This set of notes come courtesy of Elizabeth Blythe. Endless thanks to Elizabeth for taking these notes and permitting me to share them with all of you. On a personal level, I especially wanted to thank all of the attendees/participants in this session. The conversation about diversity and inclusivity was one of the most earnest and heartfelt discussions we've had at GDC.
How to develop your leads?
- Responder: We faced team problems, run once per week without the Art Director directing. The team would pick topics. Extreme ownership was a book they'd read and had discussions. Treated management as a craft and something that can be learned. One person good at time management would help one another out.
- Responder - Try to have the convo earlier in the career to identify what a person wants to do, identify strengths and where they want to go, then train on that organically. Provide some guidelines with a little bit of structure. Assign another art director as a mentor, then have them meet twice per month. Also, if they fail at a role, have convos about how that failed.
- Responder - working as an art group to define what the leadership structure looks like. When leveling, we defined 2 second tracks - leadership and specialist.
- Responder- large teams with co-dev. Leads and directors for a single project across studios - having a job description is part of what we start with. It sets expectations, an check it monthly with the person. There's a three tier approach, and get feedback from the lead, asking them what they think they need to start-stop-continue. The expectations gives clarity.
- Responder - I'm interested in retention and titling. Prevent people from leaving when there is no chance for advancement? The current structure is an entry - associate - chair - self. - people leaving due to a feeling of lack of advancement. Meaningful one-on-ones to discern what they want… more money versus wanting to "advance". Try to decouple compensation with costs.
Anyone have experience with tactical ideas and strategies to improve diversity on their staff?
- Responder - Mention that they prefer apps from under-represented groups. A lot of emphasis on showing off their studio culture as being very considerate and diverse. We also get work experience students in that are often under-represented. Send women developers to conferences and cons, help them with costs, and make an effort to make them the face of the organization. Talk to under-represented team members and make an effort to make certain they're heard.
- Responder- spent a lot of time getting the word out to get a super diverse group. Made certain to promote in places that had reach to the applicant pool, like websites that support diversity.
- Responder - make sure the target audience sees the adverts is a key issue. Also, get away from the idea that some implicit biases are bullshit - hire for skill, not assumptions about how that skill can be applied. For example, hiring women to make a [shooter] game was nervous, because the team wasn't sure how they'd go with guns, etc, but it turned out fine
- Responder: flexible work hours has really helped us get people of various backgrounds, like people with kids and other stages of life. yes, rethinking about people being able to work remotely is a huge advantage.
- Responder - thinking about changing which schools we recruit from because when you hire from a specific school, you inherit the school's biases. We have implemented diversity rules because we need our team to mirror our clients.
- Responder - There are recruitment agencies like Bain and Amethyst can help you change the wording of your job advertisements to get feedback on how to make the ad more broadly appealing.
- Responder - Presenting at school, but also getting senior positions to be filled with diverse groups, like having a woman senior manager who goes and does presentations at schools. It makes us seem more friendly to diverse groups and got us a bigger pool of applicants.
- Responder - established a group to promote gender equality at schools and events. Another thing, there are services where we allow everyone to attend, but we market to women (for example) solely because women seemed turned off by things they think are targeted towards men.
- Responder: be cautious when asking someone to advocate or present for you because when being asked to go do this, it often feels like "I was used to tick a box instead of being treated like a person." I became the 'demographic' instead of a person.
- Responder - the ads get people interested, sure, but the culture is what keeps them. Also, the games you make. Or the culture, like dude bro culture with people making sexist comments on Slack but you feel powerless to respond or stop it. Stop treating women like unicorns and fairys, and encourage women to come and speak even if they don't want to or feel patronized. Women want to be treated like anyone else, seriously, respectfully, and as critically as anyone else.
- Responder - I want to add another word of caution around having female employees speak at very public events and forums. Be considerate of the online harassment experience they are likely to encounter online. We heavily moderate chats and are supporting those employees we send out there, moderating their media streams or supporting them is huge. Also, general stuff to make a studio more attractive to women:
- Flexible work hours
- Ability to work remote
- Showing children are welcome in the studio (Ex. holds trick and treat events and other family/kid events)
- Once was told an interviewee that we had tampons and other things in the bathroom that showed her we thought about people with different bodies' different experiences
- Responder: We hosted a group called DIY girls to give girls the opportunity as a kid to explore what opportunities there are to expose them. We also did this at high schools.
- Responder: I've seen it happen to people around me - it's important that people are not hired as a 'diversity hire' - they want to be hired because they're a great fit. So you need a great pool of applicants, but if someone around says something like 'you only got that job because you were a woman', it's very harmful because it makes her doubt she's there for any reason other than her skill. Always reinforce this and give them a space to speak about it when this sort of thing happens otherwise the women will begin to doubt themselves and cut themselves off socially, harming their connection to the team, even though they weren't the one who caused the problem by undermining a coworker. It's bad for everyone.
- Responder: Yes, you need strong leadership and culture to tamp that down and reinforce the culture of diversity and respect.
- Responder: One of the most powerful thing is to consciously strive to have a diverse network - consciously strive to make the people you hang out with diverse. People naturally want to hire people they know, so make sure you know diverse people. Consciously make an effort to diverse and connect as much as you can.
- Responder: Also, hire from your community, as communities tend to be quite diverse.
- Responder: Don't hire 'mini-me's. It really hit home with me, we want to hire people who think like us. Also, diversify the people interviewing - bring in people who will be working with them. Sometimes Art Leads and Directors think they need to do it all, but I often get the best hiring feedback from people who are working as peers. It gets different eyes on skills.
- Responder: We should, if all possible, do NOT have all male interviewers. Women may suss out creeps while male interviewers may not notice anything untoward aimed towards them.
- Responder: Create a mechanism to allow people to safely express their concerns about diversity, the content they're making, etc.
- Responder: have a studio in a location that is SAFE to walk to or crunch in late at night or walk to during the day. For example, a woman won't want to go to work in a place that has a dark parking lot they have to navigate at night.
- Responder: Yes, take the time to install lights, security measures, etc.
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