team. A leader can do things like staffing projects or planning activities with a broader cross-section of team members to give people more things in common. Also, they may need to occasionally give gentle guidance or suggestions to their employees to take actions that don't isolate others.
  - collyw 6y ago
    How about James Damore's views at Google? Obviously a lot of staff disagreed with him, but the way they treated him could in no way be described as "inclusive". How would a situation like that be handled?
    - kube-system 6y ago
      I don't know much about that case, but I think the final sentence in my previous comment is likely applicable.
      - collyw 6y ago
        You do a good job avoiding specifics in all of you replies. James Damore's case was pretty high profile.
himinlomax 6y ago
Because inclusivity was never the problem. Consider: among the countries with the highest ratio of female to male tech students are Tunisia and Pakistan. Norway is the country with the least. That does not directly address what happens mid-career, but it's a pretty good hint.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  That's because in poor countries, tech is a way to escape poverty as outsourcing has really propped up wages meaning a good dev can earn more than a doctor or a lawyer so people there will put up with anything for that kind of money, including women, but in very developed nations like Norway, women have better options than SW development where they can get good pay for less hours and being a dev there is nowhere near close to doctors and lawyers in terms of pay or status.
  - dep_b 6y ago
    Here you go. Though things seem to be changing in developed countries as well.
romanoderoma 6y ago
As @himinlomax said in countries where career paths are easier to follow for women, like in Scandinavia, they chose other lines of work that are less taxing on personal and family time and more rewarding economically (per hour worked) such as law, economy, education, politics (city counselor, consultant for the government etc etc). It seems that STEM is an escape route for women that can't find other ways to emerge or advance their careers,but it's not preferable if they can have a choice. https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/ https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-gir...
nickthemagicman 6y ago
Because inclusive culture is an unachievable goal. What about older developers? What about different race developers? What about cross-gender developers? What about Ahmish developers who only use pen and paper? What about Indian culture vs Korean culture vs Chinese culture vs American culture? It's a slippery slope. The goal of management should be tolerance and fairness and objective measures of employee value and the 'culture' problem will sort itself out. Management attempting to engineer employee culture non-organically is super creepy and unacheivable. Also, the idea of 'culture fit' is in itself exclusionary because it implies theres a pre-set culture to fit into...even if it includes women...what other cultures are excluded?

by jdhn 6y ago

>Fewer than half of HR leaders (38%) think that building a more inclusive culture is an effective way to retain and advance women. This is a really interesting stat, I wonder why that is.

