By trade I'm a software developer and I work on a wide array of projects. I have my own projects and websites, some of which have become successful and provide passive income, but I also work on projects for others. Some of these projects are with clients and friends I've met over the years and some are from existing platforms where people go to find talent. This is a story about one of those platforms: Upwork.
Originally called eLance, then oDesk and eventually Upwork the platform was founded decades ago. Many entrepreneurs and builders go there to find talent for new projects or to make changes to existing projects. In the past this platform and others had been flooded by low quality developers that underbid everyone and delivered subpar quality work - I know because I routinely had to clean up their messes with new clients and explain to them that the guy they hired for $50 to make an entire software suite didn't do an amazing job: shock.
To remedy this problem Upwork created a "Verified US" option:
Actually, before they did this they originally tried to resolve the problem by creating "Skills tests" that users would take to verify they had the skills they claimed in various technical aspects as well as the native communication of the languages they claimed. Basically it was an attempt to verify they knew how to code and that they could speak/write English fluently - the two main building blocks to making software for other folks located in the United States. However, it didn't really work, since it seems many of the "spam" developers found ways to get others to take the tests for them one way or another. This meant users had no confidence in the system because they would routinely hire someone who had passed the test for English speaking with flying colors, only to not be able to speak English in a conference call once hired.
The reason I bring this up is because it shows that Upwork is no stranger to exclusion. All things considered their segmenting of foreign workers into a different (and virtually unused) market has been very successful for them. It helped them restore confidence job posters, which is at the core of their bottom line. I'll be the first to admit that when they added this feature it helped me secure more contracts and I saw it as a positive - and I still do to some extent - but I also recognize that it's essentially a tool to exclude Indian developers from the site.
This brings us to the new change that Upwork has added in the last year. Having been inactive on the platform for a while I was greeted with this banner when I logged in:
Here Upwork is claiming you can add a "Diversity Badge" to stand out as an applicant for job postings. Clicking through to your profile you'll see the option:
Clicking this will yield the strangest popup I've ever had on a jobs based website:
This is a very interesting web form to me. The options available are a mashup of all kinds of different things.
On the one hand you have "Disability owned" which I actually would support as a charitable entity. I think most people are okay with the idea of companies getting some kind of kickback for supporting those who are effected by disabilities. The "US veteran owned" category falls into a similar boat of being charitable without expanding the scope of this article to how or if we should be involved in military conflict and if so how we fund it properly.
But, then you have "LGBTQ+ owned", "Minority owned" and "Women owned". In my opinion none of these qualify for the same charitable purposes and none of them are based on the merits of a worker. Also note that these are checkboxes, so I can select more than one. If I'm a male who transitioned into female do I qualify for both LGBTQ+ and women owned? It's a rather moot point because there probably is only one "badge" to obtain, but I think it pokes at the odd nature of this whole certification process.
If you select "LGBTQ+ owned" and click through you'll be presented with these options:
The next step down this rabbit hole is to see what NGLCC is:
So far, this is as far as I've looked into this entire process. But, given the subjective nature of gender identity and this whole process I'm fairly confident that if I wanted to I could start claiming I'm transgender tomorrow and pass these verification processes. It really comes down to how much of a difference it makes in visibility on the jobs websites. I usually don't have a problem standing out among applications because I have a depth of knowledge and it's more-or-less just a numbers game of making sure that I can spend the warranted amount of time on a project that matches with a client's budget.
But, for the sake of argument, let's assume that I could acquire 20% more revenue by doing this certification process. Hell, let's say it doesn't directly increase my revenue but instead increases the effectiveness of my bids, so that instead of having to apply for 5 bids to convert I only have to apply for 4. That alone would be a worthwhile investment.
And what if I'm not a skilled developer? If I did have more trouble securing contracts this option gets more enticing. But, I feel there is the problem with this diversity badge and the reason it likely won't warrant my participation: people doing the hiring are going to get burned if they follow this badge. It's possible they will get some kind of kickback for using the badge, but I don't think that will be a significant portion of the market. The vast majority of people posting jobs on Upwork want high quality work done for an affordable price and the chances of the diversity badge correlating to that is about the same as trying to only hire people who wear a blue shirt or who's name starts with a vowel born on a Tuesday.
I am curious about your opinions and am interested in arguments for or against this kind of thing in the comments. I do ask that everyone remain civil and respectful. We don't have to agree on the subject to afford each other basic respect in discourse.
