GitLab People Group, 2 Jul 2020

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From YouTube: Audit Job Families with Inclusive Language Tool

Description

We've recently extended the rake task on the handbook project to do a check for inclusive language on the job families. Lien Van Den Steen, People Ops Engineer talked with Kelly Murdock, Senior Recruiter how they can audit their job families.

A

You, okay, so what we did is we add. We added a tool to the CI for the handbook and whenever it changes me to a job family, we're gonna, run it and the tool checks a few things I. Let me collectively share my scream and I'll. First make sure everything and I'll open a choke family as well. I'll. Take my check for Emily people engineer.

A

Where are you I I'm using Google like it knows, I work for a good lab? Okay. So let me share my screen: okay, so kind of there's a user interface tool that you can use and that all these checks that happen also happen whenever you make a change, so I'm just copy pasting, all the text from this from the top family for people operations engineer to this tool and if we analyze it, it's gonna do a few things.

A

It's gonna check gender coded language which I didn't come up with these words it's kinda, it puts words into categories masculine coded words or feminine coded words. Just to make sure like something like strong is a masculine coded word. That doesn't mean that you know women can be strong or active, but just that research- and there is this study linked just notice that whenever these words are in job ads, that women are less inclined to apply. So that's that's the distinction.

A

That's important to make it's not saying anything about women or men or you know, but just like research has shown that if you put these words in text and women are less inclined to apply so kind of what this text, what this the first check does. Is it compares how many masculine coded words you used against feminine coded words and then make a distinction like?

A

Are you using if you're like in this case, there's a lot of feminine coded words, so this sexist want to strongly feminine coded the nice thing about risk that research is also that the effect that masculine coded wording has on women is almost neglect of all men, so for men reading this they will still be inclined to apply, so you would want it to be neutral or feminine coded, but I mean you can kind of see, of course, for some like I, think for some rules and I think especially like roles with finances like you will have a lot of analysts, and you know all these words in there.

A

So sometimes you will have. The text will maybe still stay like masculine coded, but you can at least kind of look okay. Maybe there are some words that I can swap out so then another thing that it does is it checks for pronoun usage.

A

So now, although families don't happen, she anymore because I just got rid of all of them, but if you would and I think this, mostly we make our top families neutral, but I just noticed it was like, if you want to look up a person, go to his her role in the team page and I just made that there so I think usually young pruna news that you're doing well. It also strikes for misused words and which is kind of like using a word like spirit animal. So you often people use that.

A

Like a he's, my spirit animal which, like probably not you, know, I kind it. If you use any of these words, it will give you so like if I would type in misuse.

A

Something like spirit, animal and I would run it again, then, in the misuse towards total you're using it replace it with. You know something else so that it gives you that I think our chopped families will not really hit this. You know it's possible, we're checking it anyway and then specifically for show pets. It also checks mindset. So crude coded words fix the versus fixed coded, as it says, recruiting content that uses growth. My selling language can lead to faster hiring ties and more hiring is being made from underrepresented group.

A

It's again, just out of research show that, okay, if you use this word, some people are more inclined or less inclined to apply. So in this case the top family is strongly fixed cadets, which probably means I hope we might want to change some words, and it gives you the words that are in there that you might want to move out, or you know, use other words again. This does the same. If you can, you can still find a nice balance. This doesn't mean you need to get all the words out.

A

It just means like hey you're, using way more of one type than of another. So again you know don't. This doesn't be like you need to get all of these words out and replace, but just kind of find a nice balance, so it becomes more neutral. It doesn't need to go to a strongly growth coded as well just kind of let's swap them out. So that's the checks we do. Of course we know it can't be all changed at once.

A

So there's a lot of job families that currently fail, and maybe that's just because certain words need to be used. You know we that's what it is, so it doesn't mean that you cannot have this job. Family go live or you know pitching what we did is in the handbook.

