Re:Not an Amazon Problem
by onion2k on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @04:02AM
(#23973472)
It depends on whether or not you believe that HR will really hire the best people regardless, or whether they'll use terms like "culture fit" to hire people who are similar to people already in the company. If the company is hiring for "culture fit" then there are subjective decisions based on non-meritorious factors being made, and that's where people's biases lead to a homogenous team. To use your analogy, in some companies there are 20 white marbles and HR recruits another white marble because "they'll fit in with the team better" even if that marble's technical skills aren't as good as the red or blue candidates.
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Culture fit isn't necessarily negative. I've worked at a company that tried to create teams as diverse as possible (not by skin color but by education, experience, prior experience) as part of culture fit. If your culture is to believe that content can be taught on the job but experience cannot, diversity definitely is culture fit.
Re:Not an Amazon Problem
by concordDance on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @04:21AM
(#23973572)
Hmm...
Might net team productivity per cost be greater with another white marble rather than a red marble due to culture fit even if the individual red marble is better?
Re:Not an Amazon Problem
by regularfry on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @05:10AM
(#23973838)
This is a reasonable-sounding hypothesis that has been researched and disproved. Diverse teams perform better.
This would actually settle the whole thing. If these researches are true, companies which can afford it should diversify their teams (old, young, male, female, different nationalities, etc etc.) in order to increase efficiency and make more money. Which researches did you base this comment on?
And this is exactly what large software companies are doing. Microsoft's direct college hire program has been a good source of great black and women developers and architects. The teams I was on were definitely improved by their inclusion even though they were "inexperienced". Microsoft had the most diversity of any company I've worked at and it's not even close.
Re:Not an Amazon Problem
by regularfry on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @09:33AM
(#23975563)
There's no shortage :-) Start here: https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter
That's precisely the sort of reasoning people use. It might even be true. The problem is that when I see a company like that I don't think "Wow, that company is a well optimised for team efficiency." and instead I think "I wonder why they only hire white marbles? Probably racist."