One thing that that side discussion was keeping out is the concerted effort from elements from the right wing to removing anything that deals with social justice.
That women are affected is also a side effect that the right expected as a result.
One inaccuracy is that this is a fad, as the evidence shows, after more than 10 years of growth, it is not that.
What is going on now is like if one ideological group decided to declare that Six-Sigma was woke and decided to ban it just for that…
That you did not notice that those replies deal with the 2015 report alone, the latest report from Mckinsey covers that and:
Each of our reports—2015, 2018, 2020, and now 2023—has found a steady upward trend, tracking ever greater representation of women on executive teams. At each time point we have assessed the data, the likelihood of financial outperformance gap has grown: Our 2015 report found top-quartile companies had a 15 percent greater likelihood of financial outperformance versus their bottom-quartile peers; this year, that figure hits 39 percent
I guess those posts also miss that my main point was not that profitability is good, but that if the reports had come showing not an improvement, but also no degradation, that then that would still show that many critics were wrong about “get woke, get broke”. As it is, there are more reasons to notice that the current moves made to ban this is just another item that shows that some powerful guys don’t want to continue to make a change for the better, they also want to see this banned. That women and minorities will be more affected is part of it.
Rep. Ralph Norman, a Republican from South Carolina, offered the measure that would eliminate all Pentagon DEI programs and personnel. In dramatic fashion the amendment initially failed 216-216 but was considered again and passed 214-213.
Another high-profile amendment that was adopted by the House earlier Thursday evening would prohibit the secretary of defense from paying for or reimbursing expenses relating to abortion services.
Moving on, why do you think the right then is so fixated into assuming this is not beneficial? Why is that anything that can improve the progress of women in the workplace is bad?
I’m confused. Does the 2023 McKinsey report cover the criticisms made (posts #6 and #7) when you posted the 2015 McKinsey Report?
Who knows. “The right” isn’t here to defend itself. However, Dr.Strangelove and I are here, and so are you. I’d rather discuss our opinions than a ghost of someone else’s opinion.
A few years back, Chris Rock hosted Saturday Night Live and one of the skits he appeared in was a 1990s human resources video on diversity hosted by two white women. Chris Rock walks into the scene while the two women are discussing diversity in the workplace when one of them turns to him and says, “Oh, look! A diverse person.”
I went to Workday Rising (a trade convention for people who use the Workday HRIS) back in 2019 whereI chatted with a nice woman who was selling an addon for something to do with diversity and I remember her telling me, “Diversity in the workplace includes people like you.” And while technically true, I certainly don’t feel like DEI efforts does include people like me. Yeah, I’m a boring middle aged white male. There are resource groups at my emploter for African Americans, Latinos, gay people, women, etc., etc. but nothing really for me.
I don’t mean to imply that I begrudge DEI efforts as I do think it’s important to create a workplace everyone feels as though they can be themself. It’s better for the employee and it’s better for the company. But I don’t feel like any of it is for me. I bet a lot of other straight white males feel the same way. I wish it wasn’t the case, but I think so long as it is there’s going to be some pushback against it. Inclusivity means everyone.
I asked this before but I don’t think anybody responded. And Google is not telling me what it means in this context. (Dunno if it’s search personalization but I just get a bunch of IT and computer programming related stuff.) What is a resource group?
They’re groups led by employees made up of folks who all have some sort of shared characteristic. I guess it could be any characteristic, but typically we’re talking about race, gender, and sexual orientation though that’s certainly not the limit. I’ve heard some places include religion, but we don’t have any ERGs based on religion at my company.
The idea is that these ERGs allow employees a place where they can talk about their experiences at the company, help them feel a little more connected to the workplace, lead to them making suggestions to management on how to improve their experience in the workplace, etc., etc. I don’t think they’re a bad idea, but, like I said, they are apparently not for me. I’m not complaining. I try not to interact with employees outside of my official HR duties. i.e. I don’t want to get too friendly with someone I might have to investigate for sexual harassment next week.
Well, that’s one of those “Every day is Children’s Day” situations (to quote the standard response when children ask why there’s a Mother’s Day and a Father’s Day but no Children’s Day).
Straight white male is the workplace cultural default in white-majority societies. Straight white males made all the rules originally for “proper” workplace appearance and behavior, and they are still disproportionately in positions of authority where they still get to make the rules.
Of course that doesn’t mean that every straight white male in a workplace is always directly benefiting from that cultural privilege. There are plenty of straight white males who get discriminatory treatment at work for their “diverse” body type or hairstyle or gender-nonconforming clothes or disability or whatever. And that’s wrong, and should be covered in DEI initiatives.