collyw 6y ago

> building a more inclusive culture What does that even mean?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cluse 6y ago
An inclusive culture is one where you feel like you belong, and you don't feel a pervasive sense of being alienated, a sense that other people don't want you to be there. The sense that your contributions aren't valuable to the team. If you don't know what this feels like, good. Over time it really wears you down.
- danmur 6y ago
  It's only an inclusive culture if everyone feels like that, though.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- collyw 6y ago
  What does it mean to "build" one? Every places where I have worked people have been treated respectfully by the company, though certain individuals can be arseholes. The main place I am thinking of was a female boss who treated the mainly females team below her like shit. Plenty of them left and why wouldn't they? (Those wouldn't be classed as "tech jobs" though, it was wet lab biologists).
  - kube-system 6y ago
    > What does it mean to "build" one? It goes beyond institutional policy -- it is social in nature. Don't hire assholes. Guide your subordinates away from doing things that might isolate others. Organize interactions that encourage different groups of people to interact and build rapport with each other. Demonstrate to your employees that it is valuable to be inclusive. The only people with the power to build an inclusive culture are the people with institutional power.
    - collyw 6y ago
      > Don't hire assholes. So you become more inclusive by excluding people? Do you see the inherent contradiction in this? And who gets to decide who is an asshole? > Organize interactions that encourage different groups of people to interact and build rapport with each other. But you have just avoided hiring one very poorly defined group. > Demonstrate to your employees that it is valuable to be inclusive. Sound like virtue signalling to me. Out of interest would my opinions be welcome in your "inclusive" workplace? Would you build rapport with me and respect these opinions? I have a hunch that I wouldn't feel very included.
      - kube-system 6y ago
        > And who gets to decide who is an asshole? These things are not as ill-defined as you assert. I think we can all come up with a generally agreed upon description of what it means to be an asshole. Someone who does not treat others with respect, is cruel, demeaning, etc. > So you become more inclusive by excluding people? An "inclusive culture" is referring specifically to the culture among the people working at an organization. The population at large includes many people who are insistent on intentionally excluding others. An "inclusive culture" has never meant "hire anyone no matter what they do!". Don't confuse "inclusive culture" with "a culture that results from including everyone". Those are two different things. >> Demonstrate to your employees that it is valuable to be inclusive. > Sound like virtue signalling to me. One of the primary roles of a leader is to signal expectations, some explicit, and some implicit. Call it what you want, the point is: a leader's subordinates will learn the bounds of acceptable and unacceptable behavior from the norms that you set.
- dx87 6y ago
  I wonder what their criteria is for "inclusive". My current company has a lot of surface level diversity that most people look for, but I feel isolated because I went to the military while the vast majority of other employees went to college. Our life experienes as adults are so different, that it's hard to connect to anyone.
  - collyw 6y ago
    >I wonder what their criteria is for "inclusive". less white men
  - hellisothers 6y ago
    I feel you, there was a book I can’t find at the moment that a coworker recommended to me on the subject of people from poorer/rougher backgrounds in tech/white color jobs and how their learned experience can isolate them in ways they don’t even realize. You could be told you’re argumentative or uncomfortable to talk to because of intense eye contact but growing up you were told that is important to maintain. On the one hand this saddens me as I realize a level of inclusivity where people don’t feel these little micro-exclusions is essentially impossible. On the other being aware of them in others broadens empathy and aware of them in yourself can help you select better.
    - bradlys 6y ago
      I hope you can find this book because I'm one of those people who came from the rougher background and live in SV. I'd be interested to at least read a book summary! I have a peer who also came from a rougher background and she says I'm fucked because I still act like someone from that background on certain behaviors... and people from that background are looked down upon quite heavily here. I have almost nothing in common in terms of background with the SV tech people. They're almost all rich kids.
      - hellisothers 6y ago
        Pretty sure this was what I read https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/46074.Limbo https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/46074.Limbo
- throw2021_01 6y ago
  Wow, that sounds so good! As a man I would love to join such a culture. At the moment I have no other choice but to simply be good at what I do and thus earn the respect of peers.
  - evgen 6y ago
    Well you do get to start at the baseline of your peers assuming that you are competent and have some right to be there, which is frequently not the case with regard to women and other minorities in tech. It is easier to 'be good' and earn this respect when you have to spend less time justifying your presence. Of course, you are clearly someone who would be oblivious to this.
growlist 6y ago
One that's hostile to people that are not a minority group.
kube-system 6y ago
A leader who builds an inclusive culture takes efforts to consider how their words, actions, and influence makes people feel like they belong on the team, whether they're an outlier or part of the majority. Often, team members will self-isolate themselves into cliques, which is not only isolating for outliers, but can hurt the productivity of the team. A leader can do things like staffing projects or planning activities with a broader cross-section of team members to give people more things in common. Also, they may need to occasionally give gentle guidance or suggestions to their employees to take actions that don't isolate others.
- collyw 6y ago
  How about James Damore's views at Google? Obviously a lot of staff disagreed with him, but the way they treated him could in no way be described as "inclusive". How would a situation like that be handled?
  - kube-system 6y ago
    I don't know much about that case, but I think the final sentence in my previous comment is likely applicable.
    - collyw 6y ago
      You do a good job avoiding specifics in all of you replies. James Damore's case was pretty high profile.

himinlomax 6y ago

Because inclusivity was never the problem. Consider: among the countries with the highest ratio of female to male tech students are Tunisia and Pakistan. Norway is the country with the least. That does not directly address what happens mid-career, but it's a pretty good hint.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
That's because in poor countries, tech is a way to escape poverty as outsourcing has really propped up wages meaning a good dev can earn more than a doctor or a lawyer so people there will put up with anything for that kind of money, including women, but in very developed nations like Norway, women have better options than SW development where they can get good pay for less hours and being a dev there is nowhere near close to doctors and lawyers in terms of pay or status.
- dep_b 6y ago
  Here you go. Though things seem to be changing in developed countries as well.

romanoderoma 6y ago

As @himinlomax said in countries where career paths are easier to follow for women, like in Scandinavia, they chose other lines of work that are less taxing on personal and family time and more rewarding economically (per hour worked) such as law, economy, education, politics (city counselor, consultant for the government etc etc). It seems that STEM is an escape route for women that can't find other ways to emerge or advance their careers,but it's not preferable if they can have a choice. https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/ https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-gir...

nickthemagicman 6y ago

Because inclusive culture is an unachievable goal. What about older developers? What about different race developers? What about cross-gender developers? What about Ahmish developers who only use pen and paper? What about Indian culture vs Korean culture vs Chinese culture vs American culture? It's a slippery slope. The goal of management should be tolerance and fairness and objective measures of employee value and the 'culture' problem will sort itself out. Management attempting to engineer employee culture non-organically is super creepy and unacheivable. Also, the idea of 'culture fit' is in itself exclusionary because it implies theres a pre-set culture to fit into...even if it includes women...what other cultures are excluded?