A

We added a file, inclusiveness check, llamo, oh okay, it's gonna come and now all the files that are here listed on there skipped those are files that currently fail this winter. Just this check, which is you know again, this is not making a statement of you know where we are like our chocolates are bad. It's just the checks that I just explained are kind of saying: hey, they're, failing and failing means that what we look at for it specifically for differential families is the gender coded language gives a masculine.

A

Trent is what we call it. So this Texas Marcus masculine are strongly masculine. There's pronin usage will also make it feel if there's any misused words to fear and for growth. If you have fixed coat or strongly fix and I after this call, I will also make sure this is clear from the handbook in the handbook as well, so people can kind of go back to it. I made a short description. I will have to check if I explain specifically why it can feel the pipeline in.

A

You know how you have you commit, and then you have the pipeline. It will say why it feels you could go. The thing is because so many field we, we still wanted people to be able to make changes to the handbook, and you know it changes to the job family. So that's why we added this skip list. So I don't know if you would be specifically for sales, you might want to check.

A

Is it currently being skipped because that could be the case that we're not checking it so for sales, there's a few that are in there? So if you would make changes, that means we're not checking it because it was already failing. So we're not checking so what you could do.

A

If you start, you know, if you're, let's say you want to change the top family for professional services, engagement manager, what I would recommend is that, first, you remove this line from this llamó file and then you make your changes and then the CI will run, and maybe it will still fail and then you can add it again, but you can at least kind of see, hey am I, making it's worse or is it getting better?

A

And the neat thing is that you can use this this tool as well, while you're doing it, you can kind of copy. What I would suggest if and you start with an existing family- you paste it in there and see okay. What's the result, is this yeah? You know what do I need to work on to improve. Of course, this is only a few things that it does are still probably you know, I, don't think this is the Holy Grail and this tool is your final answer.

A

It's just a guidance and it makes recommendations and that's kind of what what we wanted to do. Just kind of make sure that you know we're improving our child families. I, don't know if you have questions, feel free to ask yeah.

B

So, for example, when you had the gender decoding, for example- and it gives you the list of masculine yeah I saw where it has like the number of times. Yes is that word? Does it capture where that word is almost like a find feature? Yeah currently.

A

Does it do that so in all openness? Also, so I I created this tool. It's kind of built outside of my hours that I worked on this because I just thought it was interesting. It doesn't do that. Of course you can always go into your job family and do a find but yeah, that's a manual work. It's one of the features that would be nice to have like that. It shows you where but hearing me. No, it doesn't do that. Yet the yeah, you see it's just a text field. There's nothing fancy about it, yeah!

A

So no, it doesn't.

B

Know and then you make a great point that you can take that word. You understand that it's you know in there one time, so you can be able do a find and blank, and then you can also look up. I guess an alternative, because I guess that would be the other key thing is understanding like okay, if active, yeah.

A

B

A word that is more yeah.

A

I haven't so far misused words, I have a I, can show you how it is thing, so they did so for misused words. There's always the word, the reason another replace which I don't have that yet for the gender associated words, but first of all I'm, not a native English speaker, so I would kind of two O's and also like active. You know it could be depending on in which you the context like what would you want to replace it? So that's still a little fake, but it's a good suggestion that we do offer.

A

You know like replace with you know. I kind of we could just do a synonym check up and make sure that what we suggest isn't also in the masculine code at work list, but yeah, that's a good idea. I will I will take that with me, and but currently you would still have to come up with it yourself.

A

I noticed there was just a a change where, for example, strong was replaced with create confidently with consistently objective, with vision, so kind of its small changes, so I think probably I, don't know you would have to ask my mom. If he did, you know synonym, you look up or if he came up with the things himself, but I think the first one might feel a little weird, because but I think we often you reuse the same text so probably once you fix it for a few you'll be like I I can use this yeah.

B

I agree, especially what sales I'm sure a lot of the time. What we're trying to address is similar so.

A

And no tech, maybe I mean I'm willing to take a Sales shop life and you know tried it. It could be that some of them are just using words that are coded as masculine. Maybe you know in the context of this is a sales role we need it. You know I'll just take one just to see, and you can ask your next question. In the meantime, yeah.

