Diversity Hiring

Building a Gender-Balanced Engineering Team

In order to build a gender-balanced engineering team, a company had to reconsider their entire recruiting and hiring process. This included sourcing from different places, changing the interview process, and providing better employee support. Lessons learned from this experience include the need to analyse talent acquisition strategies, hiring process, and employment benefits with an emphasis on thinking outside of the traditional male-oriented engineering hiring mentality, as well as seeking advice from those who have successfully staffed their engineering teams with a balanced approach.

How To Improve Your Diversity Hiring

In order to increase diversity in the workplace, a senior manager organized coaching sessions for diverse engineering candidates who had passed the interview stage. The sessions focused on teaching the candidates how to communicate effectively in a culturally specific setting. The results were very successful, with 75% of the coached candidates receiving offers from the company. The program was well-received by colleagues, who understood the importance of helping diverse candidates overcome cultural barriers.

Improving Communication Between Remote Teams

When SugarCRM's remote and onsite teams were having communication and trust issues, the team lead took action to bridge the gap. He held weekly team meetings, encouraged more travel between the two main offices, and encouraged constructive venting. This allowed the teams to work together better and to understand what was happening in the company. He also encouraged discussions and a consensus-based approach to management.

The Secret To Product Growth is Your People

When scaling a product team, it is important to consider both the product and the people. Hiring the right people is key, and it is important to find a balance between visionaries and realists. It is also important to structure the team correctly, and to empower people to work on the product end-to-end. Finally, bringing in fresh perspectives in the form of juniors can help to assess the product and processes.

Diverse Teams Have Greater Customer Empathy

This article outlines the steps taken to build a better mass-market product for an audience of older users. These steps included using personas, advocating for inclusive design principles, and implementing diverse friendly hiring practices. Ultimately, these changes resulted in a more accessible product and helped attract great talent to the team. The article emphasizes the importance of diverse teams in empathizing with diverse audiences and building better products.

Do You Know How to Tackle Diversity Issues on Your Team?

After a woman declined a job offer, the company realized that 90% of their team were men and decided to do more sourcing at women's engineering events. This resulted in a more gender-balanced team with a 60/40 male to female ratio, without changing their technical requirements. The lesson learned was that it is important to create a non-hostile work environment for everyone, and to prioritize women candidates without changing the bar.