Ian
How will new technology affect diversity in the workplace? #tech
Tech Week Scholarship
#tech
4 answers
Ron Alexssen
Ron’s Answer
Hi Ian,
My company uses technology to expand our hiring pool. We have several physical offices around the world and remote employees without a home office. Our distributed teams use video conferencing and tools like github and tmux to enable distributed teams to work together on the same projects, regardless of location.
Without the technology tools we'd be stuck hiring only in the cities we have a physical location and distributed teams would not be possible. The diversity would only be as strong as the local hiring pool.
This article from seekout.io talks about some of the diversity benefits of a remote workforce https://blog.seekout.io/remote-work-diversity-recruiting/
This article from remote.io shows some of the benefits of having a remote workforce, https://remote.co/10-stats-about-remote-work/
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Kim Hickey
Kim’s Answer
Hi Ian,
Interesting question and one that gets discussed at work from time to time.
Not long ago, Amazon tried an algorithm to interview candidates and discovered that instead of increasing diversity it automated the implicit bias of people inputting into the system. But one hiccup doesn't mean the industry isn't doing cool things.
There are tools to check for implicit bias in job descriptions - did you know some adjectives appeal more to women and others more to men?
Auto submission tools for programming jobs to conference speaker candidates allow people to submit their content where it can be judged without knowledge of gender or color of skin. The folks at Github shared that people judge women to be better programmers if their gender isn't shared.
At my company we use technology measure our hire and retention rate of underrepresented minorities compared to white men. It means a lot to me that we take this so seriously.
As long as the social movement is there, the technology will follow.
Good luck!
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Colin Smith
Colin’s Answer
This is so important right now. Technology is evolving very quickly and companies are changing and evolving rapidly. For example see the link below on PwC's journey:
https://hbr.org/2018/10/how-we-teach-digital-skills-at-pwc
This will create opportunities for disruption and hopefully lead to greater diversity of skills, talents, and backgrounds in the work place.
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Great answer which is in line with our professional culture and the demands of the future!
Alexandra Grashkina-Hristov
Thank you so much for answering, Colin. As a college student in silicon valley, I am familiar with PwC its notion to provide diversity within the workplace. The companies access to technological advancements, allows PwC to evolve.
Ian
Tracy Williams
Tracy’s Answer
This is a great question! Technology has the ability to impact so many areas and diversity is definitely one of them. There are new technologies created every day to help companies identify, recruit and retain talent. For example, there are technologies that will review job postings to ensure that they are inclusive. This means that they don't unintentionally offend certain groups of candidates with the wording. Another example is using technology to maintain connection with certain diverse populations. At my company, we not only use technology to survey our entire employee population, but to survey on issues such as inclusion - we want to make sure that everyone feels included and a sense of belonging at work. These are just some of the new technologies that will allow us to create a more diverse and inclusive workforce.