WatchSpeaking with the Diversity Manager at my job he advised that although our company touts 75% diversity the reality is that it only applies for jobs that require manual labor. When he reviews numbers for management level and above the diversity level drops well below 5%. He also mentioned that 95% of the top executive positions being filled were referrals. Sounds very similar to the scenarios played out in the early 1900s, with blacks sweeping floors of the shop owners who had no intention of promoting them....waiting for their children to graduate and take over the shop.
....now I can see how this game is played. Refer your friends and family for the high earning positions, and let the peasants fill in the rest.
That doesnt mean hard work wont get you anywhere, just your chances are slimmer.
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I blame Bush.
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What the hell does "75% diversity" mean?
This is a really hard problem though, and it's not one that can really be fixed by simple measures like AA.
I'll ignore race for a second and focus on something that is almost impossible to fix: gender.
We know that women make less than men. We also know that women work fewer years than men and fewer hours per week on average. We know that this is primarily because women spend more time taking care of children than men do.
Some of this can be fixed just by having fathers spend more time with the kids. Other things can't really be fixed, though, like the time a woman needs to take off to give birth, and the common need / desire to have a significant maternity leave. A woman who chooses to have children and provide them with the care that they need during the beginning of their lives will always have a serious career disadvantage compared to people who don't do that.
So, back to race. The main problems here are historic. Wealth begets wealth, poor begets poor. Education begets education.
You'll find fewer blacks than whites as you move up the career ladder because white people tend to be richer and better educated than blacks. They're better educated because they're richer, and they're richer because they're better educated.
This is true regardless of race, but it affects blacks disproportionately because of a shameful national (global, even) legacy.
So, I think you have to go back to education. The only problem is, how do you fix education in the poorest communities? In a rich (and mostly white, but maybe asian these days) neighborhood, you have parents who care, spend time with their kids, give them proper nutrition, and raise them in a fairly safe and stable home.
In poor communities, you have higher rates of broken homes, substance abuse, and malnutrition. I won't even get into the resource access and safety problems.
The only way to fix this is slowly and steadily.
I'm not opposed to tilting the balance in favor of the disadvantaged, mind you, I'm just not convinced that it works over the long term, particularly due to the skewed birth rates amongst the educated and uneducated.
I also understand that in some parts of the country and in some occupations, there is still institutionalized discrimination. I honestly have no idea how widespread this is, because people are really good at hiding it. I do know that there's a strong correlation between poverty and poor academic performance, though, so I say we should focus on the things that we can measure and do something about it.
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elliemae's website
where do you work, and how do I get referred?
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elliemae says
Ha.
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Kevin says
I think you hit the point dead on with you hammer.......in the end it becomes a issue of poverty. I havent been unemployed for the past 15 years, and have been fairly successful due to my educational pursuits. Opportunity is out there for everyone...if they want it. I would like to argue the points that I meant to define "diversity" as something involves the creation of a workplace and society that includes everyone into the mix. Gay, Women, Latin, Swedish, German, Jewish, etc. Now, my father, who grew up during Jim Crow era had no chance in hell of ever doing anything outside of manual labor where as I can now get a degree, and depending upon my global mentality....get a job anywhere in the world.
Institutionalized discrimination is a subconscience phenomena that is the NEW racism or sexism...insert your choice of "ism" here. It involves groups working together to "cherry pick" only the liked individuals in the workplace.
Often times this involves white males choosing their friends for positions of power...which is a subconcious decision anyone could make unknowingly. Put me in power and I am sure within a few years I will have unknowingly put 1/3 of the organization under black control.
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ohhh and 75% diverse meaning other than white males. Latino, Asian, Women, Blacks, Etc.
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Or, maybe, diverse could mean:
lazy ... why have only productive workers?? That's not very diverse!!
slow ... why have only productive workers?? That's not very diverse!!
ignorant .. why have workers that understand problems and patterns and direction?? That's not very diverse!!
stinky ... why have only well groomed workers that do not smell?? That's not very diverse!!
fat ... why have fit and trim workers?? That's not very diverse!!
tall ... were is our 75% tall area?
skinny ... how about a lounge for the 75% skinny folks!!
.... who/why/what guage is used to figure out who/why/what gets used to do a job other than the best. THE BEST. Lets try finding a better candidate for any job, other than THE BEST ... that is stuuuuuuupid. THE BEST is always THE BEST choice!!!! If the focus is selecting THE BEST for a job, then there is no need for racism/sexism/heteroism/normalism in any workplace. EEO should really be EQUAL.
Liberalism is a mental disorder
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I think the other part Kevin missed out on, and Clarence touched on was hiring who you know. No one wants to be responsible for hiring the lame employee. Therefore, they want to try and make them blend in. This is where diversity loses out, because the cards are already stacked against them. It's a subconscious act of blending in. It's what every animal does to survive. They try and avoid putting themselves in a position where failure means the spotlight ends up on them.
The whole diversification thing can be good and bad. It can be good to bring in diversity, but it can also bring in a lot of under skilled people who then make others look bad. It breaks down the first barrier though, of someone hiring the "first" person who doesn't blend in.
