Increasing Diversity in the Workforce

In mid-January, GeoDesign’s Victoria Strand (HR manager) and John Gannon (marketing manager) attended City Club of Portland’s “Digital Inclusion and Tech Diversity in Portland” panel discussion at the Sentinel Hotel. Our thinking was that the Portland tech industry suffers from the same lack of workforce diversity as this area’s A/E/C industry, so any “lessons learned” in tech could potentially help us in engineering (both industries are overwhelmingly white and male).

The panel discussion included folks from Intel and Elemental (tech firms), ScaleUp Partners (an economic development advocacy collaborative), and the Multnomah County Library District, with the Portland Business Journal’s Malia Spencer leading the discussion. Attendees were encouraged to use an app called “harv.is,” through which the audience members could “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree” with statements made by the panel members—in real time—by swiping up or down on their phones. Audience opinions were projected on a large screen as green (agree) and red (disagree) growing circles, like ripples in a pond, and it was fascinating to see what rang true with the audience (cascades of green) and where attendees’ opinions differed from the panelists (hints of red).

Some key takeaways? Intel, with its vast amount of resources, has pledged $300 million to attract women and people of color, with the hope that other companies will follow in its wake. Intel is aiming for employment parity by 2020. The Multnomah County Library District has launched initiatives to bring computers and technology to the underserved youth population of the city, with the aim of giving today’s youth the technological tools they’ll need to succeed in a tech-savvy twenty-first century world.

What does this mean for the A/E/C industry? Some larger companies may have the resources to devote a significant amount of money to diversity initiatives as Intel has. However, for companies of more limited resources, investment in education (via the ACE mentor program and other programs like it, plus an increased focus on educational initiatives for the area’s disadvantaged youth) may be a key part of increasing diversity in tomorrow’s A/E/C workforce.

Author: John Gannon