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Diversity at Startups
Diversity at Startups
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Hiring Process

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Ongoing Engagement

Are you creating an environment where all types of employees are well positioned to succeed well after they are hired?

Being successful at diversity and inclusion hiring is more than just getting people in the door. It also means building an inclusive culture in which employees from all backgrounds are engaged and have opportunities to learn, grow and lead.
Regardless of whether you are a Black engineer, a Latino engineer or a female engineer, you are likely to leave the tech industry when faced with an inability to access needed support resources and feelings of isolation.
Code2040
⁠
takes a
deep look
⁠
at different minorities groups. and the specific reasons for leaving the tech industry. Note the ten recommendations for building industry awareness (page 16 of the report).
Are you creating an environment where all types of employees are well positioned to succeed? Check whether you might be subconsciously discounting expectations of people from underrepresented backgrounds.
Stereotype threat
⁠
is a real thing and people do tend to perform to expectation. It seems a bit silly to have to say, but have high expectations of all of your employees.

Stretch assignments and promotions

Give employees of underrepresented backgrounds the same growth opportunities and stretch assignments as all employees. Everyone is entitled to an opportunity to meet high expectations. How much is predicated on a manager’s likely biased assessments of who would want or excel at tough assignments? Research says that women tend to get promoted based on performance, while men are promoted based on potential [
Chief
⁠
]. For the highest level roles, women are still viewed as risky appointments [
HBR
⁠
]. Make sure you’re giving everyone an equal chance to shine.

Invest in Onboarding and Mentorship

Build the support for people to succeed. Even if you don’t have the resources to build out elaborate programs, make sure that new employees have a designated mentor who can help them assimilate to your culture. This helps everyone, but especially people from underrepresented backgrounds who may find it more difficult to navigate an unfamiliar environment. It can be as simple as pairing each new employee with a mentor (who is explicitly not their manager) that serves as a friendly, sympathetic point of contact for questions or concerns. This also facilitates better communication within your organization, across informal networks.
Related articles:
⁠
https://www.trinet.com/insights/mentoring-in-the-workplace
⁠
⁠
⁠
https://creatorhub.patreon.com/articles/how-to-build-better-team-culture
⁠
⁠
⁠
http://fortune.com/2017/08/30/sequoia-capital-womens-mentorship/
⁠
⁠

Performance and Feedback

Feedback is a fundamental part of helping people to develop and keep learning. Strive for transparency and fairness in your performance management [
First Round Review
⁠
] and use a rubric to ensure that evaluations are accurate, unbiased, and consistent.
Make sure managers, especially new managers, have the tools to provide unbiased feedback. Having a consistent target criteria (grading rubric) is the most essential tool for preventing bias. Women are much more likely to get negative feedback, especially around personality [
Fortune
⁠
]. And the same characteristics that are viewed as positive for men (“assertive”, “aggressive”) are often negative for women (“bossy”, “abrasive”) [
Quartz
⁠
].
Make sure that all hiring and promotion practices have a consistent set of target criteria. Formal hiring mechanisms are less likely to represent unconscious bias toward race and gender, whereas hiring mechanisms that rely solely on social networks tend to reproduce gender and race inequality — people tend to refer others who are like them in race, gender and backgrounds. Bias also comes into play when it comes to promotions. Consider using objective and blind measures as tools for hiring and promotion. Deloitte’s UK business is going as far as
removing names
⁠
of school(s) attended to prevent unconscious bias.
One last point on performance in regards to diversity: Consider employee contributions on diversity and inclusion as part of their work and recognize it in performance reviews. Too often employees from underrepresented backgrounds are expected to work a second shift on diversity efforts for their companies [
Model View Culture
⁠
], but it’s discounted relative to “real work”. The ultimate outcome is that these employees suffer an additional time and energy disadvantage for doing their “real work” well, on top of negative stereotypes they’re likely already fighting. In the same way that tech companies have managed to inculcate the value of recruiting, you want diversity and inclusion to be viewed as fundamental to company culture and strategy.

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Next up:
Portfolio Thoughts
⁠
⁠

Stretch assignments and promotions
Invest in Onboarding and Mentorship
Performance and Feedback
Next up: Portfolio Thoughts
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