If you want to create products and services that appeal to women and minorities, you’ll have better insight if you have them on your team. You also find your team’s problem-solving skills are increased when input comes from a diverse range of people. In fact, a recent study from McKinsey shows that company teams in the top quartile for gender diversity are more likely to get financial returns above their national industry medians. The difference is more dramatic for ethnic diversity, as companies with the highest ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to get above-average returns.
Yet, few tech companies have a significant portion of visible minorities or female employees. How do you make your team more diverse — for the sake of your company?
What’s The Problem?
Research from LinkedIn has revealed that, despite various efforts to increase women’s numbers among software engineers, there are only 3% more women in the field than there were 15 years ago. Only 28% of software engineers are women. The story is the same in tech leadership, where women have only made a 2.5% gain.
There is a lack of people of racial diversity in tech too. The New York Times notes that while minorities account for 43% of computer science and engineering graduates, they are much less likely to land a job than their white counterparts. In fact, 10% of African American computer science and engineering grads will end up in office support jobs.
How Do We Solve The Problem?
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The Mirror Rule
The mirror rule asks decision-makers to ensure that their team doesn’t look like they do, at least not always. Sarah Kunst, the founder of Proday, suggests that this rule empowers teams in every part of your company to “ensure that more diverse and inclusive groups are being formed.”
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Set New Hiring Goals
Instead of having soft rules like the mirror rule, some companies are setting hard targets. Consider Duolingo, who aimed at a 50:50 gender split for their software engineers — and achieved it. The main change the company made was recruiting from schools that had over 18% female computer science undergraduates. The company also sponsored a women-in-tech conference, the 2017 Grace Hopper Conference.
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Support New Hires
Sometimes diversity efforts have the opposite effect. Laura Weidman Powers, co-founder of Code 2040, found that African American and Hispanic candidates didn’t show up to information sessions because it felt like a “sales pitch.” Instead, Code 2040 offered workshops, which Powers said got, “a higher yield in terms of students showing up, and they leave with an impression that we value them and their growth.”
Is Your Tech Company Diverse?
If you put an effort into understanding the perspective of minority and female candidates, you can attract more of them, not as tokens, but as valued assets to your company. Live Assets can help you achieve your hiring goals by finding qualified, talented, and diverse candidates for your company. Call us at (416) 572-1020 or contact us for a business consultation.