As for the issue of the “diverse” people bringing new ideas and a different perspective to the table…
To me that seems like a different way of saying “all (insert race here) are the same, and think the same”. It just seems totally wrong to me to hire a “diverse” person for that reason. The only thing you really know about that person is what is on their resume and what they look like.
For example, at a predominantly white male company, hiring an Asian who grew up in an upper class mostly white area and had mostly white friends, might be less “diverse” than hiring another white male who grew up in a mostly Black neighborhood and hung out with mostly Black people. However, because the company is mostly white, the Asian will be the “diverse” candidate.
As soon as you look at race/ appearance as a factor, you are using assumptions and generalizations about that person that you really have no factual basis for believing.
“Diviersity based hiring” is simply code for “Race-based, gender-based, and sexual-orientiation-based hiring” which the ‘diversity’ crowd considers good as long as it is primarily targeted against straight white males. None of the people arguing for 'diversity-based hiring have shown any differently, though none will say it outright. Esprix’s statement, for example, pretty much translates to ‘I’m all in favor of hiring gays in preference to straights’ (and if that’s not what you meant, tell us what you did mean) - something which he’s adamtly opposed to when it goes in the other direction.
The question is not really “is Diversity-based hiring” good, but “is discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and sexual preference good”, which seems pretty easy to answer.
I would have to say that I agree, to a great extent. When you get right down to it, even people who have led almost the exact same life can be vastly different in their approach to their work and what they can ‘bring to the job’. When was the last time you met a set of twins who were exactly alike in their thoughts, ideas and accomplishments?
It also seems a little ridiculous to assume that because someone is from a particular culture that they will therefore be unable to understand/relate to their differently-cultured clients on any effective basis. I know that I personally would be quite offended if when I went into a place of business, I was made to wait until they could find a representative that ‘reflected my cultural background’ in order to ‘better serve my interests’. I should hope that all employees would carry the knowledge and the skills to relate to all of their customers and clients with equal respect.
Now, please don’t read into this that I discourage diversity in the workplace, far from it. I just happen to think that what is currently considered as the standard for diversity is, quite honestly, somewhat of a joke. True diversity comes from within, and I find it interesting that so many who condemn judging someone’s quality by their race/gender/ethnicity/religion will make a similar argument for the inclusion of same under a different heading.
I don’t think the idea is that people are unable to relate to / understand cultures different from their own, so much as that they often don’t . To give an example, a fairly common problem in NY used to result from the Asian employees of grocery stores not putting change directly into the customers’ hands, but placing it on the counters instead, and customers seeing this practice as disrespectful. Perhaps if there had been a non-Asian employee or two who could explain why the customers were offended, the problems could have been avoided.
I sit on the diversity committee at my law firm. To me, “diversity” isn’t defined simply as racial/ethnic/religious/gender differences, and hiring to make sure that you have personnel with differences in those areas is pretty silly for its own sake.
However, focus on diversity has two benefits that I’ve become aware of in the context of our law firm.
First, if you expand the definition of “diversity” to include the concept of diversity of experience, then hiring a diverse group of people is definitely a worthwhile goal with measurable payoffs. See the screwdriver analogy above. Diversity of experience adds immeasurably to our talent pool. I’m a lawyer with a background in environmental pollution and remediation work. This helps me to understand aspects of our clients’s concerns and foresee potential client problems in a given area. Other lawyers here have experience in business, microbiology, teaching, etc., and these add to their talents as lawyers in varying degrees.
Second, I’ve noticed something: people don’t want to work at a firm unless they feel comfortable with the people who already work there and with the “firm culture”. If the firm is made up of only white men, talented female and minority candidates turn down offers in favor of firms where they feel they “fit in”–firms with other gender and racial groups represented in their personnel. Often times, these lost candidates were people the firm would’ve wanted to hire regardless of their race/gender/religion/ethnicity, because they were impressive and talented.
Our firm was only recently able to hire attorneys of color, despite having made offers to others in the past. Given the extremely friendly “firm culture” here, I have to assume that at least some of them went elsewhere simply due to apprehension that they might not fit in, and that maybe the lack of minority racial/ethnic groups meant there was some kind of hidden prejudice or discrimination or other unpleasantness at work that they wouldn’t discover until they were hired.
I participate on the diversity committee because I hope to be able to help change some of the attitudes about diversity that I consider to be outmoded, wrong-headed, narrow-minded, etc. People here definitely think of diversity here as being a special, heightened interest and attention paid to racial minorities. I think that’s outmoded and it’s time for a change in attitude. Diversity is a good and important thing. We just define it too narrowly.
Well said Q.N.
It is interesting to me that posters are arguing about situations other than what the op presented. Quite a few straw men here. They continue to infer that wfq’s boss would hire an insufficiently qualified but “diverse” canidate over the well qualified white straight guy; wfq specifically stated “equally qualified” and few companies want to hire insufficiently qualified people no matter what their background. They infer that someone meant that someone of one culture is unable to relate to someone of another while such was never stated or implied.
Your point of the broad meaning and advantage to a diverse workforce answers horhay well. No one here has argued for racial or sexual orientation quotas. No one is supporting that race or gender or whatever should trump having adequate skill. The question is whether or not, given a pool of potential employees that all have adequate skill for the job, a business is better served by choosing those with more similar backgrounds and creating a homogenous workforce, or by choosing those with more diverse backgrounds and creating a heterogenous one.
