AD: I’ve found it becomes a battle unless
a business has buy-in from the top to
the bottom for increasing diversity. The
approach I use with companies has them
evaluate and alter their internal culture
before even trying to bring in new people.
Next they change the way they do their
recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and
on-boarding to ensure they remove as
much bias as possible while reaching the
widest possible set of candidates. Then
we spend time working on their image
in the community: How and where they
do outreach, what events they sponsor
and volunteer at, and how their company
values are being made visible.
There’re always going to be people
who don’t realize the amount of time and
effort it takes to undo years of bias. It’s
emotionally difficult work and takes more
focus than some businesses are willing
to dedicate. Additionally, I’ve seen many
companies assign the job of “diversity”
to only their marginalized employees.
This means that on top of the other
work they’re doing—and likely not being
compensated equally to their colleagues
for—they are now tasked with a huge, hard
problem. If and when it fails, it becomes
their personal failure, which makes them
more likely to leave the company, leaving
them worse off than when they started.
EC: What should a candidate look for
in an employer to ensure that they will
provide a productive and diverse working
environment? What questions should we
ask at the interview?
AD: I tell companies that the first thing I
look at is their “About Us” page. Are there
any faces that look like mine in similar
roles to the one I’d intervie w for? Are
there any people of color or women at
senior or executive-level positions? Then
you should ask what their career goal
attainment plans look like internally. How
do they help people learn and grow? What
are they doing to ensure that people are
compensated equally?
To learn more about the lack
of diversity in tech and what we can
do about it, check out Ashe’s blog at
http://www.ashedryden.com/.
Biography
Erin Carson is a Ph. D. candidate in the EECS Department
at the University of California at Berkeley. Her research
centers on the design and analysis of high performance
iterative algorithms for scientific computing. Erin has
been an editor for XRDS since 2009.
Copyright held by Owner(s)/Author(s).
Publication rights licensed to ACM. $15.00
EC: What does it mean to have privilege in
the tech world? How can those who have
privilege use it to create positive change?
AD: The range of privileges is pretty wide—
compare those who work in safe, clean
offices versus those who work in dangerous
factories where they aren’t compensated
equally. Often when we talk about diversity
and privilege in tech, we focus on those
at the top, who are already overprivileged
compared to those at the supply end of
things. That’s generally because it’s “in
our backyard,” it’s more visible, and we are
much more personally affected.
As people with privilege, we can
educate ourselves about the experiences
of others, do what we can to minimize
how we add to those issues, and speak up
so that marginalized people don’t always
feel burdened with the responsibility.
EC: Your recent book, The Diverse
Team: Healthy Companies, Progressive
Practices, discusses your experiences
working with companies to improve
the diversity of their teams and their
candidate pool. What strategies were the
most successful? Were there any that
were not successful or had unintended
consequences? P h
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