How do you start these conversations with the team, especially as far as wanting to reach more underrepresented groups?
When our company was very small it felt reasonable to say "We need to hire more women and underrepresented minorities", but after the team grows a bit I worry people might view that as "affirmative action" of some sort in a negative way - and I don't think I know how to handle that conversation.
Not to mention how this might interact with US employment laws around discrimination - I think I'm misguided in worrying about this because so many tech companies (like Lever) are vocal about their desire to hire more people from these groups, but it does feel a bit like there are landmines when discussing this topic.
I feel like I don't know what kind of language / goals I should be using. I DO feel like there's a distinction between good diversity efforts and accidentally shutting out some over-represented groups that don't deserve it - but I don't really know where that line is drawn.
When our company was very small it felt reasonable to say "We need to hire more women and underrepresented minorities", but after the team grows a bit I worry people might view that as "affirmative action" of some sort in a negative way - and I don't think I know how to handle that conversation.
Not to mention how this might interact with US employment laws around discrimination - I think I'm misguided in worrying about this because so many tech companies (like Lever) are vocal about their desire to hire more people from these groups, but it does feel a bit like there are landmines when discussing this topic.
I feel like I don't know what kind of language / goals I should be using. I DO feel like there's a distinction between good diversity efforts and accidentally shutting out some over-represented groups that don't deserve it - but I don't really know where that line is drawn.