Diversity is More Than Gender
by Miki Saxon
A few years ago I ended a post about youth and age with these words,
Everybody in tech focuses on the importance of “data driven” decisions—until the data doesn’t support the decision they want to make.
That’s when they start talking about the importance of “gut instinct” and “unconscious pattern recognition.”
Data only matters when it supports prevailing prejudice.
Everywhere you look you’ll find well-researched data that proves diversity significantly improves companies’ financial results no matter how you measure them.
Real diversity, however, means more than hiring women and minorities.
It means hiring them — men, women and minorities — at all stages of life.
Because, simply put, experience comes with age — wisdom is supposed to, but there’s no guarantee that it will.
In 2015 Google celebrated it’s experienced people.
The doll, a special edition of Google’s Android mascot, was a jokey tribute to the Greyglers, a group for the 40-and-over crowd at Google, and the doll hinted at how it felt to be an older worker in tech: funny, self-conscious, a little out of place.
That description certainly doesn’t fit Greyglers such as Sundar Pichai, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Susan Wojcicki to name the most obvious.
Satya Nadella was 47 in 2014 when he envisioned a new Microsoft. Not only envisioned it, but is orchestrating it into existence.
No way a twenty-something could have done either.
Age has enormous value, especially in fast-moving industries like tech.
The value at all levels comes not only from understanding the need for flexibility and developing it, but also the learning curve that comes from learning/using/discarding/repeat languages, etc. at the speed of tech. Not to mention the empathy that sparks innovation and usually (not always) comes with time and living.
Beyond the norm, the value of age/experience increases exponentially when it come to enterprise products.
Innovative/creative solutions to enterprise challenges resonate more clearly when building on a historical knowledge base than when starting from scratch.
So whether you are focusing on diversity hiring because it’s the right thing to do or for the financial gain, remember that true diversity goes beyond gender and race to encompass age.
Image credit: Search Engine Roundtable
