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| Diversity, Equity and Inclusion |
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| Nominal Animal:
--- Quote from: IanB on August 23, 2022, 04:27:40 pm ---For example, having a diversity policy helps to maximize the pool of candidates when hiring. --- End quote --- This I don't understand. Isn't it more important to get good candidates instead of many candidates? Or is the idea that as long as you have sufficient numbers of candidates, some of them will do? I have the same problem with the premise of StackOverflow, where the idea is that the most popular answer is likely the correct one. There is no proof of that, it's just an assumption, and it actually looks like easy wrong answers are much more popular than harder correct answers; the popularity itself skewing the most voted answers towards easiness instead of correctness. Similarly, by making sure you have lots of candidates, you are NOT making sure you have good candidates: only that you have lots of them. According to some studies, those with better than average skills and experience avoid such openings. So, by making sure you have lots and lots of candidates, you may actually be also cutting out the most skilled and experienced candidates. Is that rational? Only when you consider everyone interchangeable representatives of some group. I do not. --- Quote from: IanB on August 23, 2022, 04:27:40 pm ---Also, having a diverse workforce helps to bring more perspectives to product design and development, and it helps to reflect more customer viewpoints and avoids narrow stereotyping, therefore potentially broadening product appeal. (It could help to avoid, for example, the famous automatic hand soap dispenser that only recognizes lightly pigmented skin.) --- End quote --- Those have nothing to do with D-E-I, and everything to do with ensuring the business works. It's also exactly why I've done my best work in a team where we had very different viewpoints, and only slightly overlapping domains of core knowledge: such a team can cover a wider range than any single person. Please, do remember that you don't need to convince any of us that having a workplace with individuals from different backgrounds is a good thing. We already know that and agree. We've also agreed that inclusion, accepting any individual regardless of their social attributes, is a good thing. Both of these things can be shown to help create better products, and make a more interesting workplace. They do not make up for lack of knowledge, skill, or experience, but when the necessary knowledge and skill and experience is there, the next thing to look for is diversity and inclusion. Not because it's morally or ethically right, but because it can be shown to lead to better products and processes, given good enough administration. It is the equity (equality of outcome), quotas, and tribalist attitudes, that are invariably claimed to be necessary for D-E-I, without discussion. Even you yourself picked topics that are obviously useful for a company to consider, and then just claimed they somehow support D-E-I. I do not agree. I claim that the described actions are useful in any case, but that when it comes to D-E-I, they are too often associated with the tribalist/classist "we only award minority group members and females, because we're diverse and inclusive" that negates any positive benefits; and that it is this association that is axiomatic and outside any criticism. Of course, that leads to one of the strategies a good company PR person can adopt: just do business as before, but describe all actions using the D-E-I -speak. (I couldn't do that myself, because I really, really hate misleading people like that, even when the purpose is a positive one. But I can see how it would make sense for a business to adopt that; it could be the least risky option.) |
| sokoloff:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on August 23, 2022, 05:21:27 pm --- --- Quote from: IanB on August 23, 2022, 04:27:40 pm ---Also, having a diverse workforce helps to bring more perspectives to product design and development, and it helps to reflect more customer viewpoints and avoids narrow stereotyping, therefore potentially broadening product appeal. (It could help to avoid, for example, the famous automatic hand soap dispenser that only recognizes lightly pigmented skin.) --- End quote --- Those have nothing to do with D-E-I, and everything to do with ensuring the business works. It's also exactly why I've done my best work in a team where we had very different viewpoints, and only slightly overlapping domains of core knowledge: such a team can cover a wider range than any single person. Please, do remember that you don't need to convince any of us that having a workplace with individuals from different backgrounds is a good thing. We already know that and agree. We've also agreed that inclusion, accepting any individual regardless of their social attributes, is a good thing. Both of these things can be shown to help create better products, and make a more interesting workplace. They do not make up for lack of knowledge, skill, or experience, but when the necessary knowledge and skill and experience is there, the next thing to look for is diversity and inclusion. Not because it's morally or ethically right, but because it can be shown to lead to better products and processes, given good enough administration. --- End quote --- IanB doesn't have to convince anyone who is still reading page 11 of this thread; that's true. But I believe that people aren't born knowing that diversity of background and experience leads to greater lateral thinking and better products. To me, the fact that the dose makes the poison is a substantial part of the difficulty of debating these topics. The optimum amount of DEI awareness/participation is neither zero nor infinite. If person A believes we've done enough, person B may experience that as thinking that person A thinks the right amount is zero. Conversely, when person B says we need to do more, person A can assume that person B thinks the right amount is infinite. (I completely agree with your equality of opportunity vs outcome points.) |
| pcprogrammer:
Slightly besides the topic, but certainly related in the long run. In the Dutch news today some worry was expressed about illiteracy in the Netherlands. 2.5 million people of 16 and older, about 18% of the Dutch population, have problems with reading, writing and calculus. A minority that will need inclusion in the work force. Good for the end result I doubt it. Does it show that education is failing, most likely. |
| fourfathom:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on August 23, 2022, 05:21:27 pm ---We've also agreed that inclusion, accepting any individual regardless of their social attributes, is a good thing. --- End quote --- Up to a point... We also have to consider how an individual affects the team dynamics. Some people, while perhaps being brilliant, have such poisonous personalities that nobody else wants to work with them. I've had to deal with this kind of problem, and sometimes we can put the difficult case in their own bubble, alone or with a few others who can tolerate the situation But other times we just have to terminate their employment. Or, if we can spot it in time we just don't hire them. Of course there's a continuum from easy to impossible, and most of us manage to get along quite well. I am also aware that "team dynamics" can be a cover for racism / sexism / etc. |
| IanB:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on August 23, 2022, 05:21:27 pm --- --- Quote from: IanB on August 23, 2022, 04:27:40 pm ---For example, having a diversity policy helps to maximize the pool of candidates when hiring. --- End quote --- This I don't understand. Isn't it more important to get good candidates instead of many candidates? Or is the idea that as long as you have sufficient numbers of candidates, some of them will do? --- End quote --- I think you are being willfully obtuse here. You have a pool to choose from. If you artificially restrict the size of the pool, it is possible you might have excluded the best choice. For example, suppose some hypothetical conservative company in prior decades were to pre-filter all the resumes and only keep the ones for males under 40 with western sounding names? Don't you think they would have a strong chance of missing out on some really good people? |
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