Why Google's Employee Diversity Programs Are Doomed To Fail

Google would like to hire more women. The company has been dominated by a majority white male demographic for its entire history, with women accounting for only 30% of its employees and blacks accounting for a minuscule 2%. But in the last year the company has begun taking steps toward ridding itself of what HR executive Laszlo Bock attributes to unconscious bias, a psychological theory that suggests people build up undetected prejudices based on social and political forces around them. The New York Times’ Farhad Manjoo was given a guided look at how the company is trying to correct for this unfortunate imperfection of the human brain by offering diversity training workshops to encourage employees to be more self-aware about behaviors that may be unconsciously hostile toward those from different backgrounds.