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Small firms and nonprofits like KPCC struggle with technology's diversity problem

Mary Ann de Lares Norris is Chief Operating Officer of Oblong Industries. She brings her dog LouLou to Oblong's downtown LA headquarters.; Credit: Brian Watt/KPCC

Brian Watt

KPCC recently reported on the tech world’s diversity problem. Technology firms face challenges in hiring diverse staffs of its coders, web developers and software engineers.

It’s also a challenge at nonprofits such as Southern California Public Radio,  parent of 89.3 KPCC, which has always sought to build a staff that reflects the region it serves. The section of that staff that develops the KPCC app and makes its website run is all white and mostly male.

But a small talent pool means the diversity challenge is even greater for nonprofits and even smaller tech firms.

“The first problem is that all of the people working for me are male,” says Alex Schaffert, the one female on KPCC’s tech team.  “I’m kind of focusing on maybe getting another girl into the mix.”

Schaffert can use the term “girl” because she happens to be the leader of the tech team:  KPCC’s Managing Director of Digital Strategy and Innovation. 

Why diversity is important

Schaffert recently launched the topic of diversity – or lack thereof – at a weekly meeting of her team. She expected a “stilted and awkward” discussion from the five white men on her team, but a few of them didn’t hold back.  

“Not having diversity represented on the team leaves us more susceptible to circular thinking and everyone sort of verifying each other's assumptions,” said Joel Withrow,  who was serving at the time as KPCC’s Product Manager. “It impacts the work. It limits what you’re able to build.”

Sean Dillingham, KPCC’s Design and Development Manager, said living in a diverse community is what attracted him to Los Angeles, and he wants diversity in his immediate work team, too.

“When I look at other tech companies, I will often go to their ‘about us’ page, where they’ll have a page of photos of everyone, and I am immediately turned off when I just see just a sea of white dudes, or even just a sea of dudes,” Dillingham said.

Big competition, small talent pool

Dillingham and Schaffert are currently recruiting heavily to fill two tech-savvy positions. When a reporter or editor job opens up at KPCC, Schaffert says close to 100 resumes come in.

"But if you post a programmer job, and you get three or four resumes, you may not get lucky among those resumes," she says. "There may not be a woman in there. There may not be a person of color in there."

In other words, the talent pool is already small, and the diversity challenge makes it even smaller. KPCC is competing for talent with Google and Yahoo and all the start-ups on L.A.’s Silicon Beach. 

Schaffert’s being proactive, mining LinkedIn and staging networking events to attract potential candidates. She’s also trying to make sure KPCC’s job descriptions don’t sound like some she's seen in the tech world.

"If you read between the lines, they’re really looking for someone who is male and is somewhere between 25-30 years old and likes foosball tables and free energy drinks in the refrigerator," Schaffert says. “So you read between lines, and you know that they’re not talking about me, a mother of two kids who also has a demanding career. They're talking about someone different.”

Pay vs. passion

Schaffert's challenges and approaches to dealing with them are similar to those of Mary Ann de Lares Norris, the Chief Operating Officer at Oblong Industries. Based in downtown Los Angeles and founded in 2006, the company designs operating platforms for businesses that allow teams to collaborate in real time on digital parts of a project.

“I think technology and diversity is tough,” Norris told KPCC.  She’s proud her company’s management ranks are diverse, but says only 12 percent of its engineers are female. “Pretty standard in the tech industry, but it’s not great,” Norris says. “We really strive to increase that number, and all of the other companies are also, and it's really hard.”

Like Schaffert at KPCC, Norris works hard fine-tuning job descriptions and communicating that her company values diversity and work-life balance. But sometimes, it just boils down to money.

"We have to put out offers that have competitive salaries,” Norris says, adding that she can’t compete with the major tech firms. "The Googles and the Facebooks of the world can always pay more than we can. So we attract people who are passionate about coming to work for Oblong.  And, of course, we also offer stock options."

KPCC doesn’t have the  stock options, but we’ve got plenty of passion. Could that be the secret recruiting weapon for both small tech companies and nonprofits?  

