

A suggestion for eliminating workplace discrimination completely. - amichail

Whenever possible, employees would work from home and would never actually meet their employer or fellow employees face to face.<p>Communication would be limited to text and fake names would be used.<p>Anything requiring the true identity of the employee would be done via a trusted third party.<p>If the employee's writing style reveals too much about his/her background, then he/she may request someone to help make his/her writing more generic.
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otoburb
Is discrimination an issue in that particular country that this would be a
real cause for concern?

Are you asking if this it would be a viable business model if you were the
trusted third party (e.g. identity escrow)?

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amichail
Discrimination is an issue in all countries.

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otoburb
Agreed -- but to a much lesser extent in some over other countries.

If it was, then I'd have to agree with you that working remotely under the
arrangement you proposed (akin to eLance.com) should work fine.

If this wasn't a primary concern for a new job, then I'm not sure I see the
overall benefit.

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amichail
I think it would have to be mandated by law for certain companies in which it
would work.

Otherwise, what is the incentive for an employer to provide such an
arrangement?

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tokenadult
An economist's reply to this might be that if there really are a lot of
workplaces that are so full of invidious discrimination that they don't value
talented employees, then other workplaces will gain a comparative advantage by
hiring the disfavored kind of people.

On my part, I'd certainly rather work in a diverse workplace where I meet a
lot of varied people than work through anonymized telecommuting in which I
never meet co-workers in real life.

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lsc
well, I think this makes sense for interviews; Of course, you should have the
person come in and interact before finalizing it, but I think that for most
technical positions, you will get a better candidate if you judge them based
on how they answer questions, not on how well they interview (which is largely
a test of 'charisma under pressure') I personally try to do this because I
find it easier to overcome my own biases and make a rational decision this
way.

Discrimination based on writing style (and correctness) will continue, and
personally, I think that's fine. I think it's rational to weight a good writer
over someone who can barely communicate in text.

If you are a business that operates mostly on voice communication, well, you
are going to be a more homogeneous organization. Most people feel about
accents the way I feel about poor writing skills.

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makaimc
For certain cases in IT this may be feasible, but too many interactions in
business today are still done face-to-face that would render this suggestion
impossible.

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gaius
But many people _actually enjoy_ interacting with their cow-orkers.

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amichail
But there's a price to be paid for that.

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otoburb
If you're suggesting that the price is always discrimination, then I'd have to
disagree. If not, then could you expand on this a little more?

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amichail
Discrimination is ubiquitous. The only difference between people who
discriminate and those who do not is that the latter group is better at hiding
it. But even subtle/latent discrimination can produce unfair outcomes in the
workplace.

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otoburb
For people that subscriber to this black and white worldview, your suggestion
is a temporary band-aid solution that should work well in the short-medium
term (for as long as the employee and company can keep up the faceless and
highly impersonal relationship).

I am not one that subscribes to this worldview. To each their own.

