October 28, 2016
Ep. #4, The Serverless Framework & AWS Lambda
In Episode 4 of JAMstack Radio, Brian and Ryan are joined by engineer David Wells who explains the Serverless Framework and automation using...
In 2015, a number of technology companies who believed they were meritocratic found two things:
Hiring is one of the biggest barriers to scaling and growing an early-stage company and unconscious bias is just one obstacle to hiring. We interviewed CEO and cofounder of Paradigm, Joelle Emerson, to discuss her work with companies like Slack, Airbnb and Pinterest. As a way to encourage diversity in teams, Joelle works alongside leaders in these orgs to build comprehensive diversity strategies in HR, recruiting, communications, and policy.
Joelle: Unconscious bias refers to the information, attitudes, and stereotypes that inform our subconscious information-processing. We rely on unconscious bias to help us quickly filter and evaluate the massive amount of information our brains are receiving at any given moment. One common bias we see play out is a “similar-to-me bias”: we tend to prefer people who remind us of ourselves. We see this play out in tech companies’ hiring processes, particularly when it comes to assessing for “culture fit.” This assessment often leads people, even if inadvertently, to favor and hire people who are like themselves.
Joelle: Bias can lead us to hold different people to different standards, to seek out information that confirms beliefs we already hold, and to hire people we like instead of people who are best for the job. Biases can also influence performance review and promotion processes, which can make it harder for people from underrepresented backgrounds to advance to leadership positions. This is ultimately self-defeating for companies, as research has shown that diverse groups are smarter, make better decisions and help companies become more innovative.
Joelle: Tracking and analyzing data throughout different processes at your company will help you identify where unconscious bias might come into play. For example, it’s important to consider how people from different backgrounds fare at each stage of your hiring process, as well as in performance reviews, promotion, and compensation. It’s also important to ask employees about their experiences, through methods like surveys and focus groups. To effectively manage bias and build an inclusive culture, companies should listen and respond to the experiences of their employees.
Joelle: You can encourage leaders to mentor and sponsor people from underrepresented groups, providing visibility and a pathway to leadership. It’s also important to offer leadership development programs for people from underrepresented groups, and to ensure that the path for advancement is clear. But ultimately, if people don’t see others who look like them in senior leadership, and if your organizational culture isn’t inclusive, employees from underrepresented backgrounds may leave before they ever have the opportunity to advance.
Joelle: Designing a structured hiring process helps people make more objective decisions. Structured processes help limit the extent to which people can rely on their own subjective opinions, which are often influenced by bias. Designing a structured interview process includes agreeing on selection criteria before going into an interview, asking the same questions of every candidate, and creating a scoring rubric so that you can determine objectively what “good” or “bad” answers look like ahead of time.
Joelle: I like this article on Google’s hiring process, which talks about structured interviewing. My partner Natalie wrote this article on asking effective interview questions, and I’ve written two (here andhere) on strategies for mitigating bias in interviews.
In addition to checking out Joelle’s suggested resources, Heavybit is hosting a small unconference-style discussion on unconscious bias on Tuesday, March 29th. To participate in this event, RSVP today with the password inclusion-hb
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