LinkedIn recently surveyed engineers about what they look for in an employer. Good pay and work-life balance were the two top draws. Slightly more women prioritized work-life balance and slightly more men chose the big bucks. 

Clinical Entrepreneurship professor Adlai Wertman says that, historically, nonprofits and small businesses actually had the upper hand over big companies in recruiting minorities and women.

"There’s a feeling that they’re safer, more caring environments, less killer environments, and we know that corporate America has been the bastion of white males," said Wertman. 

But Wertman says that advantage disappears in the tech world because of the "supply-and-demand" problem with talent. When big firms decide to focus on diversity – as some have recently — they have plenty of resources.

"They’re always going to be able to pay more, and in truth they’re getting access to students coming out of these schools in ways that we as nonprofits and small companies never will," said Wertman. 

Wertman worked 18 years as an investment banker on Wall Street, then left to head a nonprofit on L.A.’s skid row. Now he heads the Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab Enterprise Lab at USC’s Marshall School of Business. He believes that, early on, the big companies have the best shot attracting diverse tech talent. But in the long run, much of that talent will turn back to smaller firms and nonprofits.

"I think ultimately people vote with where they’re most comfortable, where 'my values align with my employer's values, and if I don’t feel those values align, then I’m going to leave,'" Wertman said. "Ultimately, I think, for a lot of women and minorities, there’s a lot of value alignment within communities that are doing good in the world." 

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.




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Overall unemployment in state, LA County keeps falling, but some places still struggle

Walter Flores was unemployed for 8 months in 2014 but is now working in sales for Workforce Solutions in Compton; Credit: Brian Watt/KPCC

Brian Watt

California's unemployment rate continued its decline in December, ending the year at 7 percent, according to figures released Friday by the state Employment Development Department.

But in Compton, Willowbrook and the Florence-Graham section of Los Angeles County, it remains about double that, data show.

“You might have work this week. But next week, you won’t have work,” said James Hicks, 36, 0f Compton. He's worked in warehouses through staffing agencies, but said the jobs have always been temporary.

Statewide, California has added jobs at a faster rate than the United States for three straight years, according to Robert Kleinhenz, Chief Economist with the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. He pointed out the statewide unemployment rate is now where it was June 2008. 

"All in all, with the recession now five years back in our rearview mirror, we’re finally at the point where we can say that we have shrugged off quite a bit of the pain that occurred back during those times," Kleinhenz said.

The Los Angeles County metro area saw a net gain of almost 71,000 jobs in 2014.  The County's overall unemployment rate has fallen to 7.9 percent from 9.2 percent a year ago.

But Compton's unemployment rate was 13 percent in December.

“I’d rather have a  full-time type of gig, working 40 hours a week, but right now, even if you get 25 hours, it’s a blessing,” said Hicks, the warehouse worker in Compton.

On Thursday, he interviewed to be a guard with a security firm, but was told there weren’t any positions available. He had another security guard job six months ago that he thought might become full time and permanent. 

"It was going all right for about two to three months, until they cut my hours and days," Hicks said. 

Walter Flores lives in La Mirada but currently works as an account executive in the Compton office of Workforce Solutions. He was unemployed for about eight months last year after a car accident.

"Losing what you love to do is a tough one, but I'm back," he said. "2015 is going to be a great year."

Flores said most major warehouse and logistics companies prefer to hire temporary workers through industrial staffing firms like the one where he's working because their needs are sporadic.  

But he said it's still a potential opportunity.

"It doesn't matter that it's a temporary position, as long as you put your foot in the door, and then you let the employer know how much value you are for the company," Flores said.  

Hicks, who's earned a GED, wants to find a program to study physical therapy. But first, he’d like to find a job. 

He said you can't judge Compton’s residents by its unemployment rate.

"Some of us out here who [are] looking for jobs, but sometimes it’s the luck of the draw," he said. "It’s kind of scarce out there.” 

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.




