Yelp Publishes List of Diversity Strategies for Tech Companies

Throughout every sector of business, diversity is an issue. Increasing diversity as well as offering equitable pay is on the mind of both companies and their employees more than ever before. According to a recent article which appeared on the HR Dive website, technology company Yelp’s strategy for increasing the company’s diversity across the board is data-driven. But the article indicated that the approach that Yelp is taking shouldn’t be regarded as a “silver bullet” for hiring talent in the technology sector.

Yelp examined which strategies were successful for incresing diversity and created a database of strategies that other tech firms could use. Some of the strategies have included mixing genders on hiring committees, as well as  modulating or disguising voices on interview calls. Yelp has also expanded its recruiting efforts on college campuses and focused on attracting more women, African American, and Hispanic students. According to the Harvard Business Review, these efforts have received a mixed reaction,

The company released figures about its diversity hiring in 2014. In that year, 10% of the hiring that Yelp made in that year were women. Hispanics and black workers that year were recorded at 7% and 4%. Yelp’s management came decided that they would share their diversity hiring strategies with other companies within the tech sector for further evaluation.

Perhaps the most driving issue, according to HR Dive, is the difficulty that employers have in finding qualified candidates, particularly in tech related fields. Biases undoubtedly still exist in hiring, and overlooking candidates because a recruiter may assume that they are unqualified unsuited to the culture within the company. Some HR software development companies such as SAP Technology, for example, have introduced software packages designed for HR professionals that can detect whether or not a worker was either recruited or rejected because of bias.

Even though most businesses are very vocal about their commitment toward creating a more diverse culture within their organizations, there is still a great deal of resistance toward government policies such as Affirmative Action legislating quotas for hiring more women and minorities. Such programs were designed to even the playing field, especially fields that tend to be dominated by white male workers and passing over qualified female or minority candidates and some managers feel that such measures are not as necessary as they might have been in the past.

According to a Harris Poll that was released this past May, of the workers who left a job over the past year, 37% of those surveyed indicated they did so because of mistreatment in the workplace. The largest percentages of workers citing workplace mistreatment were women, African Americans and Hispanics. HR professionals would do well to pay attention to the trend either by utilizing software packages such as what was developed by SAP Technologies and were designed to detect biases or through using another set of processes

For other tech giants such as Microsoft, Facebook, YouTube and other Silicon Valley giants, diversity hiring practices have long been a goal to strive toward. Recently, a public directory indicating how employees rate more than 20,000 U.S. Companies on a Gender and Diversity Score was launched by Comparably. Visitors who are looking for the best companies to work for in terms of compensation and culture can find this information on the site. Workers can also rate their current company in order to let other potential new hires know what the company is like.

Workplace diversity is important on many levels. Workers, regardless of their sex, ethnicity, gender or other factors want to be judged based on their capabilities and job skills. NetPEO HR understands that the right person for the right job is important to your small and medium sized company.  We want to help you attract the best talent to positions you to fill and help you promote your most capable workers from within. Contact us today at 888-981-3622 to find out more.