Facing diversity

 

As the Global Head of Diversity at Facebook, Maxine Williams reveals her plans to shake up the workforce behind the social media website.

Technology companies have switched on to diversity. Google released its diversity figures in May 2014, with LinkedIn, Yahoo!, Apple and others following soon after. A trend was immediately apparent: the majority of employees were male, and most of them were white.

In an age where equal opportunities are encouraged between sexes and among ethnic and social backgrounds, how had this happened? And how had it occurred in companies responsible for products and services seen as modern and cutting-edge?

Given that Facebook now serves so many people all around the world, diversity for us is indispensible

Maxine Williams, Facebook’s Global Head of Diversity since September 2013, is one of those searching for answers and solutions. Facebook’s 7,185-strong workforce is 69 per cent male, and while California is 38 per cent Hispanic and 14 per cent Asian, in the US its California-centred workforce is 34 per cent Asian, with Hispanic, black or mixed race making only 13 per cent together. For a business that represents the lives of 1.3 billion people though, in all their diversity, that isn’t representative. The question is, what can be done about it?

Williams is well placed to take on the challenge. As a black woman, she represents two of the industry’s current minority populations. And she’s well aware of the pressing need. “Given that Facebook now serves so many people all around the world, diversity for us is indispensible,” she says.

“We can’t build the products that will delight and be relevant to all of the people of the world unless we understand their perspectives and reflect those in the building of our products.”

Finding the way

A graduate in Caribbean Studies and Law from Yale and Oxford, Williams has worked in the Caribbean and New York as a manager of a human rights network, a lecturer, an attorney-at-law, a TV presenter and a director of diversity programmes. In November 2013, she earned a place on Ebony magazine’s Power 100 list. “The thread that ties these roles together is my interest in helping to open the doors of opportunity for all, with justice and equality as drivers,” she says.

Opening the doors is only one of the answers though, as the technology industry needs to do more to bring diversity in at earlier stages. “Sadly, certain groups of people are greatly underrepresented in the fields which we require,” she says. “As such, it is a great struggle to find the quality and quantity of workers representing the diversity we seek.”

Studies have been completed in the past to show how unwelcoming and exclusive women find the tech industry. According to the Computer Research Association, data on US college graduates in computer sciences also shows only small numbers of black and Hispanic students obtaining BA and MA degrees.

Reasons for this are unclear, but a common theory is a lack of access to technology, computer science education and funding in ethnic communities.

It’s an issue affecting the whole technology community, and to help, Facebook has teamed up with the non-profit group YesWeCode, which helps young people from low-opportunity backgrounds. It has already devised a search tool to help people find local schemes offering coding lessons either for free or at low cost, and an internal group of volunteers, Pipeline Builders, has also been formed at the company help with initiatives like this.

Rerouting the pipeline

“We are trying to be more creative about how and where we look for talent,” Williams adds. “This involves more concentrated outreach in the communities where greater numbers of the people we seek reside and live and working closer with organisations that can serve as pipelines to that talent.”

The business has also partnered with the Anita Borg Institute for Women & Technology, as well as the National Center for Women & Information Technology, to help women studying relevant subjects find a position within the company.

“More female role models are critical,” says Williams. “It is human nature to believe what we see, and when women see other women at the top, they believe they can get there too. Their efforts to succeed become grounded in a reality that they know can be theirs.”

Of course, there is the obvious question here, that with all of the data at its disposal, can Facebook address its users directly and spread the message that way? More to the point, with such detailed information on its customers, why not use it to inform hiring and become truly representative?

“Data aids hiring insofar as we can see, without speculating, where the gaps in our workforce exist and where the deeper pipelines of talent can be found,” says Williams. “But it’s never about quotas. Our objective is to get as diverse a population as possible without sacrificing quality, and we hire people solely based on their qualification for the job.”

The technology industry needs to change the way it presents itself and attracts talent if it is to break free of the stereotypical image of its employees. Williams says that homogenised workforces are like any other monoculture – they limit what is possible. “We need all types of thinkers and talents,” she explains. “This is part of the exciting ride we are on together. Those of us who are not trained in technology get to spend time with those who are, and we learn from each other in invaluable ways.”

If you enjoyed the above diversity blog then you might also appreciate the following:

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• Tales from the top: gender diversity
• Q&A with Carla Rebelo, MD of Hays Brazil
• Facing diversity
• Gender diversity: still a long way from equality
• More female leaders, please