Stock photo (not the actual Googler).
I talk about diversity a lot because diverse workplaces where diversity is done right are great places to work and don’t need a lot of help from employment attorneys. But diversity is hard, and getting it right involves peculiar growing pains that can be publicly embarrassing. Few things illustrate this fact better than the anonymous Google engineer who stuck his foot in his mouth this weekend, when he talked about how women just aren’t cut out to be computer engineers. If only there had been some search engine that could have told him how all the computer engineers (who do what engineers do today) used to be women.
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In my experience, diversity initiatives come into being usually when an employer realizes painfully that they are lacking in the area. Really really lacking in the area. In tech and in general apparently, a company founder finds someone to give him money, and goes forth to start in business. He begins to hire people who can help him get the job done. Miraculously, they all look like him. In a few years, if he is lucky, he has a growing, thriving company. But he looks around and realizes something. All of the employees look just like him. And people are talking about how incredibly not diverse his company is. He may even have garnered some attention from the Department of Labor. So he goes down the hall to the one person who doesn’t, the team from HR, and says: we have to do something about this. The diversity initiative begins.
The Backlash
Google has had its share of bad press due to its diversity situation. It’s headquartered in the most diverse state in the U.S., but has abysmal numbers. So the fact that an engineer feels compelled to, in his safe space, write out this manifesto is interesting. But write he did, and now Google must deal with the fact that the lack of diversity in tech is back in the forefront. The manifesto was even more ironic as it seems clear he doesn’t understand that there was a time when what he does now would be considered “women’s work.” While I’m sure people will continue to use the search engine that has become ubiquitous with “searching” and keep Googling things, the reaction within Google that began yesterday showed this employee was likely on thin ice from the moment it went public, and of course his termination was a necessary step to show commitment to diversity. Also, I really really hope he never managed anyone who was a woman, or had a woman on his team. Because talk about a hostile work environment.
Diversity Is Hard
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Unfortunately, while Google may not want to believe it, the reason that computer programming went from a majority female to majority male field, with the requisite growth in wages, is that being anti-diversity is common in tech. For some strange reason, people for whom diversity efforts are not directed feel attacked by them. This phenomenon makes certain spaces particularly inhospitable to what is perceived as “diverse” talent, including women in male-dominated fields.
But the truth is, having diverse perspectives in the workplace helps the workplace function better as a place that fosters creative thinking and avoids group think. Also, it just makes for more interesting people if they feel they can be more authentic at work. If you are Google, and you really do want to change the world, avoiding groupthink and encouraging authenticity is good for your bottom line. But when that “authenticity” means an employee is discriminatory to other employees, it creates a problem.
Solutions For Diversity Problems
As Thurgood Marshall once said: everyone is in a protected group. Sadly, there was a time when our manifesto-ing engineer would have found the profession unwelcoming to him, due to the stigma of it being women’s work. Hopefully, he would have persisted. But the history of computer programming and the words of Justice Marshall tell us a lot. They tell us that maybe we need to look at the problem a different way. If you worry your diversity efforts are floundering, and you are getting candid and even aggressive backlash from people who feel left out, don’t just quit. Try these things:
- Ask white male co-workers to join diversity initiatives. Everyone has something to add to diversity at work. We all need to be there, and bring what we have of value. Everyone at the company should be involved in something more than just the work they do, and most of the people at the company should have an active role within any retention programs aimed at increasing and keeping diversity.
- Value the feedback from diversity groups. Once you have created inclusive groups, ask for and value feedback regarding how they can contribute to the company. Often, due to bias, internal functions at companies don’t work the way they should. Are female employees hitting a glass ceiling at certain levels in the company? Are male bosses struggling to effectively engage their female employees? Are female bosses uncomfortable with management expectations? Diversity efforts help people do their jobs more effectively by acknowledging that certain aspects of a person may cause greater resistance in the workplace. Don’t shy away from this. Use it. It will help to make all your managers more competent, increase retention, and make you an example for other organizations.
- Acknowledge the elephant in the room. Diversity initiatives are often seen as code words for “underqualified,” due to the fact that people who don’t feel included feel attacked, and it’s human nature to overestimate our qualifications. But in reality, real diversity initiatives do two things: they widen the applicant pool to make it more diverse (and therefore more likely to locate diverse qualified candidates), and they increase retention of all employees, including diverse employees. The truth is that in many industries, an increase in diversity of qualified individuals has not changed hiring trends. There may be many reasons for this. But with the changing demographics in the U.S., and the globalization of education, diversity initiatives have the opportunity to attract amazing candidates who add real value to a company — but the company must be sure that the existing employees are ready for the program. If you are a company full of people like the manifesto-ing engineer, your company isn’t ready yet and you have failed at hiring good people. Deal with this elephant first, or you will not retain good diverse talent of any kind.
When we look at how people see themselves and in how they feel about the world, no two people are the same. When coupled with good efforts to help people belong, emphasizing diversity of all can discourage people from excluding based on banal reasons. But this takes real intentionality and purpose. While Google hasn’t historically been there, it seems it is trying to head in that direction. But given their prior position on diversity, it isn’t surprising that manifesto-ing engineer felt like he could say what he did.
Of course our manifesto-ing Googler got the axe. He’s a huge liability. But this doesn’t mean Google’s diversity efforts are a failure. It means that it’s time to have hard conversations about what makes us who we are in the workplace, and how our differences are valuable and important. As with anything worth having, diversity is worth working towards. And this means radical culture changes from a place of conformity to a place that is welcoming to who we really are. Unless, of course, that person is an ignorant manifesto-ing engineer who doesn’t seem to like women very much. He needs a job where he works from home on an all-male team.
Beth Robinson lives in Denver and is a business law attorney and employment law guru. She practices at Fortis Law Partners. You can reach her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter at @HLSinDenver.