Diversity = Talent Retention

So the tech lever study that I mentioned, you can just Google it. It's on the web for free. A couple of thousand engineers. Who leaves tech and why? It was done two years ago. Four findings. Unfairness drives turnover costs billions a year. Experiences differ dramatically between groups. But specific initiatives can and do make a difference if they're flying. Formulated accurately. 37% said that unfair treatment was the most frequently cited reason for leaving. Twice as many left because they felt treated unfairly in their workplace as were recruited away. And that's across all groups. And the unfairness differs. 40% men of color were most likely to leave due to unfair treatment. Experiences differed dramatically across those groups. And this includes things that are not about race or about gender. These include things like bullying. One in ten women experienced unwanted sexual attention, which has, as we talked about, been getting more attention. 30% of women of color passed over for promotion. Single greatest reason turnover. $16 billion for unfair treatment in employee replacement costs annually. And that's just the turnover costs. It's fairly standardly and conservatively accepted. What does it cost to replace a person so it would be cheaper to fix it? We also asked the leavers what would have made you stay? And we asked them how their experience impacts their willingness to refer a friend, a family member, someone else to that company. So 35%, slightly more than a third, said no. Based on my experience, I can't recommend that company as a place to work, nor can I recommend its products and services. So if you want to try to calculate that cost, that is one that is not in the 16 billion. Economists don't agree on how to calculate that kind of reputational hit. But the good news, a comprehensive approach can and does make a difference both in reducing unfair treatment and in increasing retention or reducing turnover. So the majority, if you ask people what would have kept you, they have an answer. The majority would have stayed if they felt like there was a place to go to get their problem fixed. Right. And we're not talking about a formal complaint, we're not talking about a lawsuit. We're talking about practical problem solving mechanisms where they feel like who they can go to is impartial, an impartial third party, for instance. There were five specific measures we tested for having a head of diversity and inclusion doesn't make a statistically significant difference either in the amount of unfairness or in the amount of turnover. Second thing, we here are all the ones we tested for setting explicit diversity goals and underrepresented employee referral bonuses. Actually, those two independently make a statistically significant difference conducting unconscious bias training does not. How many have gone through unconscious bias training? Didn't make a difference, right? Wasted some time. Might have been fun, might have been interesting. Doesn't make a statistically significant difference in reducing unfairness or increasing retention. Employee Resource groups Many companies, virtually all tech companies, including young startups, have employee resource groups. And indeed those can be great ways to meet colleagues, compare notes on who's a good manager, how do you get promoted around here? But again, doesn't make a statistically significant difference. What does make a difference, actually, besides these two individual kinds of initiatives, is all five together. All five make more of a difference than just those two independently.