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Comment by gwd | Hacker News Reader

When you think of "toxic work culture", is "failure to promote diversity" the first thing that comes to mind? Are people really quitting SpaceX and Netflix in droves because they're not sufficiently supporting minority / LGBTQ rights?

If anything, doing some "window dressing" for "diversity" is probably a lot easier than actually changing toxic patterns of behavior of the existing set of employees. (And of course actually promoting racial and cultural diversity is a lot more difficult than both.)

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Actually aggressively promoting "diversity" (like forcing people into diversity trainings) would count as toxic workplace culture to me.

This seems like a good post to remind everyone that diversity training exists because it shields companies from financial liability when found guilty of discrimination.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c5184a20-085e...

Interesting, but not really reassuring.

I'm a straight white cis male well into adulthood and somehow I've never been "forced" into this diversity training you're concerned about. I've never seen it happen. I don't know a single coworker who has had it happen to them. I don't know a single friend who has.

If you've been "forced" into diversity training, especially if it's happened to you more than once and doubly so if it hasn't happened to others on your teams - you might want to engage in a bit of self-introspection.

Your comment really feels like the kind of comment I would expect from someone who does in fact need 'diversity training'.

It doesn't exist because you never experienced it? There are lots of stories about places that demand it (usually big companies and government, I suppose).

For example Google was in the news several times for woke upheavals. Not sure if they do actual diversity training, but it does sound like a toxic workplace.

Also interesting how quick you are to suggest the need for diversity training, while being adamant that no such pressure exists.

I think you've got some things mixed up. The word "woke" usually means being aware of issues with discrimination in the workplace. I'd have to agree with the grandparent comment, if you're suggesting that being aware of discrimination makes it a toxic workplace then you probably need to do some kind of diversity training, not necessarily in the workplace but just generally considering why it's not a good idea to dismiss employee concerns offhand as "woke upheavals". It's not so fun being on the receiving end, if you end up as the one making the harassment complaint and the boss dismisses it by telling you to shut up and stop being woke. Similar things have happened to people I've known.

I have followed these developments for a while. I think these days the harassment is much more likely to come from the "woke" crowd towards anybody they don't like. that is what I meant by forced diversity training, where non-minority people are told they are guilty of all evil in the world and they should tread on egg shells around "diverse people" and keep their head down.

Obviously the woke themselves see it differently. I didn't mean to discuss the pros and cons, merely to point out that the overly political correctness control is also toxic. I mean there are literally protests to get people fired because they offended the woke sensibilities. If that is not toxic, then what?

"woke" does not mean being aware of discrimination in the workplace, it means believing in the whole ideology of people being constantly held back by discrimination, with certain people to be blamed for every problem in the world.

On average unconscious bias training has no statistically significant effect on average.

Unconscious bias has been debunked, anyway. But it is too useful - endless possibilities if you can make a legitimate seeming claim to know better what goes on in people's heads than those people themselves. Peak elitism, too.

Yeah, toxic workplaces are usually toxic to also people other than those belonging to particular minorities.

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