[HN Gopher] Strengthening our workplace with neurodiverse talent
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Strengthening our workplace with neurodiverse talent
Author : ingve
Score : 57 points
Date : 2021-07-26 17:55 UTC (5 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (cloud.google.com)
| randompwd wrote:
| Anything about making their workplace less coder hostile?
|
| Open plan office - great for sales, HR, marketing and reassuring
| insecure managers/leaders/CEOs they have worth - not so great for
| people who need to concentrate hard to solve hard problems and
| write good code.
| TrinaryWorksToo wrote:
| Autism isn't a bad word. We don't talk about LGBTQ+ people as "on
| the spectrum".
| mariodiana wrote:
| This is an old article, but it came to mind when I saw this. A
| software testing company discovered that high-functioning people
| with autism make good testers.
|
| https://blogthinkbig.com/autistic-people-software-testers
| wlesieutre wrote:
| One weird trick to make readers blindly click through your
| cookie consent popover: put it in a different language than the
| page content!
|
| https://i.imgur.com/lMz297U.png
| [deleted]
| robotnikman wrote:
| Glad to see them taking the initiative to make interviews more
| accommodating for people on the spectrum.
|
| As someone on the spectrum myself, I always dreaded job
| interviews. I would try to get as much information on what the
| interview would entail as well as the atmosphere and other
| specifics so I could mentally prepare myself beforehand and give
| myself a better chance to show my best side. The example they
| provided of performing an interview in text through a google doc
| rather than over the phone really hits home for me, I feel like I
| am much better able to communicate my ideas through written
| mediums than verbally.
|
| I feel overall there is a lot of untapped talent in the
| neurodiverse community that is passed over due to some of these
| barriers in effective communication, so I'm always glad to see
| companies take initiatives like this.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| > As someone on the spectrum myself, I always dreaded job
| interviews. I would try to get as much information on what the
| interview would entail as well as the atmosphere and other
| specifics so I could mentally prepare myself beforehand and
| give myself a better chance to show my best side
|
| I'm on the spectrum as well and interviews are a bit of a mixed
| bag for me. I hate everything around it, going to a new,
| unknown location, not knowing exactly where you end up, meeting
| new people, etc.
|
| The interviews themselves, however, are fine. I basically get
| to talk about my special interest with people who are
| presumably equally knowledgable about the subject as I am. I
| usually enjoy them.
| masterof0 wrote:
| As someone on the spectrum as well, I have a question, if you
| don't like meeting new people, how are you supposed to
| collaborate with others? At Google at least, we need to work
| with people across teams all the time. Or you are hoping for
| a forever-remote gig?
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| I choose to work for small companies/startups. Preferably
| around 10-15 people.
|
| As small companies tend to grow, the trick is to get out in
| time. At a previous job the company grew to over 150 and
| that wasn't healthy for me. I should have bailed at around
| 75.
| ndthrowaway wrote:
| And somehow, this dissonance meshes fine with
| allowing/encouraging their management chain to run roughshod over
| [neuro and other]diverse employees. Eyeroll at best.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Fascinating. An interesting consequence of Google's search ads
| business's rampant success is that they get to run experiments
| like this at low risk to themselves. The advantage they have over
| the government is that they have a vested interest in making it
| succeed - access to an additional labour force - and a vested
| interest in letting go if it fails - they are still subject to
| fiduciary duty.
|
| If they open up this stuff, it'll be a win-win for Google and
| sufficiently neurodivergent people.
|
| Reminds me of that old joke about Bill Gates deciding that the
| best way to help humanity was to impose a corporate tax via MS
| Office and then use that to build toilets in Africa.
| endisneigh wrote:
| This is great, but I don't see anything that's done specifically
| for autism. What's described[1] would benefit everyone across the
| neuro-spectrum, and that's great. My question would be why they
| weren't already doing these things? Better late than never, they
| say.
|
| [1] - coaching, ongoing support for them and teammates once
| joining, offer extended time, provide questions in advance,
| conduct interview in writing
|
| One thing people always forget is that these sort of
| accommodations exist in the beginning for one group, but everyone
| benefits and that's how we move forward. Perfect example of this
| are ramps, which originally existed for those who were physically
| handicapped.
| Lapsa wrote:
| read title. sounds stupid
| PradeetPatel wrote:
| Hopefully this will help to create a more diverse and inclusive
| workforce. Neurodiversity is very underlooked in the tech
| industry.
| claudiulodro wrote:
| I'd say I'm a solid developer (at least that's what my employers
| have always said!), but I've always really bombed in-person/live
| interviews. I think it was probably a personality thing, as I'm
| pretty all-over-the-place when speaking in person. In text
| though, I can polish my thoughts before sending them!
