Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

This story about Slack is from 2015.

Any company that follows in Slack’s shoes still warrants major media coverage.

Sad, isn’t it.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Being a woman in tech can be a serious drawback in 2015; far more so than in the 1980s and 90s — Tinder even dumped a woman founder on the basis that the company wouldn’t be taken seriously by investors. Sadly, they may have been right.

Leave it to Slack, valued at $2.8 billion, to do things differently.

According to its diversity report released on Wednesday, 45% of all Slack managers are female, with 41% of the entire workforce having a woman as their manager. “This means that 41% of our people report to a woman who helps set their priorities, measure their performance, mentor them in their work, and who make recommendations that will impact their compensation and career growth.”  In non-engineering positions, 51% of the workforce turned out to be female. Out of the roughly 250 employees worldwide, 39% are reported to be female.

Slack is considered the fastest growing software company in history and they certainly lead  the tech pack In gender diversity.

And while their racial diversity stats are as dismal as the rest of tech they are far more actively working on changing that, too.

Here are the company’s four hiring guidelines,

1. Examining all decisions regarding hiring/recruiting, promotion, compensation, employee recognition and management structure to ensure that we are not inadvertently advantaging one group over another.
2. Working with expert advisors and employees to build fair and inclusive processes for employee retention, such as effective management education, company-wide unconscious bias training, ally skills coaching, and compensation review.
3. Helping to address the pipeline issue with financial contributions to organizations whose mission is to educate and equip underrepresented groups with relevant technical skills (like Hack the Hood and Grace Hopper), as well as supporting a variety of internship programs to broaden access to opportunity (like CODE2040).
4. Attempting to be conscious and deliberate in our decision-making and the principles and values by which we operate. Changing our industry starts by building a workplace that is welcoming to all so that a generation of role models, examples and mentors is created.

Slack is practicing what recent studies have proven; hiring women pays.

Give that some thought the next time your unconscious bias kicks in leading you to reject a candidate because she is a she.

Image credit: HikingArtist

I have been at my new company for a little more than a month now and continue to learn more each day. I stumbled across something last week that impacted me more the longer I dwelled on it and I thought it important to share.

We use #slack at work for all internal communications and there are several channels that cover a variety of topics. This ranges from marketing info, sales data and the most important channel of all… random.

This channel is exactly as it sounds. You can post whatever you like in here as long as it is not offensive. People post pics of cute dogs, random news stories and funny memes.

However, there is a deeper element that I have come to appreciate.

I work for a geospatial data collection company and our platform allows our users to create apps that can meet their specific needs when it comes to data collection.

If a utility company wants to document where streetlights are located they can create an app to do so. Want to track where poachers are operating in the African bush? We have you covered with an app. What if you want to track and document something a bit less serious, say what type of booze you are consuming each night?

Bingo, that’s right. Some enterprising individual in our company created an app on our platform that can track what drinks you consume. You can include a picture, your location, 1-5 star rating and any comments you may have on the drink.

However, they took it a step further. After documenting this event how can you tell the world, or in this case our company, that you consumed a wonderful beverage? Simple, you link it to the random channel in #slack and every time you create a log it sends that info to be posted on the random channel.

Each night I get to see what my team mates are consuming and the various comments people post. How does this tie into culture? It is a purely voluntary action on the part of those submitting posts. It’s not pushed by management or tracked. It’s a fun way to interact with your colleagues after hours, while enjoying the comfort of home.

Not a bad way to end the night, in my opinion.

Image credit: Slack

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Being a woman in tech can be a serious drawback in 2015; far more so than in the 1980s and 90s — Tinder even dumped a woman founder on the basis that the company wouldn’t be taken seriously by investors. Sadly, they may have been right.

Leave it to Slack, valued at $2.8 billion, to do things differently.

According to its diversity report released on Wednesday, 45% of all Slack managers are female, with 41% of the entire workforce having a woman as their manager. “This means that 41% of our people report to a woman who helps set their priorities, measure their performance, mentor them in their work, and who make recommendations that will impact their compensation and career growth.”  In non-engineering positions, 51% of the workforce turned out to be female. Out of the roughly 250 employees worldwide, 39% are reported to be female.

Slack is considered the fastest growing software company in history and they certainly lead  the tech pack In gender diversity.

And while their racial diversity stats are as dismal as the rest of tech they are far more actively working on changing that, too.

Here are the company’s four hiring guidelines,

1. Examining all decisions regarding hiring/recruiting, promotion, compensation, employee recognition and management structure to ensure that we are not inadvertently advantaging one group over another.

2. Working with expert advisors and employees to build fair and inclusive processes for employee retention, such as effective management education, company-wide unconscious bias training, ally skills coaching, and compensation review.

3. Helping to address the pipeline issue with financial contributions to organizations whose mission is to educate and equip underrepresented groups with relevant technical skills (like Hack the Hood and Grace Hopper), as well as supporting a variety of internship programs to broaden access to opportunity (like CODE2040). 

4. Attempting to be conscious and deliberate in our decision-making and the principles and values by which we operate. Changing our industry starts by building a workplace that is welcoming to all so that a generation of role models, examples and mentors is created.

Slack is practicing what recent studies have proven; hiring women pays.

Give that some thought the next time your unconscious bias kicks in leading you to reject a candidate because she is a she.

Image credit: HikingArtist