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Report Shows Another Diversity Challenge: Retaining Employees (sfchronicle.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Women, blacks and Latinos are far more likely to quit jobs in tech than white or Asian men, according to a new report by the Kapor Center for Social Impact. The Oakland nonprofit commissioned an online survey by the Harris Poll, which asked 2,006 people who voluntarily left tech jobs in the past three years about why they quit. It found women were twice as likely to leave as men (alternative link), while black and Latino tech workers were 3.5 times likelier to quit than white or Asian colleagues. The most common reason they gave for their departures was workplace mistreatment.

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  1. Company's Fault by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The most common reason they gave for their departures was workplace mistreatment.

    If that reason is given more often by women and minorities then it is whites and men... perhaps companies ARE mistreating women and minorities which WOULD make it the company's fault.

    It's possible that those groups just "perceive" mistreatment more often, or they could actually be being mistreated more.

    Being the perennial centrist, on-the-fence person that I am- I don't know which is the real reason.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    1. Re:Company's Fault by slew · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The most common reason they gave for their departures was workplace mistreatment.

      If that reason is given more often by women and minorities then it is whites and men... perhaps companies ARE mistreating women and minorities which WOULD make it the company's fault.

      It's possible that those groups just "perceive" mistreatment more often, or they could actually be being mistreated more.

      Being the perennial centrist, on-the-fence person that I am- I don't know which is the real reason.

      Admittedly, I have limited perspective on this, but I often I observe the *company* treatment is probably better for women and under-represented minorities, but the *co-worker* treatment is probably much worse for women and under-represented minorities. True that a part of the *co-worker* treatment is part of the company culture and that part might be the company's responsibility, but you can't make co-workers treat each other non-awkwardly in situations that aren't strictly business related, and that makes the co-worker treatment situation very difficult to fix within a human generation of time.

      I feel that many folks still want companies to function as some sort of in loco parentis as if working a jobs was some sort of extended university stint. That seems like a bit old fashion to me, but I suspect a large number of people feel that since workers are somehow *dependents* of a company, the company owes some responsibility or duty to the employees. Sadly, as in real life not all entities are wired to be parents, even those that actually have children.

      On the other hand workplace norms on overwork demands in the tech business (like many other male dominated industries) are probably not very compelling for some populations and that would be also very difficult to fix within a human generation of time as well. We are long past the "puritan" work ethics that launched our industrial age...

  2. Re:Childbirth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    you are a not a modern country if you do not have proper labour rights let alone proper health care.

    The US is not a modern country, it is still a developing nation much like China. Other countries like the UK, Germany, Canada, etc are considered modern countries.

  3. The Answer Comes Around 1am by OYAHHH · · Score: 5, Interesting

    On the whole, if you want to see who is most successful in IT just watch who walks out the office's front door at 1am, exhausted, stumbling to their car.

    In a vast majority of cases it will not be the female employees. Invariably they have to leave at 5pm to catch the commuter train, or to pick up the kids, or a million other things.

    Who it will be will be the single man who has no life or a married man who has a strong wife who works as a team with him to fulfill the goals of family.

    That's been my experience. It's just the reality of life. It's not discriminatory. It is to each his own.

    The real problem is that women are of the opinion that career success == life success. That is about as far from reality as you can get.

    Women should consider the ability to hold a job and contribute to their total family as a "Battle Win".

    Then they should look at their long-term ability to have children and raise them well as a "Winning the War."

    --
    Caution: Contents under pressure
  4. Re:[OT] MIT is not that special. by Rakarra · · Score: 5, Interesting

    50% of my graduating class were valedictorians of their high schools. Something like 80% got perfect mathematics SAT scores. I got perfect math SAT scores, and was by far the smartest in mathematics my school had ever seen. I got a 5 on my AP Calculus BC test. At MIT, I did only just OK in 18.014 and 18.024 (Calculus with Theory, for non-MIT folks) ... only just OK

    I did fantastic in high school, valedictorian of my high school, high math (and English, after enough retakes). Got to college, struggled in the Calculus courses, started doing even worse after the first year. Was the problem that the university was that much harder? Well yes it was, but there was a bigger problem. Away from home, I was away from the pressures of my parents. They were the ones that pushed me to excel, to make sure that Bs weren't something to settle for. I had control over my own time and my own work ethic, and I crumbled without those pillars, and had to relearn how to be a good student all over again.