|
| Automattic had (and still has) an interview process that was
| fully text-based via a combination of Slack, p2, and GitHub, and
| it _really_ worked well for me. I didn 't even speak to a person
| (on video) until a couple weeks into starting the job!
|
| A completely text-based interview process works great for a
| variety of people: neurodiverse, people with accents/ESL, fidgety
| people, etc. Especially for remote companies where everyone
| communicates using text 90%+ of the time! I'm glad it's catching
| on, and I hope to see it expanded to more companies.
| pyb wrote:
| "We will offer candidates in this program reasonable
| accommodations like extended interview time, providing questions
| in advance, or conducting the interview in writing in a Google
| Doc rather than verbally on a call."
|
| These would great practices for any job interview, whether the
| interviewee is on the spectrum or not.
|
| Providing questions in advance (behavioral at least) would make
| the interview process a lot better for everybody.
|
| The possibility to answer the more involved questions in writing
| would also be a great plus overall.
| [deleted]
| kbelder wrote:
| Aren't 'neurodiverse' people over-represented in IT/Computer
| Science, compared to their fraction of the population? Is trying
| to increase their share even further the correct way path to
| take?
|
| If we're talking about the general workforce, instead of
| specifically tech fields, that would make sense.
| andai wrote:
| Yes, they're already a large share, and they hate the existing
| interviewing process, as well as most office environments (and
| the politics that go along with it).
| brighton36 wrote:
| Over-representation assumes that there's an objective taxonomy
| by which representation can be factored. I find it very amusing
| that no one thinks of this, and/or can't bring this 'obvious'
| fact to light. "Imagined Communities" is a good book on some of
| this, if anyone cares to read more. I suspect that there's a
| lot of civil religion at work, that causes these taxonomies to
| not immediately appear assumptive. I would guess that we'll
| lose these components of the civil religion, over time, as a
| consequence to these initiatives.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| A more reasonable metric to use seems to be whether a group is
| over/underrepresented in a company _compared to the available
| workforce_ (not overall population), and I 'm not sure whether
| neurodiverse people are overrepresented by that metric.
|
| However, even more important would be to try to give everyone a
| fair chance, as opposed to trying to meet some metrics which
| can often lead to discrimination
| (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2018/03/02/590346891...).
|
| Since neurodiversity isn't one of the "popular"
| diversity/social justice topics, I suspect the main motivation
| here is to avoid missing applicants that are technically
| skilled and suitable, but may not do well in the interview
| process due to their neurodiversity.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| Do they still force candidates to think out loud while solving a
| problem?
| dolni wrote:
| There is a lot of this that seems poorly thought through.
|
| Asking for an employee's medical records is forbidden. Asking an
| employee to undergo a medical exam is forbidden. Asking questions
| about the employee's health or disabilities during the interview
| process is forbidden. See https://www.eeoc.gov/pre-employment-
| inquiries-and-medical-qu....
|
| With all that said, what prevents anybody from saying "I don't
| feel comfortable taking a phone call" or "I need extra time for
| this" without actually being autistic? Then the disadvantage they
| claim to be removing hasn't actually gone anywhere.
| Causality1 wrote:
| What's the problem with that? If someone has trouble with phone
| interviews why should a diagnosis be a barrier to being able to
| give the best performance they can?
| TrinaryWorksToo wrote:
| Also forcing people to use accommodations they don't want is
| illegal.
| donkeyd wrote:
| Well, for one thing it's hiring people who may not be the
| stereotypical "cultural fit". I've always been a massive
| proponent of hiring based on "cultural fit", but have recently
| started to realize it can get really toxic that way.
|
| Hiring people who are good at their jobs, but may be different
| in a social setting can be a way of indirectly hiring people on
| the spectrum. If you have many extroverted employees, hiring
| more introverted people will inevitably lead to hiring people
| on the spectrum.
|
| How do you judge this? Well, personality tests are pretty
| common already, they can absolutely show traits that are more
| common in people with autism. Also, an interview can tell you a
| lot about a person.
| jdgoesmarching wrote:
| I've always thought "cultural fit" was an odd thing to
| prioritize when we have research showing that (actual)
| diversity is more helpful for avoiding groupthink. Especially
| when this term is just begging for bias to creep in.
|
| One lesson that stuck with me was the Houston Rockets GM
| putting some barriers around how emotional judgments were
| allowed to influence decisions. Small rules like "don't give
| players nicknames" or just giving less weight to personal
| interviews were good experiments in how to keep screenings
| more objective. We don't have the granularity or
| measurability of new hire data as NBA offices do, but I think
| these concepts are still useful.