But I think it’s important to bear in mind why it is that there aren’t DEI “resource groups” for “people like you”. “Boring middle aged white male” has always been the workplace default. If you don’t even realize what it’s like for other people in the workplace to get harassed for their gender, or insulted for their orientation, or informed that their natural hair doesn’t look “professional” enough, or made fun of for their accent or subjected to offensive stereotypes about their culture of origin, then of course you’re not going to understand why there’s a “resource group” for them but none for you.
I get where you’re coming from and there’s a lot of truth to it. I don’t complain there’s no Straight Pride or White History Month and I’m not lodging a complaint about a lack of DEI content for me. Obviously there’s some people who are just outright hostile to the idea of DEI, but I think there are a lot more employees who are indifferent because they aren’t involved and don’t see a place for them to be involved. i.e. They don’t feel threatened by it but they don’t exactly feel welcome either. DEI is for other people not for them. And when you don’t feel included that’s kind of a probem for DEI efforts I think. I don’t know how to fix that though. When it comes to people, it’s not always about logic it’s about how they feel.
With regard to the McKinsey studies, this may be of interest:
Abstract
In a series of influential studies, McKinsey (2015, 2018, 2020) report a statistically significant positive relation between the industry-adjusted EBIT margin of global samples of large public firms and the racial/ethnic diversity of their executives. However, when we revisit McKinsey’s tests using recent data for US S&P 500® firms, we find statistically insignificant relations between McKinsey’s inverse normalized Herfindahl-Hirschman measures of executive racial/ethnic diversity and not only industry-adjusted EBIT margin, but also industry-adjusted sales growth, gross margin, ROA, ROE, and TSR. Our results suggest that despite the imprimatur often given to McKinsey’s (2015, 2018, 2020) studies, caution is warranted in relying on their findings to support the view that US publicly traded firms can deliver improved financial performance if they increase the racial/ethnic diversity of their executives.
And that is what I pointed out, I do know that there are critics, but as I pointed out, it would have been bad if they had founded that there was a significant negative effect.
As the SSRN study puts it in their conclusion:
Our findings lead us to two main conclusions and an emphasis. First, while our results do not rule out the possibility that under some circumstances or in some time periods greater executive racial/ethnic diversity may be economically beneficial to firms, we conclude that caution is warranted in relying on McKinsey’s findings to support the view that US publicly traded firms can deliver improved financial performance if they increase the racial/ethnic diversity of their executives.
As it is, (and that is just one study) what I pointed remains, the right wing claiming that “Get Woke Get Broke” will take place if we follow justice, is poppycock.
In any case, about profits in the report you pointed out that is not there:
Both forms of diversity in executive teams appear
to show an increased likelihood of above-average
profitability. Companies in the top quartile for both
gender and ethnic diversity in executive teams are
on average 9 percent more likely to outperform
their peers. (This gap has closed slightly since
our previous report.) Meanwhile, those in
the bottom quartile for both are 66 percent less likely
to outperform financially on average, up from
27 percent in 2020, indicating that lack of diversity
may be getting more expensive.
At my former company (I’m retired), the “resource” groups were called “affinity” groups, and were mostly based on ethnicity. We had a lot of different ethnicities at the company. But they weren’t groups only for the particular groups. Anybody could join them. If you were interested in Persian culture, join the Iranian affinity group. Plus, nearly all groups had awesome banquets every year. The Chinese New Year banquet was so popular, they had to hold a lottery for seats. I belonged to several affinity groups, and I’m a straight white woman.
My employer has a lot of groups, covering just about everything. Quick scan shows “diversity” groups for Asian, Black, Disabled, Early Career, Hispanic, Indigenous, LGBT+, Vets, Women. Then a bunch of “technical” groups to encourage cross disciplinary diversity (stove piping is a problem in highly specialized areas, and fresh eyes can make a huge difference). And then “interest” groups like golfing, biking, running, etc.
None of these groups have membership requirements, other than being an employee, but they have their focus. For example, the Womens group has breast cancer survivor activities that have plenty of male participants whose partners had it.
Cynically, you can look at these groups as “employee engagement” done just to convince people to form social bonds they’d prefer not to break by leaving the company. And that’s not really wrong. But there is a large direct benefit to the company by getting people with different backgrounds to work together. Finding the best solution when engineering is hard, and it’s very obvious that diversity improves creativity and outcomes. I mean, it’s so obvious that I wonder if management would prefer not to let our competitors know about it. (narrator: they know about it.)