B

So my other question was since, to your point that you said the feminine quoted words: males would still apply. So is that fair to say that we're really just trying to address the masculine coded words and it's okay, if there's feminine words, yeah.

A

So, of course, I don't want to be setting up all the guidelines here and I just kind and I also only based I kind of my decisions on the research that I've gotten. If there's other research that people can feel free to give that to me, I would definitely say you want to get it that it's no longer any. Let's see, I don't want to make final statements. I would say that you want to avoid the masculine code, it's worse as much as possible, and hopefully that means that your text is marked as neutral.

A

Maybe it switches over to feminine coded, but how the lint, how the check on the CIA set up is that it will error out on masculine coded and not on feminine coded, just because of what the research said is that it will have such a slight a minimal effect um men towards the opposite, like when women and perceived Abascal encoder towards it will probably not apply so kind enough. Yeah kind of that's the thing so yeah, but yeah.

A

This first job family I took, is and ends up as being feminine coded, so good job and of course you could still see it and maybe see okay, but we do want to get competitive out, although I'm sure that that's just you know talking about, maybe our competitors or whatever, so sometimes you will have things in there. This is again, this is not like you follow this tool or it's bad. It's just a guidance and I'm very open to contributions.

A

So if, when you're working on things, I know, there's things please let me know I'd. Happily it change things out and for.

B

This example, where it's feminine coded, so would you as a best practice, then that's like okay. This is good we're good, or should we even though it's showing phone encoded, we should still look at those masculine coded words and see if there's an opportunity, if it make sense to address those, do you think first I think.

A

That may be a good thing. The next I would maybe first be like okay, whatever that's good, then go to the pros vs. fix and it is smart that strongly fixed. So maybe, while working on this, you will rework sentences that anyway, will get out some words, so that could be a first day because currently for on the gender coded language, says this like it's fine it it passes, you know, but you could still yeah. If you see how we use the word.

A

I, don't know driven two times, and we know that that word is received by women differently. If they want to apply or not, then maybe we could get it out. Yeah, that's that's an option, but you could also think like. Okay, at least this text is marked fine. The real problem with this text is with the crowd versus fixed, and then you could first work on that and, as you, the word strong is in the fixed coded as well, so you would immediately get you know it's in the masculine coded and in the fix.

A

So if you remove the word strong, it kinda is removed from from both anyway, so you would hit to I. Don't know how you say that yeah yeah, you would just do both at once. Okay,.

B

Yeah I know that makes sense. Okay, so um where would I get access to your tool? Like? Are you okay with me taking it and using it.

A

This is public, the source code is public, so yeah everything is for think about it. So yeah definitely and then they.

B

Get that yamo link to I think that you had yeah.

A

Yeah and let me quickly check in the handbook, because it's somewhere in there uh yeah, wait I, know I, think I can I know the link, no hiring chop families there's some stuff here and then, once the request is submitted, insist something about yeah. It says the tool it says the list, so maybe I can send you. This link, because then you have put the yellow file is, is linked and the tool is linked. So then you have both at once. Is that does that work for you, let's cook it? Okay and yeah?

A

If you start working on things and you notice anything feel free to reach out and I yeah this this tool is only been in existence for a little while, so it can probably improve and I I know.

B

This is amazing, thank you. So much specially you mentioned you put in some extra time to do this so I mean I, know, I agree. We appreciate it I think it's a great tool that we can start looking into our job families and see where the opportunities are so all 100% utilize. It we're kind of in phase one with just going through job families to see.

A

B

And then this will probably be face to face three, but I'll definitely reach out. If we have questions and think that and.

A

Then yeah, that's fine and I. Just want to reiterate for you and whoever watches is that it's it's. You know it's worthless. It's based on whatever research I could find I'm, not making any statements but and I'm happy to change things and it's not making any. You know assumptions about anyone. It's just. This is what research has shown and that's kind of all, and that's that's what we're basing this tool upon and if we can improve or change happy to yeah. No.

B

That's fair appreciate.

A

It you're, you don't have any questions anymore, nope.