4 ms·

I'll play ball. I assume the reason for the focus is because we can change the 'nurture' part and we can't change the 'nature' part. I mean the standard argume

I'll play ball. I assume the reason for the focus is because we can change the 'nurture' part and we can't change the 'nature' part. I mean the standard argument that follows from your post would be that we shouldn't aim for 50% male 50% female because maybe in truth there are just 30% less women "naturally inclined" to taking up engineering than there are men. I can accept that maybe we shouldn't target a particular quota or ratio on diversity. But I don't accept that we should drop inclusivity and diversity altogether: regardless of the 'nature' aspect, if we KNOW that there are issues with the 'nurture' aspect then we should do something about that. So then we return to the question: Are there issues with our culture where it isn't inclusive enough, and if so what can we do to remedy this? And that's something that I believe every HR department should be asking if they care about employee well-being.

nickthemagicman 6y ago
Ok I'll bite also.... Your theory is that HR should take actions to social engineer a culture to accomodate women. I propose that any attempts to social engineer a culture via HR or any non-organic method is a doomed enterprise from the start. You also will have to social engineer a culture that fits other groups. 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 rapidly becomes a slippery slope of accommodating each and every cultural difference. Then you have side effects. Also, after these HR corrections, what if workplace culture becomes so biased towards one group such that other groups are excluded? The emphasis on 'culture fit' is itself an exclusionary idea by nature as it implies that there is a pre-set culture to fit into instead of the culture emerging organically from the employees. Basic, minimum work provided culture does not need to be inclusive it needs to be tolerant and fair, and that is all. The goal is not inclusivity towards any one group, the goal is a to award performance based on hard work, talent, productivity, etc. Engineering a culture is a ridiculous and to be frank, creepy idea. and is a fruitless doomed endeavor. Instead of HR focusing on a more inclusive culture they need to be focusing on objective empirical ways to measure employee value and the culture issue will sort itself out.
- helen___keller 6y ago
  > I propose that any attempts to social engineer a culture via HR or any non-organic method is a doomed enterprise from the start. Maybe this argument has merit, but it's worth noting that HR frequently does this anyways completely outside the scope of diversity & inclusion. Other core values that HR tries to "engineer" are often things like "obsessed with product" or "only cares about the customer" or some equally fake-sounding corporate nonsense. Nonetheless, HR tries to engineer corporate cultures, both relating to and not relating to diversity & inclusiveness. I would assume there is some evidence of success by the fact that nearly every corporation does this, but maybe not. I think that's hardly an attack against D&I though, that's an attack on the existence of HR in the first place! > You also will have to social engineer a culture that fits other groups. > 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 rapidly becomes a slippery slope of accommodating each and every cultural difference. I don't think that's a slippery slope or even that difficult. If someone has a requirement for their culture that doesn't impede work, we SHOULD accommodate that: yes, we should have vegetarian options at the company lunches. Yes, we should be okay with Jewish coworkers taking off Yom Kippur. Yes, we should be okay with cross-gender developers using the pronoun of their choice. The Amish one is less likely because that affects business output so I'm sure HR departments can find an excuse to not accommodate that one, but in theory if an Amish pen/paper dev could do high quality work then I don't see why not. > what if workplace culture becomes so biased towards one group such that other groups are excluded? I mean, this is literally the status quo right? The whole reason for this so-called "social engineering" is because the status quo workplace culture IS biased towards one group, so the goal is to make it less biased towards them. Maybe in the process it "backfires" and makes it biased against that group, but if it does so in a significant way then I would argue we'd need D&I to help the former majority group. Either way, the difficulty in this process isn't a convincing argument to not even try. > The emphasis on 'culture fit' is itself an exclusionary idea by nature as it implies that there is a pre-set culture to fit into instead of the culture emerging organically from the employees. I'm not sure what to say about this except (a) The term 'culture fit' is from my experience not related to D&I but rather used as an excuse to fire or not hire based on team members with power who don't like you (b) As a corollary to (a), most actions resulting from 'culture fit' are in fact the result of employee's opinions, and thus "organic" culture. I've never seen someone not get hired because the team members really liked the interviewee, but the interviewee didn't display enough enthusiasm for the customer and that's a core value. (as an example of an inorganic culture fit) > The goal is not inclusivity towards any one group, the goal is a to award performance based on hard work, talent, productivity, etc. What you're describing is a culture of meritocracy. That's nice, until you lose a dozen great-devs when the brilliant-dev (who can't get fired because he's brilliant) is an absolute asshole to everyone else on the team and makes their life miserable. Basically, my response to you is that you clearly prefer a purely meritocratic culture, and while I don't think that's an unreasonable preference, I think the consensus among decision makers at large corporations is that a purely meritocratic culture is not effective, certainly not to the degree that you think "the culture issue will sort itself out".

