> I propose that any attempts to social engineer a culture via HR or any non-organic method is a doomed enterprise from the start.
Maybe this argument has merit, but it's worth noting that HR frequently does this anyways completely outside the scope of diversity & inclusion. Other core values that HR tries to "engineer" are often things like "obsessed with product" or "only cares about the customer" or some equally fake-sounding corporate nonsense.
Nonetheless, HR tries to engineer corporate cultures, both relating to and not relating to diversity & inclusiveness. I would assume there is some evidence of success by the fact that nearly every corporation does this, but maybe not. I think that's hardly an attack against D&I though, that's an attack on the existence of HR in the first place!
> You also will have to social engineer a culture that fits other groups.
> What about older developers? What about different race developers? What about cross-gender developers? What about Ahmish developers who only use pen and paper? What about Indian culture vs Korean culture vs Chinese culture vs American culture?
> It rapidly becomes a slippery slope of accommodating each and every cultural difference.
I don't think that's a slippery slope or even that difficult. If someone has a requirement for their culture that doesn't impede work, we SHOULD accommodate that: yes, we should have vegetarian options at the company lunches. Yes, we should be okay with Jewish coworkers taking off Yom Kippur. Yes, we should be okay with cross-gender developers using the pronoun of their choice. The Amish one is less likely because that affects business output so I'm sure HR departments can find an excuse to not accommodate that one, but in theory if an Amish pen/paper dev could do high quality work then I don't see why not.
> what if workplace culture becomes so biased towards one group such that other groups are excluded?
I mean, this is literally the status quo right? The whole reason for this so-called "social engineering" is because the status quo workplace culture IS biased towards one group, so the goal is to make it less biased towards them. Maybe in the process it "backfires" and makes it biased against that group, but if it does so in a significant way then I would argue we'd need D&I to help the former majority group.
Either way, the difficulty in this process isn't a convincing argument to not even try.
> The emphasis on 'culture fit' is itself an exclusionary idea by nature as it implies that there is a pre-set culture to fit into instead of the culture emerging organically from the employees.
I'm not sure what to say about this except (a) The term 'culture fit' is from my experience not related to D&I but rather used as an excuse to fire or not hire based on team members with power who don't like you (b) As a corollary to (a), most actions resulting from 'culture fit' are in fact the result of employee's opinions, and thus "organic" culture. I've never seen someone not get hired because the team members really liked the interviewee, but the interviewee didn't display enough enthusiasm for the customer and that's a core value. (as an example of an inorganic culture fit)
> The goal is not inclusivity towards any one group, the goal is a to award performance based on hard work, talent, productivity, etc.
What you're describing is a culture of meritocracy. That's nice, until you lose a dozen great-devs when the brilliant-dev (who can't get fired because he's brilliant) is an absolute asshole to everyone else on the team and makes their life miserable.
Basically, my response to you is that you clearly prefer a purely meritocratic culture, and while I don't think that's an unreasonable preference, I think the consensus among decision makers at large corporations is that a purely meritocratic culture is not effective, certainly not to the degree that you think "the culture issue will sort itself out".
> Nonetheless, HR tries to engineer corporate cultures, both relating to and not relating to diversity & inclusiveness.
I think that's far less true than it superficially appears. I think HR tries to create a PR image of interest in exactly the things that would, if perceived to be absent, motivate lawsuits against the company, for the precise purpose of being seen by the "human resources" they manage as allies to come to in the case of the problem, rather than the opponent they generally, in fact, are.
HR is far less likely to be trying to engineer an inclusive culture as to be trying to create an image of the HR organization itself that makes those who feel excluded come to them to the mollified (and to give HR a chance to work with management to weave a defenseive narrative) before seeking outside counsel.
Now, this does have some effect on culture, because you can't effectively maintain this kind of image without actually doing something about the most highly-visible and flagrant systematic violations, whether its something substantive or at least finding a way to reduce their visibility and the air of casual acceptance around them.
Maybe this argument has merit, but it's worth noting that HR frequently does this anyways completely outside the scope of diversity & inclusion. Other core values that HR tries to "engineer" are often things like "obsessed with product" or "only cares about the customer" or some equally fake-sounding corporate nonsense.
Nonetheless, HR tries to engineer corporate cultures, both relating to and not relating to diversity & inclusiveness. I would assume there is some evidence of success by the fact that nearly every corporation does this, but maybe not. I think that's hardly an attack against D&I though, that's an attack on the existence of HR in the first place!
> You also will have to social engineer a culture that fits other groups.
> What about older developers? What about different race developers? What about cross-gender developers? What about Ahmish developers who only use pen and paper? What about Indian culture vs Korean culture vs Chinese culture vs American culture?
> It rapidly becomes a slippery slope of accommodating each and every cultural difference.
I don't think that's a slippery slope or even that difficult. If someone has a requirement for their culture that doesn't impede work, we SHOULD accommodate that: yes, we should have vegetarian options at the company lunches. Yes, we should be okay with Jewish coworkers taking off Yom Kippur. Yes, we should be okay with cross-gender developers using the pronoun of their choice. The Amish one is less likely because that affects business output so I'm sure HR departments can find an excuse to not accommodate that one, but in theory if an Amish pen/paper dev could do high quality work then I don't see why not.
> what if workplace culture becomes so biased towards one group such that other groups are excluded?
I mean, this is literally the status quo right? The whole reason for this so-called "social engineering" is because the status quo workplace culture IS biased towards one group, so the goal is to make it less biased towards them. Maybe in the process it "backfires" and makes it biased against that group, but if it does so in a significant way then I would argue we'd need D&I to help the former majority group.
Either way, the difficulty in this process isn't a convincing argument to not even try.
> The emphasis on 'culture fit' is itself an exclusionary idea by nature as it implies that there is a pre-set culture to fit into instead of the culture emerging organically from the employees.
I'm not sure what to say about this except (a) The term 'culture fit' is from my experience not related to D&I but rather used as an excuse to fire or not hire based on team members with power who don't like you (b) As a corollary to (a), most actions resulting from 'culture fit' are in fact the result of employee's opinions, and thus "organic" culture. I've never seen someone not get hired because the team members really liked the interviewee, but the interviewee didn't display enough enthusiasm for the customer and that's a core value. (as an example of an inorganic culture fit)
> The goal is not inclusivity towards any one group, the goal is a to award performance based on hard work, talent, productivity, etc.
What you're describing is a culture of meritocracy. That's nice, until you lose a dozen great-devs when the brilliant-dev (who can't get fired because he's brilliant) is an absolute asshole to everyone else on the team and makes their life miserable.
Basically, my response to you is that you clearly prefer a purely meritocratic culture, and while I don't think that's an unreasonable preference, I think the consensus among decision makers at large corporations is that a purely meritocratic culture is not effective, certainly not to the degree that you think "the culture issue will sort itself out".