The other issue is that to get to the top, a person needs some experience, along with education. While diversity hiring might have helped this, it wouldn't help hiring at the higher levels because those people need to work their way up the ladder, which takes much longer. We might see some results in another 20-30 years
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Bap33 says
Fascinating (your choice of when to cite mental factors).
What if you have a job opening, that pays fairly decent, and requires skill levels that are abundant in the current market place. And what if on top of that you have very little diversity in your company, even though you are in a diverse city. So this job opens up and you get hundreds of applications and dozens that are excellent, and say 10 that you decide to interview.
If these 10 are all very good candidates, and in deciding between the 4 or 5 best is basically a coin flip, you think it wrong to have a policy that say in such cases, increasing diversity is desirable ?
"lazy...............slow..............ignorant ..............mental disorder""
I still have hope for you Bap. Those emotions you have were learned somehow. Nobody that is for diversity in the workplace is advocating lower quality people. It's about getting managers (like you, if you were a manager) out of their comfort zone, with respect to ethnicity of their hires.
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marcus says
A coin flip? You've got to be joking. I would venture to guess that there are a lot of "referrals" from existing employees that tip the decision one way or the other. That's the way it works. Ever heard the phrase "It's not what you know, it's who you know..."
If we ever have an opening (rarely happens here almost 0 turnover), I know 10+ people that would start working tomorrow. These aren't unemployed people. Why would I choose from that pool of people? Because I already know them, their work ethic, personality, experience, skill level, etc, etc... It's just the way it works in real life.
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I am the boss. I hire the best I can find, period. There are no ties in life. When the call is close, I have a panel of current workers conduct an interview - asking the same questions to each candidate - and I just observe. This is where "personality" and "team mesh" will get a person a job over an equally matched competitor. Age, race, sex, are not part of the interview ... any more than they would be in any other real life face to face interaction.
If anyone in charge of anything chooses a new hire based on anything other than productivity/application of job skills/value then that boss is a complete idiot. If the best person to do a job in the most productive manner at the greatest value to the entity is black, white, green, bi-lingo, tall, slow, ugly, whatever lable you choose .... then that is EXACTLY the person that should get the job. Even if the final vote in a close-call is cast by future fellow workers based on nothing more than comfort level .. that's how life works. Stripes with stripes, spots with spots, a chian is only as strong ... yaddda yadda yadda.
Forced diversity .. like you find in cross bussing in schools .. results in the non-meshed kids gathering into comfortable groups every chance they get. It results in school sponsored clubs that focuse on the differences of the cross-bused kids, keeping them totally seperate in identity from the other kids. It results in false feelings of accomplishment by those that dream up such stupid assed ideas as forced diversity. The "poor" side of town will have a certain expected attitude from kids and their parents, as will the "rich" side. The parents are responsible (made choices) for where the kids live, right? Anyways, thats a different subject I guess.
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Bap33 says
There's the problem.
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tatupu70 says
is it?
why is the "comfort level" of diversity wanted(legislated and demanded) from left-minded people not the problem, but the "comfort level" of a productive work force is? Please explain the expressed validity of forced diversity, and give some examples where the forced diverse selection was better than the best choice based on sound selection systems.
RE equal treatment: I want to see a TSA vid of any rap star/thug gangster type getting an enhanced pat-down. You do notice that all of the targets of the TSA goons are never ever anyone that looks like they may react in an agressive manner ... don't you?
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Bap33 says
Well, you are kind of contradicting yourself there. In the other post you said it's OK to pick based on comfort level, but now you are challenging me to give an example when the diverse selection was better than the best choice based on sound selection systems.
I don't disagree with using a sound system to make your selection--my problem is that most places don't do that. There is some baseline of requirements--education level, experience, etc. But then all the candidates get interviewed and the one that is chosen is often picked based on comfort level. That's where I think some problems can occur.
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The only companies that are frowned on being any ethinic majority are White owned and staffed company. And even then the only "REAL" people Bitching about it, are White Liberals.
If they "REALLY REALLY REALLY" need this Diversification cause, then why don't they come to Miami, and bust up all of these Cuban and Hatian Clubs, er I mean Companies?
Here in South Florida Whites are only about 10% of the people I am either friends with, or work with. I can't recall working for an "All White" company in well over 15 years or more. YET! Almost every single Job I have had in the last 15 years or so, were Majority one ethinic or race, or another. No mix no diversification, and they have just as strong opinions about anyone that isn't a Paisan as any Redneck shop ran and Staffed by Cooter and Cletus.
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tatupu70 says
So they should pick based on race, sex, religion, etc., instead?
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Paralithodes says
No
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Then what?
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Here's a clue:
tatupu70 says
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Bap33 says
Good points. However, if a group of football player interview 2 canidates -- 1 a football player and the other a baseball player. Who gets the job?....the football player! So, my points are that since white and black cultures are so different blacks have no chance in hell unless they change who they are at the core of their being.
This also applies for rich vs poor, surfers vs boaders, city people vs rural people....