Silicon Valley Needs to Rethink Their Diversity Problem

Silicon Valley recently faced a reality check with public outcry over Uber and its diversity issues. The company itself faced many harsh realities that prompted some major changes. Many prominent leaders and managers, including co-founder Travis Kalanick, were dismissed or resigned. The company has since publicly announced a new plan moving forward to reevaluate and implement new diversity hiring and management practices.

The event cast a light on the growing issues with diversity in the Valley. Over the past few years, many prominent tech companies have faced the same imbalances and discriminatory problems that Uber was ridiculed over. Even though Uber stands to become a prime example of how to combat these issues, they are likely to fail.

The problem isn’t that they aren’t combating diversity issues. It’s how these companies conceptualize and evaluate their diversity practices in the first place. In other words, they may have every intention to do better, but they won’t succeed if they don’t understand the problem.

Steps the Valley Has Taken

You might not realize it from the public flak Uber received, but many tech companies within Silicon Valley have been combating diversity issues for years. They have long realized that there is an imbalance between male and female employees and different ethnicities. In some ways, the industry has been at the forefront of working to solve these issues.

Each year, many prominent tech companies like Facebook, Uber, and Google release reports on their employee numbers and makeup. This type of report tries to provide transparency to the public. If the outside world can see the metrics of success and failure, there is more honesty and the potential for improvement.

Many companies have implemented a variety of diversity policies that try to prevent discrimination on the job. In fact, an entire new industry of small “diversity expert” firms has started up. Major companies can hire out these firms for third-party help with combating the issues.

Despite all these efforts, however, there has been little success.

The Problem with the Problem

You don’t have to go far into each company’s profile to see the extent of the diversity issues that remain. Most tech companies have women making up about 30% of their workforce. Out of this 30%, leadership and tech positions like programming and technical engineering are underrepresented.

The racial diversity issues are even worse. African-Americans make up only 2% of Silicon Valley’s workforce. Latino Americans are present a little bit more with 3%.

A part of the issue is how companies are conceptualizing and addressing diversity problems. One of the biggest shortcomings of their attempts is the steps they fail to take. Many companies rely on their HR department to fix the problem. This usually amounts to creating diversity commitment statements, anti-discriminatory policies, and employee diversity training. Most of the time, all this falls short because of a lack of implementation and enforcement.

Hiring practices are also underrepresented in the industry’s actions. Diversity exists in the hiring pool for Silicon Valley, so what gives? Researchers have long known that inherent bias comes with the territory of hiring new employees. This bias is at its peak when hiring managers and panels represent only a few distinct physical and personal traits. Homogeny tends to lead to more homogeny.

The biggest issue is how these companies evaluate their diversity performance in the first place. Most tech companies overestimate their progress. Third-party organizations that offer independent ratings of companies fall into the same pits as well. For example, Uber received a 100% rating in this year’s Corporate Equality Index. These evaluations tend to assess the company’s diversity and antidiscrimination policies over their actual employee numbers and performance.

All these issues mean that before the problem can be addressed, diversity itself needs to be assessed. A focus on gender and racial diversity alone isn’t enough.

Rethinking Diversity

Solving diversity issues is a tricky thing. Companies can begin with thinking about what having a diverse corporate workforce and culture means. True diversity in a company isn’t necessarily solely defined by gender, racial, sexual orientation, and other physical and personal traits. Diversity should be a cognitive thing as well. In other words, the more employees offer different perspectives and experiences — often influenced by things like gender and race — the better.

Teams made up of a variety of perspectives and experiences often perform better overall. Groups with similar thought patterns are more susceptible to groupthink and a lack of original, creative thinking. Cognitive diversity brings different angles to think about products, technology, and solutions.

Creating this kind of cognitive diversity isn’t necessarily easy. Like any other diversity issue, it requires a commitment to solving the issue. Thankfully, focusing on more common problems surrounding things like race and gender can indirectly boost cognitive diversity as well.

Making true change in an entire industry isn’t the easiest thing to do. Despite all these companies’ technological accomplishments, they still struggle with the social issues that plague business in general. If they can change how they think about, assess, and promote diversity, many of these companies can make a dent.The fight against these issues isn’t an easy one, but it is necessary.

The fight against these issues may not be easy, but it is necessary.

Originally published at DevAD Magazine.