April is Diversity Celebration Month.
Two organizations help diverse businesses showcase this heritage and history in 2004. They aim to create a celebration and celebration of America’s fundamental diversity.
The focus on diversity is sometimes combined with equity and inclusion, or DEI for short. Diversity is about recognizing and celebrating differences. Equity focuses on providing pathways to equal access. Inclusion focuses on making people feel accepted, valued, and empowered to be who they are at work.
Tori Rubloff / ZDNet
Diversity can include race, gender, religion, sexual orientation. It may also include disability, other identifying characteristics and experiences.
The diversity of tech companies often doesn’t fully reflect our diverse world, and a lack of diversity can lead to harm and undesirable consequences. Diversity matters to issues like hiring decisions, leadership opportunities, innovation, and marketing strategy.
Keep reading for three ideas on how to help your organization celebrate and improve diversity.
1. Take the time and space to talk with empathy
Communication is a fundamental element of recognition and respect. That’s especially important in our new normal. Now, much of life is – and will probably still be – virtual.
It’s a time when everyone needs and probably appreciates some kind of empathy. As a result of all the social and political changes and tensions, “sometimes the knee-jerk reaction is to react by surrounding ourselves with people just like us,” LinkedIn notes.
Here are suggestions for ways to combat that trend, whether you’re in a leadership role or just starting your career.
- Honor your culture or heritage through food, music or art and invite others to do the same (if you are white, that means your specific European ancestry , not the “white” culture)
- Connect with an Employee Resource Group (ERG) made up of people who work in your profession
2. Look beyond your network for talent
Looking through traditional channels for talent can help diversify the tech industry.
People tend to hire from within their professional network. But one problem with that approach is that it can weed out talented people who aren’t in your network. If your network lacks diversity, so should your recruiting.
According to one report, about 70% jobs available not publicly advertised. Instead, these positions are filled through the network. Simply put, you are missing out on talent by not connecting with people of different demographic groups.
Recommended by Harvard Business Review a possible approach to improve inclusivity and diversity. Tech companies should double down on hiring from communities outside the tech clusters of Silicon Valley, the Pacific Northwest, and the Northeast.
As HBR put it, “companies need to let go of their geographical biases.”
So where should companies look? According to one analysis, six states have a large number of workers available for tech jobs. They also have an affordable cost of living. These factors can help companies recruit and retain a more diverse tech workforce in those areas. Also, allowing people to work remotely allow them to keep their social network. It is an important factor for employee satisfaction and retention.
The states are:
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Georgia
- Maryland
- Texas
- Virginia
3. Make DEI a full-time job (if not already)
Most organizations have an executive team, an IT team, and a marketing or sales team. A full-time, fair and inclusive manager or team is equally important.
If you work at a small organization or the budget isn’t currently available, consider making DEI part of someone’s official job responsibilities. The responsibilities of this manager or team may include:
- Research, develop and implement DEI policies and strategies for the organization
- Review existing practices and policies and determine if they are effective
- Create internal training programs and opportunities for conversation and action
- Track an organization’s diversity and inclusion through specific metrics and employee surveys
If you’re in a leadership role, consider these ideas for promoting diversity:
- Sponsorship and advertising, heritage events and commemorative events diverse vacations
- Sourcing from small minority owned businesses. The federal Small Business Administration has enterprise database identify or qualify as small or minority ownership
- Make ERG leadership part of someone’s job description, not something they do outside of their regular workload
- Cooperate and contribute to professional organizations for diversity and inclusion
- Ensure all job postings are published externally and dedicate a team or team member to vetting external candidates as carefully as internal or referral candidates.
- Question the exclusion criteria: Is an advanced degree really necessary for the role?
- Carefully consider role requirements: Do people need to be in the office every day? Or work remotely a possibility?
- Change the organization’s priorities to better accommodate employees who have a role to take care of dependents (elderly, children, or anyone for whom they are responsible without adequate support from other social structures)
Diversity isn’t just good for morals and looks. It’s good for profit.
According to Forbes, companies with diverse managers report more diversity among managers within five years. The publication noted that diversified companies also saw a 19% increase in revenue.
How are leading tech companies developing diversity?
The big five American technology companies – Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft – are concerned with their size and influence in our daily lives. Much has been written about their efforts get a raise diversity of technology.
In the spirit of diversifying the conversation around technology, here’s a look at where five other tech-focused companies are standing in promoting diversity.
Airbnb say it is”deeply committed“to make the company, the community and the tech industry” more diverse and accessible for all. “Airbnb has partnered with career and talent organizations like ColorStack, Disability: IN, Stanford VMware, and BeVible.
Adobe acknowledged that “regarding the diverse structure of our workforce, we have experienced slower progress in 2020 than in 2019.” Adobe said diversity “indicators remain relatively flat”, in part due to slow hiring and low attrition in the early months of the pandemic. One of the company’s initiatives includes equal pay based on gender.
By Nikolay Antonov – Shutterstock
IBM focus on four areas to promote diversity and inclusion: advocacy, allies, employee experiences and accountability. To facilitate those changes, IBM says it focuses on the challenges faced by three specific groups: Women in leadership roles, the “untapped potential” of the community Hispanics and black leaders in business.
In the 2020 report, Intel say that more women achieve high-profile roles. This year also saw growth in the company’s Latino/a and veteran communities. While the number of women in Intel’s US workforce is down, Intel says it’s focused on parity of leadership and integrating diversity and inclusion processes.
Netflix note progress in promoting diversity but added, “We’re not where we want to be and we need to do better.” To achieve its goal, Netflix says its initiatives include increasing representation, developing a sense of inclusion, and building consciousness.
This article has been reviewed by Angelique Geehan
Angelique Geehan works to support and repair the connections people have with themselves and their families, communities, and cultural practices. Geehan, an Asian non-binary parent, founded Interchange, a counseling group that provides support against oppression.
She organizes as part of a number of groups, including the National Perinatal Association’s Health Equality Working Group, the National and Islander Coalition’s Health and Curative Justice Committee. Asia and the Pacific, QTPOC + Family Circle, and Batalá Houston.
Angelique Geehan is a paid member of the freelance assessment network Red Ventures Education.
Last reviewed March 24, 2022.
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