    Many smarty-pants don't do nearly as well in college as they guessed, and sometimes it's just they're introduced to freedom, and they might not know how to handle it.

  5. Harassment by other women is rampant by FeelGood314 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My Ex is a very competent programmer/manager and I know a number of very competent female programmers. Good female developers put in the same number of hours as men married men and maybe even more. Harassment from male engineers is almost non-existent with one exception.

    Institutional stupidity and harassment towards women occasionally happens. There still are some senior managers that will promote a man over a woman and some companies are clueless when it comes to pregnancy or bathroom availability.

    The biggest problem by far that I have seen is harassment by other women. And I've seen it at every single company I've worked at. Women will back stab each other and withhold key information. Secretaries are passive aggressive to female engineers, will refuse or be late with simple but critical tasks to other women, short change other women in petty ways like giving them the noisy office, saving $20 on a flight by choosing the flight with 2 extra stops,etc. If a woman gives the same instruction a man would give a woman in the exact same way the woman receiving the order will be resentful. Woman have to be friends and show they are a team or some bullshit like that and then make their orders requests. And women are expected to put up with this crap and not make a big thing about it. This last point is the exception. If the secretary was passive aggressive to a male engineer he could complain and at least get a sympathetic hearing of his complaint. If a woman complains then the problem is the women in the office not getting along.

  6. Re:A comment from outside the slashdot sewer: by epyT-R · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This marxist response to valid criticism of modern social justice shows why it's so hard to maximize organizational talent: These insecure losers have managed to make skin color and sex more relevant to worthiness than ability and accomplishment under the guise of fighting against such bigoted discrimination. There are, however, quite a few people who actually see this hypocrisy for what it is as the western world has starting moving away from such damaging ideology.

  7. Re:Literally in the Summary by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Congratulations. You've just demonstrated the anti-male bias OP was implying exists in these types of reports. That statement from TFA applies to both female and male employees who left their job.

    There is a very strong anti-male bias, even when it is approached in a friendly manner - see below.

    If you dig up the actual report, you'll find that men left due to unfairness/mistreatment more than women - 40% vs 31%. You read the general stat and assumed it indicated a problem with how women are treated, when in fact it's men who more often feel they're mistreated.

    I'm not surprised. I know that in my setting, we had a bit of a bias in hiring women over men, they came in at the same pay as the men, and we promoted them more quickly than men. I voluntarily gave up several promotions in order for a female co worker to get a promotion - stupid quota system with promotions.

    Yet - they all left. Despite preferential treatment, they quit. Getting married, having children, just going back to live with the family were typical. One engineer woman left to become a personal trainer - musta been a helluva hit to the pocket, and another opened a daycare center. Some were let go during slowdowns, in large part because if myself or the other guy were let go, more people would be hired because they usually had a distinct list of what they would or wouldn't do.Travel, Overtime, and non standard work hours were a no-no. One of the biggest problems when there were personnel conflicts? Other women.

    In the end, even though I missed a number of promotions, I was paid a lot more than the others. And there were a few complaints over the years. Quickly taken care of by the boss who asked if they wanted to do what I did. No takers. The actual report makes pretty interesting reading. The stats are all over the place. Women report experiencing or seeing more mistreatment, but reported experiencing stereotyping at roughly the same rate as men (23% vs 24% for minority men vs women, 14% vs 12 % for white/asian men vs women). The rate of unwanted sexual attention is drastically higher in the tech industry than other industries (10% vs 6%), but the rate of unwanted sexual attention reported by women is only slightly higher than by men (10% vs 8%). For bullying and harassment, white/asian women reported a lower incident rate than white/asian men (15% vs 16%). But minority women reported a substantially higher rate than minority men (13% vs 9%). You'll also notice minorities reported a lower harassment rate than whites/asians. I highly recommend reading the actual report if you're curious about this stuff. It doesn't really fit into any of the stereotypes (hah) about male/female or white/asian vs minorities.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.