| bitwize wrote:
| > I've always thought "cultural fit" was an odd thing to
| prioritize when we have research showing that (actual)
| diversity is more helpful for avoiding groupthink.
|
| Astronaut 1: You mean... our work culture is conducive to
| groupthink?
|
| Astronaut 2: * points gun * Always has been...
| dolni wrote:
| You raise good points and I am of the mind that this is a
| difficult problem without silver bullets.
|
| I don't believe there is any way to create and vet a "100%
| bias-free guaranteed" interview process.
|
| That said, our industry does have a reputation for being
| especially unwelcoming to women. It would be a shame if a
| candidate raised red flags and those flags went undetected or
| ignored in an attempt to be "inclusive".
| jawns wrote:
| The new trend is hiring for "culture add" rather than
| "culture fit." In other words, not trying to determine
| whether a person fits in with everybody else, but trying to
| determine whether what they bring to the table is something
| new and beneficial.
|
| My own engineering team still uses the term "culture fit,"
| but I recently helped refine our interviewing guidelines to
| make it more clear what we mean:
|
| "We are assessing the _candidate 's_ comfort level with our
| processes, priorities, frequency of change, etc. Assessments
| should never reflect an _interviewer 's_ comfort level with
| any candidate's culture, personal attributes, etc."
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Regardless of what you aim for regarding culture, culture
| itself seems like the sort of thing that people can't
| readily change about themselves (just like you can't expect
| people to change their religion, even though technically
| they're free to do so in many cases), and for that reason,
| culture seems like it should be among the protected classes
| that shouldn't be used for hiring decisions. Sticking to
| whether they can get the job done, as cold as that sounds,
| seems most equal-opportunity IMHO.
| enkid wrote:
| I mean, why make people do a phone call if it doesn't actually
| help with the interview process?
| dolni wrote:
| It does help with the interview process. A lot of
| communication lies in body language and tone of voice. Taking
| that out of the equation, absent a good reason, is going to
| eliminate useful information.
|
| Some people might exhibit behaviors that are problematic in a
| professional environment. To go into a hiring decision
| without that information would be a mistake, in my opinion.
| enkid wrote:
| I would need to see some sort of evidence that a phone call
| can identify problematic behaviour in a systematic way
| before I would by into this.
| dolni wrote:
| It's well established that tone of voice conveys a lot of
| information when communicating.
|
| If a candidate says something during a phone call that
| makes the interviewer uncomfortable or have reservations,
| that's absolutely a legitimate reason not to hire
| someone.
| enkid wrote:
| Yes, tone provides a lot of information, but can someone
| accurately ascertain whether that tone will lead to
| problematic behaviour? I don't know. I would want to see
| some sort of research before accepting that this does
| what you say it does.
|
| Certainly, if someone were to say something sexist or
| racist in an interview, that would be a red flag. But I
| doubt most people would do that. So maybe you are able to
| weed some people out, but probably not very effectively,
| and you will likely still have to have other mitigations
| in place. In additions, you will have "false positives"
| in the form of people being misread. For example, they
| could be saying something genuinely and the interviewer
| thinks they are lying or being sarcastic. Are the false
| positives worth the true positives? I don't know. That's
| why I would want to see actual evidence.
| dolni wrote:
| I think the most useful context for tone would be to weed
| out people who display anger, irritation, or snark.
| Especially when the situation doesn't call for it.
|
| > In additions, you will have "false positives" in the
| form of people being misread. For example, they could be
| saying something genuinely and the interviewer thinks
| they are lying or being sarcastic.
|
| Text alone makes this far more ambiguous. You're going to
| have _way_ more trouble gauging someone's actual intent
| via words alone than vs words + tone of voice.
|
| That's the point I was making. Tone of voice is a ton of
| information. Don't take my word for it, feel free to
| Google it and you will find pages and pages outlining
| just how important it is.
| wadefletch wrote:
| I think that's very true in the context of sales jobs, or
| more generally anything that requires the same action of
| frequent, mission-critical person-to-person communication.
|
| I'm not so sure it applies in the context of a remote SWE.
| dolni wrote:
| That's kind of a tone-deaf thing to say, _especially_
| given the recent allegations surrounding Activison-
| Blizzard
| (https://www.npr.org/2021/07/22/1019293032/activision-
| blizzar...).
|
| It absolutely applies and is important.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| I suspect that you may need to actively request these as an
| accommodation, and I suspect a lot of these restrictions go out
| the window then. [1] says "When an applicant asks for an
| accommodation for the job interview, the employer can require
| medical documentation."
