Facebook Releases Training Course To Combat Lack Of Diversity In Tech Companies
By Melony Roy
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The first step is admitting you have a problem.
Facebook has released a training course for companies looking to combat the lack of gender and racial diversity that seems to plague most tech companies.
Facebook has launched a new page called "Managing Unconscious Bias." It features a training course and informational videos aimed at improving diversity in the workplace.
Facebook's VP of People, Lori Goler says, "If we don't acknowledge it, we cant do anything about it. If we don't do anything we cant make progress against it and we cant make Facebook the kind of diverse workplace it needs to be"
Facebook is no poster child for diversity. Well over half of Facebook's employees are male, and 94 percent of its tech roles are held by white or Asian employees.
The videos cover four areas: stereotypes and performance bias, performance attribution bias, competence/likability tradeoff bias, and maternal bias.
Maxine Williams is Facebook's head of diversity. She says, "In a workplace, it robs us of the ability to find, to hire, to retain the best talent when we apply stereotypes to people that are negative"
In a blog post, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg says in order to "reflect the diversity of its 1.4 billion users, the network needs to have people with different backgrounds, races, genders and points of view working at Facebook."