nickthemagicman 6y ago

Ok I'll bite also.... Your theory is that HR should take actions to social engineer a culture to accomodate women. I propose that any attempts to social engineer a culture via HR or any non-organic method is a doomed enterprise from the start. You also will have to social engineer a culture that fits other groups. 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 rapidly becomes a slippery slope of accommodating each and every cultural difference. Then you have side effects. Also, after these HR corrections, what if workplace culture becomes so biased towards one group such that other groups are excluded? The emphasis on 'culture fit' is itself an exclusionary idea by nature as it implies that there is a pre-set culture to fit into instead of the culture emerging organically from the employees. Basic, minimum work provided culture does not need to be inclusive it needs to be tolerant and fair, and that is all. The goal is not inclusivity towards any one group, the goal is a to award performance based on hard work, talent, productivity, etc. Engineering a culture is a ridiculous and to be frank, creepy idea. and is a fruitless doomed endeavor. Instead of HR focusing on a more inclusive culture they need to be focusing on objective empirical ways to measure employee value and the culture issue will sort itself out.

helen___keller 6y ago
> I propose that any attempts to social engineer a culture via HR or any non-organic method is a doomed enterprise from the start. Maybe this argument has merit, but it's worth noting that HR frequently does this anyways completely outside the scope of diversity & inclusion. Other core values that HR tries to "engineer" are often things like "obsessed with product" or "only cares about the customer" or some equally fake-sounding corporate nonsense. Nonetheless, HR tries to engineer corporate cultures, both relating to and not relating to diversity & inclusiveness. I would assume there is some evidence of success by the fact that nearly every corporation does this, but maybe not. I think that's hardly an attack against D&I though, that's an attack on the existence of HR in the first place! > You also will have to social engineer a culture that fits other groups. > 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 rapidly becomes a slippery slope of accommodating each and every cultural difference. I don't think that's a slippery slope or even that difficult. If someone has a requirement for their culture that doesn't impede work, we SHOULD accommodate that: yes, we should have vegetarian options at the company lunches. Yes, we should be okay with Jewish coworkers taking off Yom Kippur. Yes, we should be okay with cross-gender developers using the pronoun of their choice. The Amish one is less likely because that affects business output so I'm sure HR departments can find an excuse to not accommodate that one, but in theory if an Amish pen/paper dev could do high quality work then I don't see why not. > what if workplace culture becomes so biased towards one group such that other groups are excluded? I mean, this is literally the status quo right? The whole reason for this so-called "social engineering" is because the status quo workplace culture IS biased towards one group, so the goal is to make it less biased towards them. Maybe in the process it "backfires" and makes it biased against that group, but if it does so in a significant way then I would argue we'd need D&I to help the former majority group. Either way, the difficulty in this process isn't a convincing argument to not even try. > The emphasis on 'culture fit' is itself an exclusionary idea by nature as it implies that there is a pre-set culture to fit into instead of the culture emerging organically from the employees. I'm not sure what to say about this except (a) The term 'culture fit' is from my experience not related to D&I but rather used as an excuse to fire or not hire based on team members with power who don't like you (b) As a corollary to (a), most actions resulting from 'culture fit' are in fact the result of employee's opinions, and thus "organic" culture. I've never seen someone not get hired because the team members really liked the interviewee, but the interviewee didn't display enough enthusiasm for the customer and that's a core value. (as an example of an inorganic culture fit) > The goal is not inclusivity towards any one group, the goal is a to award performance based on hard work, talent, productivity, etc. What you're describing is a culture of meritocracy. That's nice, until you lose a dozen great-devs when the brilliant-dev (who can't get fired because he's brilliant) is an absolute asshole to everyone else on the team and makes their life miserable. Basically, my response to you is that you clearly prefer a purely meritocratic culture, and while I don't think that's an unreasonable preference, I think the consensus among decision makers at large corporations is that a purely meritocratic culture is not effective, certainly not to the degree that you think "the culture issue will sort itself out".