Overcoming Gender Bias in Life, Technology, and Blockchain — One Man’s Opinion
In early February, we learned that our fast-growing tech office in the suburbs of Vancouver had passed an amazing milestone: more than 50% of the team was now female (as were many of the executive team). That was 19 females and 18 males.
This shouldn’t have been news. Yet, it was… and the team (both male and female) trumpeted this 51% marker out on social media as a badge of pride. “Look at us!”, we wrote. “We’re proof that gender equality in tech and blockchain can happen!”, “Yay us!” we exclaimed.
There was a lot of self, back-patting all the way around… then we went back to work as work needed to be done. But somehow, somewhere, something, didn’t quite sit right with me.
Perhaps it was in the shadow of Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo, and the February blahs everyone felt here in rainy BC, but something seemed amiss. I couldn’t put my finger on it until a few days later, February 14, the night before our public pre-allocation for the RightMesh token generating event (ICO). It was Valentine’s Day. A day for romance, acceptance, and love notes. That is, except for one message that came in via Telegram that was not a love note, but more of a blinking neon sign showing us how far we still had to travel.
One of our community participants posted some hyperbole about RightMesh “Going to the moon”, “Lambos for everyone”, and a few Telegram stickers, one of which indicated that after our RMESH token moons, he is going out to spend all his money on strippers.
“Locker room banter. Boys will be boys,” as the undignified President of the United States likes to call it. To clarify, we are not a bunch of prudes in the office, and I am often one of the first to throw out the occasional “That’s what she/he said” comment among friends [though a lot less than we used to as we realize things we did collectively in the past are no longer appropriate].
At first, I just shook my head. But then, as I was about to delete the comment, I realized this ignorant comment characterized that missing je ne sais quoi that I thought was amiss. So, I wrote this rebuttal publicly:
“Gentlemen… we are better than that. We are creating technology that is changing the world, and in an industry that is all about disrupting the status quo. We are not here to preach or judge, but be aware that words and attitudes matter a great deal. We are proud to have more than 51% women in our Canadian tech office, a definite rarity in tech and a definite rarity in blockchain, and as such this is not appropriate in this channel. I did not delete or censor this, but I am also not afraid to call you out on it either.
I am not sure if you saw what I did there. It was small. It was maybe not that subtle. But what I did, was the right thing to do. You see, it is one thing to bring about change in yourself or in a company you control, but it is another to bring about change in others.
Last year, I wrote a blog post about The Women Who Inspire Us. It probably has not been read by many, and I am fine with that. After all, I wrote it for myself as much as I did for the women in Left who inspired me. In that post, I wrote:
In society, we often slap each other on the back and say, ‘Good Job’ and ‘Atta boy!’, praising each other about how far we’ve come since incorporating anti-discrimination, diversity, and inclusion policies in the workplace. I have often thought that these were unnecessary as you simply hire, compensate, and reward the best candidate regardless of all factors. If you do this, there should be no need to have such policies. However, when you look at the grand scheme of the business world and in particular, the tech/startup world (as modern as we portray ourselves as being), I do believe that gender stereotypes are holding us back from our potential of achieving what is possible.
To clarify, what we were doing earlier this month with our self-congratulatory speech was all words and no action. My words to the other male participant on Telegram, were both words AND action.
Invoking change in that which you control is easy, you simply must make a conscious decision to change and question everything, especially in addressing your own biases. Bringing out a larger change — truly making a mark of lasting impact on the world around you — now that’s hard.
Bringing about gender parity worldwide, or one industry at a time, it takes effort. It is not going to be done only by women who are standing up for themselves and for that which is not right. It takes other men — other male leaders — myself included, to stand up and call others out. Doing anything else is just words.
When we do things, we try to do them Right
In my blog post of last year, I acknowledged changing our hiring practices, mostly in response to my reading Lean In and learning that “Women are hired for experience and men for potential” (a big bias for us when the number one criteria we hire for is potential).
This year, we looked at several initiatives to ensure parity in the work force. The biggest change for our company was introducing a transparent salary structure that took negotiation on salaries out of the equation. To clarify, we don’t publish our salaries for all to see, but we derive our salaries mathematically on the roles being performed, regardless of gender.
Specifically, late last year we obtained a salary report from Mercer and set a target of being in the 50–75th percentile of Vancouver technology salaries (our competitive market for talent). This means we would be compensating above average, but we also acknowledged that 25% of the Vancouver tech companies will offer higher salaries that we do. We balanced this against the fact that we also have other perks that other companies simply can’t match (e.g., the average employee saves more than 8 hours per week in commuting time over their previous job). This should compensate for the difference.
Within our approach, we compared ourselves to those companies who operated in the ICT or Mobile segments as well as being Above $15M in Revenue and had Less than 100 Employees. The lowest salary within this range (50th percentile) gives us the low band, and the highest of the segments (75th percentile) gives the high band. From there, we divide the range into three skill levels: Beginner, Intermediate, and Mastery. If one person divides their time between multiple roles, we apply the formula based on a weighted percentage across all roles.
It was quite a tough pill to swallow financially as we had to reset salaries for many current team members to be aligned with this new policy. And sometimes, the mathematical formula gave us some pretty dramatic swings. However, it was the right thing to do in correcting historical wrongs that were out-of-whack with where we needed to be going forward.
Is it a perfect system? Most definitely not. However, I do believe it should help justify all current salaries as well as offers to new candidates. A large part of gender parity is salary parity. I encourage all companies to look at their own compensation strategies and plans with a lens to creating the equality that we have been striving for. Bring it up to your Board. Budget for it. Make it a priority over the next fiscal year. Should any other executives want to talk about our challenges in taking this initiative on, I would welcome the conversation.
International Women’s Day
Tomorrow, March 8, honours International Women’s Day — a day which celebrates women’s achievements and pushes us towards gender equality.
As reported by WhereWomenWork:
The International Women’s Day 2018 campaign theme is #PressforProgress and worldwide activity will see groups and organisations across the world launch new gender parity initiatives, celebrate women’s achievements, call for greater action and more. Employers across the world will support the campaign as they do what they can to actively engage and harness their workforces and communities to forge gender parity.
Blockchain and token economics have the potential to disrupt society nearly more than any technological innovation the world has ever seen. Those left behind by the last wave of technological inclusion can now play on equal footing, creating equal value wherever in the world they reside. At Left and at RightMesh, we know we will play a key role in this new economic order.
As we strive to build a better tomorrow, we have an opportunity to craft the world in which everyone participates and benefits. However, it would be a real shame if through this disruption all we managed to create was more of the same, just decentralized.
As we say to all new hires during our onboarding, it is not just about being good, it is about being better.
But this is just one man’s opinion.