|
| That also means that depending on how this is implemented,
| people who aren't aware of it, too shy, undiagnosed, or don't
| want their diagnosis on the record everywhere may not benefit
| from this at all. OTOH, some of the training may improve the
| situation in general, even when no accommodation has been
| requested.
|
| [1] https://askjan.org/articles/Job-Application-Interview-
| Stage-...
| TrinaryWorksToo wrote:
| The employer can require medical documentation, but the
| documentation forbids disclosing a diagnosis.
| dsr_ wrote:
| One of the best things about accomodations is that they benefit
| nearly everyone.
|
| Ramps instead of stairs? Necessary for wheelchairs, but good
| for elderly knees and people temporarily on crutches or roller
| scooters.
|
| Keyboard of your choice? Necessary if you have low motor
| control, still good for preventing people from getting RSIs.
|
| Interview in writing instead of via voice? Guess what: benefits
| Deaf people, those who are hard of hearing, and people who have
| difficulty speaking.
| [deleted]
| andai wrote:
| Also plain old social anxiety and performance anxiety!
| H8crilA wrote:
| Interviews via Docs will have an even higher cheating rate
| than the phone calls, can't wait to hear stories about that,
| lol.
| avianlyric wrote:
| That why you have multiple stages.
|
| It's stupid to rule out accommodations because people might
| cheat. You shouldn't punish the innocent majority for the
| transgressions of the guilty minority.
| dolni wrote:
| > You shouldn't punish the innocent majority for the
| transgressions of the guilty minority.
|
| Have you stopped to think about just how much stuff we
| have to do and put up with as a society because a small
| number of people are dishonest?
|
| We have to have IDs, because people might lie about who
| they are.
|
| We have to have an entire (very expensive) criminal
| justice system because people might commit crimes.
|
| We have to have locks on the doors to our homes and
| vehicles, because people might trespass.
|
| We have to have cashiers and overly-complicated automated
| registers (with someone watching) because people might
| not want to pay for everything that they are taking out
| of a store.
|
| You show up at a closing for a new home, they want a
| cashier's check, not your personal one. Why? You might
| not actually be good for the money. Plus they do all the
| title work.
|
| Every bank has a giant safe. Every country has some
| weapons of war.
|
| It's very idealistic to say "well only a few people will
| cheat so it's fine." It isn't, and it never has been.
| vharuck wrote:
| >We have to have locks on the doors to our homes and
| vehicles, because people might trespass.
|
| But most of us don't have metal bars over our homes'
| windows. There's a middle ground of making bad behavior
| mildly inconvenient.
|
| Also, all of your examples are precautions born from
| experience. There have been burglars and shoplifters for
| centuries, so it makes sense to have some preventions.
| When deciding whether to try something new, it can be
| counterproductive to focus a lot on preventing cheating.
| I'd suggest seeing if it ever becomes a problem worth
| addressing.
| dolni wrote:
| People have been cheating on tests for as long as tests
| have been around. That is born from experience.
|
| You haven't made any compelling argument to support why a
| job interview would be different in that regard.
| dolni wrote:
| Sure, they do benefit everyone, but you missed the point I
| was making. The point is that they claim it is to level a
| playing field, but they're not actually doing that if those
| accommodations are open to everybody.
|
| Your comparison also comes off a bit disingenuous. They're
| talking about interview accommodations like "providing
| questions in advance" and "extended interview time".
| tshaddox wrote:
| But again, who is harmed by extending these accommodations
| to everyone?
| dolni wrote:
| Well, for one thing, if you have "normal" employees who
| can conduct a regular interview process, they might raise
| some red flags in how they conduct themselves in person
| that wouldn't be apparent in a remote setting.
|
| One example could be that an interviewee inappropriately
| stares at a woman or makes an inappropriate remark while
| on-campus. You wouldn't see that if the entire interview
| were conducted only via Google Docs.
| avianlyric wrote:
| Your making the assumption that the accommodations are
| meant to provide some sort of "advantage" to compensate for
| some other "disadvantage". Like dealing with disabilities
| is some sort of arithmetic problem.
|
| Accommodations just provide optionality, and let's people
| choose the approach that suites them best. Rather than
| assuming that you can fairly apply some rigid standardised
| test on people, and expect it to accurately measure
| individuals. There's plenty of data, and some pretty basic
| stats, which show this doesn't work.
|
| Proving extra time provides almost no advantage to anyone.
| Either you can answer the questions well, or you can't. The
| amount of time it takes to do isn't very relevant, so
| taking more time isn't an advantage.