But, like I said before, what people are supporting is that people should be hired on the basis of race, gender, etc. rather than purely on qualifications. Well, as long that doesn’t end up hiring an undivers white, male, etc.
Depends on what the current environment is.
I worked in an office (college arts organization) where diversity was hiring the white straight guy. Most of us were female. The two guys on staff were gay. We had a black woman and an Asian guy.
The assumption is often made that when diversity is factored into the decision, the white guy gets screwed - that’s only true if the organization is already has a lot of white guys. In which case, that individual may be getting screwed, but the population of white guys seems to be doing quite well.
This is the thing that really gets me. Who cares what the “population” of white guys is doing, I’m still unemployed regardless. I guess I don’t understand, is there some collective hive mind of racial groups such that other white people getting jobs makes me better off?
Is employment about finding adequate workers or about finding the best workers. At what level of skill do you say, ok, they are all adequate (but not neccesarily best), so now, we will look at diversity. I would think you look for the BEST worker you can find.
I think the idea of equally qualified employees is a myth, do you ever have two people on this planet, that equal?
Again, the strawman–nobody here has suggested that interest in diversity should mean taking a less qualified applicant over one more qualified. We’re talking about two applicants (or more) you like about equally well for the position.
As for the myth: you may not find two people with exactly equal qualifications, but it’s possible to have two applicants for a job and not be able to decide which you should prefer to hire. Maybe they each have a lot of points in their favor, a few possible drawbacks, and you’re just undecided. People who are equally well-qualified, with different qualifications.
And sometimes the best worker–all other things being similar, if not equal–is the one who has cultural currency that the other does not have.
There are a million scenarios that I can think of where being “like” your clients is very valuable. Sometimes, just the perception that an organization is “like” their clientele is just as good. By saying that diversity is a waste of time, you’re discounting that there are intangible criteria that can decide whether someone is qualified.
Let’s imagine a world where black people outnumber white people. You’re enrolling your child in an elementary school where the student population is 99% white but the faculty is 90% black. Do you think it would be unreasonable for the principal to hire a white teacher over an equally qualified black teacher in this set up?
Do you think diversity works against white males ALL THE TIME? Because there are fields where white males are not the majority and for that reason may be preferred over other equally qualified candidates.
Can you give me an example of something along these lines, where a white male has been chosen along lines of diversity.
I know there were a few college scholarships for men going into Nursing, and so there may be diversity programs along that line for employment.
Perhaps there’s a few others, but I can’t think of them right now.
What a racist comment. The concern should be over whether people are being treated fairly, not some absuridty like ‘well, we’re screwing over this one guy, but there’s other guys with his skin color doing OK so there’s nothing wrong with it’.
So, if an organization’s clientele is mostly white, by that logic they should favor hiring whites over other races. Would you and the rest of the ‘diversity’ crowd here be in favor of discriminating for whites and against blacks in a case like that?
There are historically black colleges and universities that offer scholarships to whites and other non-blacks, all in the name of diversity. I can’t give you anything more specific than that because I’m not privy to the selection process in my workplace or any other workplace.
My point to you is that at least theoretically, “diversity” as a hiring concept is context specific. It’s dependent on the present make-up of your department and your clientele, and possibly the population at-large. In many cases it may be white males who are decided against in favor of “diversity”, but not always. If a department has reached its diversity “quota”, it won’t be the white male who necessarily gets the shaft the next time there’s a hiring boom, especially if there are just a fingerful of positions reserved for “diversity” anyway.
Even when a workplace strives for diversity, there is still going to be a “majority” group. In all the places where I have worked, the majority was white. And if it wasn’t white across the board, all the leadership positions were white. There aren’t very many business serving “white” populations that aren’t either 1) managed by whites or 2)predominately white.
To answer your question: if I felt my business was not matching up with the clientele and that I could improve business by diversifying my hiring a bit, then I would, even if it meant selecting a few people based on their culture or race, not just for their merit. But if I didn’t think diversity mattered, then I wouldn’t bother with the racial complexion of my staff. I doubt many Chinese restaurant managers feel pressured to hire non-Chinese waitstaff.
I’m sorry if you took the comment as racist. It was’t meant to be. It meant to address the difference between an individual and a population.
Is it any more fair to say in an organization that 100% white, “hey lets hire another white guy.” No, then the just as qualified Black/Asian/other guy gets screwed.
As to the “adequately qualified” vs. “best” line of discussion …
Hard to say, often, who is best. I’ll speak to my area, medicine. Let’s say I’m hiring for a large group, like a University hospital (I do not do this, really, but let’s pretend). Is the canidate with the best test scores going to be the best doctor? I can tell you from experience that that often is not the case. The best grades? Again, often not the case. What determines who is best? Oh, a bunch of hard to quantify and hard to know factors. How much (s)he cares about patients and about doing right by co-workers, as well. How intellectually curious they are. How they fit into the mix, how their personality complements the others on board already. Some of that is going to be a sense of it thing.
Isn’t it fair to use background, and wanting a diverse face and diverse POV, as part of that sense?
You dodged the question. If you felt your business was not matching up with your clientele, who are white, and that you could improve business by hiring more whites (regardless of whether its ‘diversifying’ or not) instead of blacks, would you start selecting for whites and against blacks? Do you have any moral problem with someone doing so?