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A Year After The Woolsey Fire, This Malibu Day Laborer Still Struggles to Find Work

Julio Osorio stands in the Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery near his mother's grave. (Emily Elena Dugdale/KPCC); Credit: Emily Elena Dugdale

Emily Elena Dugdale

The devastating Woolsey fire broke out one year ago. In Malibu, it wreaked havoc not only on hundreds of homeowners but also on the day laborers, housekeepers and gardeners who traveled to the city to work in its affluent neighborhoods.

 

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.




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Kingdom Struggles

Kingdom Struggles In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. God is one. Amen. On this Meatfare Sunday we are urged by the Church not to eat meat for the next week, as we prepare ourselves for Lent that begins on Monday, the 2nd of March. The challenge is to practise self-discipline, to experience that we “eat to live,” not “live to eat.” Yet in the Gospel today from the 25th chapter of St Matthew, Jesus Christ praises those righteous people who gave Him food when he was hungry and drink when He was thirsty. The righteous are puzzled, because they have not seen Jesus Christ. However, He explains to them that when you gave food and drink to those in need, you gave that nourishment “to Me.” It appears that possibly the Gospel and the theme for Meatfare Sunday might be in conflict about what attitude to take to food. However, in fact, the Gospel and Meatfare Sunday strongly support each other, because what is being considered is not our attitude to food, but our relationship to Jesus Christ. Meatfare Sunday urges us to become more self-disciplined so that we can draw closer to Christ. The Gospel today urges us to help those in need, to seek social justice, so that we can draw closer to Christ. In brief, both Meatfare Sunday and this Gospel are urging us to draw closer to Christ. In this Gospel “the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” Later, in the Gospel of St John, Jesus Christ states: “I am the good shepherd; [and] the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” So, why are the sheep praised so much and the goats so rejected? The correct translation of this Gospel verse is “As the shepherd separates the sheep from the young kids.” St John Chrysostom points out that “indeed from sheep great is the profit—as from the milk, as from the wool, and from the young, of all which things the young kid [does not have]” [cited by The Orthodox New Testament: The Holy Gospels, Volume 1, Holy Apostles Convent, Buena Vista, Colorado, p. 123]. To put it bluntly, the sheep have grown up and reached spiritual maturity, but the young kids have only begun their lives and are not yet spiritually mature. The division between sheep and young kids in this Gospel passage from St Matthew is linked to judgment on our lives, both God’s judgment of us and our own judgment of ourselves. Metropolitan Antony Bloom has written, and I quote, of how: “the day will come when we shall stand before God and [we will] be judged, but as long as our pilgrimage [on earth] continues, as long as we live in the process of becoming [that is, of growing closer to Christ], as long as there is ahead of us this road that leads to the full measure of the stature of Christ [that is, the importance of following Christ in our lives] which is our vocation [our calling], judgment must be [given on ourselves] by ourselves…. On [this] road [that leads to Christ] judgment is something which is happening all the time with[in] us; there is a dialogue, a … tension between [on the one hand,] our thoughts, emotions, feelings, actions and [on the other hand,] our conscience, which stands in judgment upon us…. There is a continuing dialogue with[in] us through our life,” concluded Metropolitan Antony [Meditations: A Spiritual Journey, Dimension Books, pp. 3-4]. In the reflection that Metropolitan Antony has set out, the sheep could be viewed as our consciences—our awareness of what is right—in conflict with many of “our thoughts, emotions, feelings [and] actions,” that represent the young kids. If Metropolitan Antony is right that “judgment is something which is happening all the time with[in] us”—and that is certainly an Orthodox Christian approach—then this separation between sheep and young kids is happening within us throughout our lives, as well as on the Final Day of Judgment. Essentially, we are trying now to rid ourselves of sin, through sinning less and less, as well as confessing whenever appropriate. However, we can’t rid ourselves of sin through willpower, but rather through prayer and listening to our consciences and listening to the Lord. In our lifelong battle with the tendency to sin, Metropolitan Antony points out; and I quote: “We very often walk in darkness, and this darkness is the result of our darkened mind, of our darkened heart, of our darkened eye; and it is only if the Lord Himself sheds His light into our soul, upon