A suggestion for eliminating workplace discrimination completely. | Hacker News Reader

A suggestion for eliminating workplace discrimination completely.

1 pointamichail12 comments

Whenever possible, employees would work from home and would never actually meet their employer or fellow employees face to face.

Communication would be limited to text and fake names would be used.

Anything requiring the true identity of the employee would be done via a trusted third party.

If the employee's writing style reveals too much about his/her background, then he/she may request someone to help make his/her writing more generic.

View on HN

Is discrimination an issue in that particular country that this would be a real cause for concern?

Are you asking if this it would be a viable business model if you were the trusted third party (e.g. identity escrow)?

Discrimination is an issue in all countries.

Agreed -- but to a much lesser extent in some over other countries.

If it was, then I'd have to agree with you that working remotely under the arrangement you proposed (akin to eLance.com) should work fine.

If this wasn't a primary concern for a new job, then I'm not sure I see the overall benefit.

I think it would have to be mandated by law for certain companies in which it would work.

Otherwise, what is the incentive for an employer to provide such an arrangement?

An economist's reply to this might be that if there really are a lot of workplaces that are so full of invidious discrimination that they don't value talented employees, then other workplaces will gain a comparative advantage by hiring the disfavored kind of people.

On my part, I'd certainly rather work in a diverse workplace where I meet a lot of varied people than work through anonymized telecommuting in which I never meet co-workers in real life.

well, I think this makes sense for interviews; Of course, you should have the person come in and interact before finalizing it, but I think that for most technical positions, you will get a better candidate if you judge them based on how they answer questions, not on how well they interview (which is largely a test of 'charisma under pressure') I personally try to do this because I find it easier to overcome my own biases and make a rational decision this way.

Discrimination based on writing style (and correctness) will continue, and personally, I think that's fine. I think it's rational to weight a good writer over someone who can barely communicate in text.

If you are a business that operates mostly on voice communication, well, you are going to be a more homogeneous organization. Most people feel about accents the way I feel about poor writing skills.

For certain cases in IT this may be feasible, but too many interactions in business today are still done face-to-face that would render this suggestion impossible.

But many people actually enjoy interacting with their cow-orkers.

But there's a price to be paid for that.

If you're suggesting that the price is always discrimination, then I'd have to disagree. If not, then could you expand on this a little more?

Discrimination is ubiquitous. The only difference between people who discriminate and those who do not is that the latter group is better at hiding it. But even subtle/latent discrimination can produce unfair outcomes in the workplace.

For people that subscriber to this black and white worldview, your suggestion is a temporary band-aid solution that should work well in the short-medium term (for as long as the employee and company can keep up the faceless and highly impersonal relationship).

I am not one that subscribes to this worldview. To each their own.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com