Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives

How to Close the Confidence Gap

This article discusses the confidence gap between women and men, which starts in childhood and is reinforced through academic and professional years. It provides actions to address the confidence gap, such as understanding the problem, educating others, creating a forum for people to share, being conscious while recruiting, coaching perfectionism, creating a safe environment to take risks, and encouraging a collaborative workplace. It also emphasizes that the confidence gap affects not only women, but also other cultures, and that addressing it can lead to more innovation, risk-taking, and less burnout and attrition.

How to deal with a team with broken communication

When the author joined a team that had not had a dedicated manager for six months, they noticed that communication between its members was broken. To fix the problem, the author sought to understand the team and each team member's perspective, and used weekly team meetings to educate them on teamwork and how to give effective feedback and have difficult conversations. After a few weeks, the team was able to interact effectively without conflict, and gave each other peer-to-peer recognition. The author was able to work with the team to improve communication and build strong working relationships.

Making Remote Work, Work

Datadog has a distributed team across multiple time zones and cultures, and has implemented strategies such as Slack, Google Docs, Pull Requests, video conferences, and phone booths to facilitate communication. Additionally, they have team members travel to each other's offices to ensure that remote workers are seen as people, rather than just resources. It is important to have enough remote workers to make the system work, and to have someone in the same time zone as you.

How to increase your team’s diversity

This article discusses the difficulty of making a team diverse after it has already been established. It explains the steps taken to increase diversity, such as implementing a diversity slate system inspired by the Rooney Rule, and reaching out to minority groups through conferences and sponsorships. The article emphasizes the importance of being mindful of who is hired when first setting up a team, as it pays off in the long run. As a result of these efforts, 55% of the team's recruits are now women.

Cultivating the Positive Effects of Agile Retrospectives

Agile retrospectives are meetings held at the end of an iteration or at a scheduled interval, where team members can voice their opinions on what worked well and what needs improvement. Doximity has implemented team-wide retrospectives every two months, as well as smaller retrospectives for sub-teams. The lessons learned from this process have been positive, with everyone happy with the outcome.

Enabling a Pro-Diversity Culture

In order to create a pro-diversity culture, it is important for the executive team to be vocal and open about their stance. This requires individuals to bring their whole selves to work and be open about their unique backgrounds. Additionally, trainings should be embraced as a way to educate employees about unconscious bias and microaggressions. By practicing empathy and taking these issues seriously, organizations can create a diverse and safe environment for all employees.