our life, that we can begin to see what is wrong and what is right in [our souls].” Metropolitan Antony then draws upon the writings of the Russian Orthodox priest, St John of Kronstadt, who boldly and rightly claimed that “God does not reveal to us the ugliness of our souls unless He can [observe] in us sufficient faith and sufficient hope for us not to be broken by the vision of our sins. In other words,” continues Metropolitan Antony, “whenever we see ourselves with our dark side, this knowledge increases, as we can understand ourselves [better and better,] more [and more,] in the light of God, that is, in the light of the Divine Judgement…. This means two things: it means, indeed that we sadly discover our own ugliness, but also that we can rejoice at the same time, because God has granted us His trust. He has entrusted to us a new knowledge of ourselves as we are, as He always saw us … [but in His mercy] He did not allow us to see ourselves [earlier] because we could not [yet] bear the sight of truth….[Thus] judgement becomes joy, because although we discover what is wrong [with our thoughts and our actions], this discovery is [given to us with] the knowledge that God has seen enough faith, enough hope and enough [courage in the face of pain and suffering] in us to allow us to see, because He knows that now we can act,” concludes Metropolitan Antony [Meditations, pp. 4-5]. I find those insights from Metropolitan Antony and St John of Kronstadt quite inspiring. When we seek to draw closer to Christ’s unique will for each of us, we still face problems and challenges in our lives However, we can be confident that as we see our sins more clearly this is itself a beautiful sign that God trusts us and is telling us that we are now ready to face and remove those sins from our lives. We are all in the midst of the pilgrimage on earth to draw closer to Christ, with the support of the Theotokos, the Mother of God, and the angels and the saints. This is not a mystic journey reserved for a few holy and sinless souls. On the contrary, precisely as Metropolitan Antony says: on this journey of drawing closer and closer to Christ, “the first step is to get to know ourselves”—our strengths and weaknesses, our hopes and our fears—both within ourselves and with regard to others. “The first step … in our evaluation of ourselves will be to measure this state of disruption [caused by the sin that presently exists within us].” To encourage us to evaluate ourselves, Metropolitan Antony sets out a number of tough questions that each of us, whatever our age, must answer for ourselves: “How much are my heart and my mind at variance [that is, not consistent] with one another? Is my will directed to one unique goal [of drawing closer and closer to Christ] or is [my will continually] wavering? How far are my [thoughts and my] actions directed by my [conscience and by my] convictions [or] how far are [my thoughts and my actions] under the [influence] of unruly impulses [that is, the sudden desire to do something without thinking of the consequences]? Is there any wholeness within me? … How separated am I from God and my neighbour?” [Meditations, p. 5]. These are tough questions that Metropolitan Antony poses to each of us. However, the very fact that we are asking ourselves these questions now is a sign that God is with us and that He will guide us to face our sins and draw closer to Him. Meatfare Sunday and this Gospel about the sheep and the young kids offer us encouraging guidelines for how to prepare for the season of Lent that will soon be upon us. Let us each face our sins, bring them to Confession, and get to know ourselves, so that we will then come to know Christ in His full, resurrected Glory. And so, we ascribe as is justly due all might, majesty, dominion, power and praise to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, always now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Father Emmanuel Kahn




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Despite these proposed changes, Volkswagen’s CEO Thomas Schafer has not ruled out more drastic options, such as plant closures, if cost-cutting goals are not met through negotiations. “Successful operations are a prerequisite for job security,” said Arne Meiswinkel, VW’s lead negotiator, highlighting the necessity for lower labour costs to stabilise the company.

Volkswagen reported a steep 42 per cent drop in third-quarter operating profits, and its core brand posted only a two per cent operating margin through September. According to CFO and COO Arno Antlitz, this underscores the need for “significant cost reductions and efficiency gains” to sustain the company’s operations.

Rumours of potential plant closures in Germany have circulated as the company confronts inefficiencies across several domestic sites. Schafer remarked that the issues cannot be resolved by “simple cost-cutting measures,” indicating deeper structural challenges within the automaker’s German manufacturing operations.

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