Chapter 16
The Modern Workplace

Sarah—the CEO—starts walking toward your desk looking flustered and stressed.

“How’s the board meeting going?” you ask.

“Fine. I’m going to be showing the board around our office in a moment. I need you all to be busy working hard. Some of you should get some code up on your screens. A couple of you should get in front of a whiteboard and work on a problem.”

“Huh? What sort of problem?” asks Tara.

“Just anything. Draw a diagram of some of the platform. Point to it. Ask questions about it.”

“What?”

“Just do it! We need to give them a good impression.” Sarah spots something across the room. “Wait, what are you doing?”

Paulo is packing up his bag. “I do the school run on Wednesday so I leave a little earlier.”

“Not today you don’t,” says Sarah. “We need to be at our desks, working hard. Hustling. The board need to see that we really want this.”

“But who’s going to pick up my daughter?” replies Paulo.

“It doesn’t matter. I need this from everyone today. Nobody leaves until the office tour is done. We need to show that this company matters more than anything right now!”

You and your team fall silent. Sarah jogs back to the board meeting.

“What the hell?” you cry. Paulo is making a frantic phone call. Tara is drawing an architecture diagram on the whiteboard. You look around to see people regrouping at their desks.

“What am I even going to talk about?” says Tara, pointing at the diagram. She assumes the posture of a weather presenter with arms outstretched. “Hmm, yes! This is our database! It is a good database. I love it!”

“Have you ever seen them in person before?” asks Ben.

“I haven’t even seen their pictures,” replies Tara.

One by one you watch the board emerge. First up, a white guy in his fifties. Blue jeans, white shirt. Next, another white guy in his fifties. Blue jeans, white shirt. Next, a white guy in perhaps his late fifties. Black jeans, blue shirt, grey fleece. Then come two more fifty-ish-year-old white males in shirts. One is wearing a pair of Converse. One walks over.

“Hey, I’m Wayne. Wayne Hunter. Former CEO of Globex Corporation. I’m one of your board members.”

“Hey, Wayne,” you all chime in unison.

“You know, I love seeing you guys. Going for broke, making it happen. I remember the early days at Globex when we just started out. Eighteen-hour days, working through the night, grinding hard. Sleep was for losers!”

“Yeah, I guess it’s exciting work,” Tara replies.

“You betcha. Nothing better than the grind. Making a success of yourself. Missed the birth of my son because I was raising a VC round. We went hard!”

“Erm, OK,” Ben says. “But how did your wife feel?”

“I have a strong woman who takes care of business at home so I can take care of work,” remarks Wayne. “That’s what strong American couples do!”

Blank faces. An awkward silence.

Tara turns and raises her hand to the box diagram with her palm outstretched. “So, would you like to hear about our database?”

As a manager in a fast-moving industry, you’re going to be expected to understand the pressing issues that we face. Being able to do so will make you a better, more understanding manager who will be able to support and nurture a strong and diverse team and also fight back against prejudice, stereotypes, diversity, and pay imbalances, and you’ll contribute to making your company a better, more forward-thinking place.

After all, we all want to work for companies and managers that care, understand, look out for us, and fight our corner. By exploring the topics in this chapter and doing further reading on your own, you’ll be able to do the same. We’re going to cover a multitude of areas, but they are fundamentally linked by one core principle: that each and every one of us, regardless of our gender, color, or background, deserve to be treated fairly and equally and have the same opportunities to succeed as everyone else.

Here’s what we’re going to cover:

• Diversity and inclusion in technology, which covers a multitude of facets such as gender, color, age, background, and the way in which we work together and thrive. We will look at some industry statistics and pressing concerns and inform you as to how you can change the way you think about these issues and what you can do to encourage positive improvements.

• Flexible and remote working, which not only allows you to give your staff the ability to better balance their work and home lives, but also allows you to recruit globally and thus increase your diversity and talent pool.

• Work-life balance, notably examining the popularization of hustle culture and the ill effect that it’s having on our industry.

• Culture. What is culture? How do you get a good culture, and what can you do about it?

After you finish this chapter, not only should you be well-versed to engage and learn more about these issues, you should also be able to rate how your current workplace fares and consider how you can actively make it a better place.