A recent report alleges that leadership at Valve has been blocking internal diversity efforts with interviews from current and former employees tying this into the company's unconventional workplace structure. Valve Corporation is as well-known for its Steam platform as the large gap it has between game releases, but not much is known about how it is to work there and what the hiring process is like.
What is known about the structure at Valve is that, in theory, it is structureless and allows employees to work on whatever projects they please. Without managers to evaluate employee performance, the employees do it among themselves and use this stack-ranking system to determine salaries and bonuses for the employees.
The YouTube channel People Make Games uploaded a video where they interviewed 16 employees at Valve, both current and former, and asked several questions that go into the company's structure and how it operates. While the unconventional structure is discussed at length, where the video takes a fascinating turn is the reveal that Valve is an incredibly white and male-dominated company, and this becomes more exacerbated the higher up in the company one goes. Contrary to the sometimes controversial methods companies take to gauge diversity efforts, Valve leadership has seemingly gone in the opposite direction where they shut down any efforts made by employees to diversify.
Other parts of how the company allegedly operates also do not help. One former employee stated that new hires do not receive anti-bias training as far as evaluating peer performance. Since diversity efforts are often brought up by people who are not in the majority, leadership shoots the proposals down as they value what would immediately benefit the company. With a rigid hiring process and an averseness to risk, the bar to clear for people of color and women to join the company is far higher than it is for a middle-aged white man.
This has also affected the company is in its unwillingness to make statements. The employees interviewed commented that during the Black Lives Matter protests that sparked after George Floyd's death, there was a massive internal debate in Valve about whether to speak in support of it or stay silent. While companies like Respawn openly supported the movement, the Valve employees in favor of making no statement won out. Employees who wanted to speak out directly blamed Valve's senior members. The ultimate response was to hand every employee $10,000 each to use for philanthropic purposes.
While the open structure at Valve may have brought great things like the Steam Deck, it has also brought a host of issues along. A clear amount of resentment has built up among many employees as the incredibly conservative hiring process could be stifling talent that would otherwise flourish in a company like Valve.
Source: GameSpot