|
| Providing questions in advance also isn't an advantage.
| Again you can either answer them well or not. If you're
| worried about people cheating by passing the questions
| around, then only provide them an hour or two in advanced,
| or only once they're onsite.
|
| If you're interview process can be fooled by giving people
| more time, or advanced notice, then quite frankly it's not
| a very good interview process.
| spfzero wrote:
| Why would time not be highly relevant to job performance?
| Productivity is defined as an amount of work output
| (whatever that is for the job in question), divided by
| time. So time is in fact central, and a team member who
| can do more in a unit of time should be more desirable,
| no?
| maininformer wrote:
| Not that simple. Time is usually a quarter not an hour.
| The amount of work is intermingled with value, perceived
| or actual.
| dolni wrote:
| Of course it is that simple. A quarter is made up of a
| bunch of hours.
|
| Nobody is asking an interviewee to have a full product
| prototype ready for demo inside an hour. What they do is
| present some problem to you and ask you to reason through
| it.
|
| Being able to work out pitfalls in a design early, rather
| than several weeks in, saves a lot of time and money.
|
| So in short, yes. It is that simple.
| Twisol wrote:
| > A quarter is made up of a bunch of hours.
|
| And a sandpile is made up of a bunch of grains of sand.
| [0] It's identically disingenuous to suggest that such a
| difference in quantity does _not_ manifest a difference
| in quality.
|
| I don't think your point is necessarily a bad one, but
| you're leaving a lot of opportunity for people to dismis
| it.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox
| projectazorian wrote:
| Might be relevant if the person's job is to answer
| interview questions all day, but in practice this is
| hardly ever the case.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| All else being equal, productivity might drop. But by
| hiring some less productive people as well, there are
| likely some non-productivity-related benefits to be
| enjoyed, such as broader brainstorming about how to make
| the product/service work well for a more diverse set of
| customers, and whatever value might be created by the
| morale boost (people generally like to do good) along the
| way.
| Jabbles wrote:
| Do you have an example of a question or interview process
| that you think fits your description? I think a standard
| tech-company interview has a lot of time pressure, and
| providing more time would help many candidates
| considerably.
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > I think a standard tech-company interview has a lot of
| time pressure, and providing more time would help many
| candidates considerably.
|
| ... and? A office that's accessable only by ladder has a
| lot of leg pressure, and providing wheelchair ramps would
| help many employees considerably too, regardless of
| whether they're wheelchair-bound.
| dolni wrote:
| That's a ridiculous comparison.
|
| Time pressure is directly tied to performance.
|
| Sometimes, stuff breaks and wouldn't it be great if it
| got fixed in half an hour instead of four hours?
|
| Projects sometimes have deadlines.
|
| You are not talking about an accommodation made for
| something unrelated to the job, here. This is some gold-
| level mental gymnastics.
| endisneigh wrote:
| > With all that said, what prevents anybody from saying "I
| don't feel comfortable taking a phone call" or "I need extra
| time for this" without actually being autistic? Then the
| disadvantage they claim to be removing hasn't actually gone
| anywhere.
|
| Nothing. A small minority of people gaming the system shouldn't
| necessarily mean you get rid of accommodations.
| dolni wrote:
| It doesn't mean you have to get rid of them, but you should
| probably think about what the pitfalls are and how best to
| address them. I have written about those elsewhere in this
| thread, so I won't repeat them here.
| sircastor wrote:
| Part of accommodating people who have a disability is
| introducing equity and equality into the process, and making it
| possible for all candidates to use those options. There might
| be a perception that one route is easier than another, and if
| that's the case, it's a failure on the part of the interview
| process.
|
| Options provided for equality and equity are not supposed to
| ease requirements for a subset of people, but ensure that their
| evaluation doesn't punish or discount them.
| dolni wrote:
| Do the accommodations as stated not make you think that
| cheating an interview will become very easy?
|
| "I need extra time for my interview" and "I'm uncomfortable
| with a phone call" sounds like a very easy way to get third
| party help without anybody being the wiser.
|
| And again, that flies in the face of their attempt to
| actually level the playing field.
| phreeza wrote:
| I am not an expert on the American legal system, but it seems
| like that would be fraud and thus a criminal matter. Companies
| could report suspected cases to the authorities. This here
| seems to be a case from the educational system where similar
| issues can arise: https://www.vox.com/first-
| person/2019/3/14/18265874/college-...
| dreyfan wrote:
| Seriously? The charges in the admissions scandal had to do
| with mail fraud and bribery. Do you really think the American
| judicial system is going to get involved because some Google
| employees skipped a meeting by claiming they were Autistic?
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