Show Me The Money
April 17, 2016 3:56 PM Subscribe
Why Diversity And Inclusion Will Be A Top Priority For 2016 Research shows that gender-diverse companies are 15% more likely to outperform their peers and ethnically-diverse companies are 35% more likely to do the same.
There might actually be fatally wrong reasons for doing right things.
posted by clockzero at 4:30 PM on April 17, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by clockzero at 4:30 PM on April 17, 2016 [3 favorites]
I sorta figured the first thing I'd see on MetaFilter was comments about the rhetoric used to justify a positive social change.
I hire people, and I'm interested in any avenue I can take to improve the quality of my applicants. I have no social justice reason to do this - I have an interest in making my applicant pool broader (in order to make hiring easier) and more qualified (in order to have more awesome employees). Currently, one way I have to do that is to make my applicant pool more diverse. Unfortunately, corporate structure makes that quite difficult to do - I've had problems even removing the lifting requirements on job descriptions for desk workers. Any justification I can find is useful to me, and profit is the most useful justification I can use at a for-profit company.
I appreciate any chance to convert social justice into actionable plans. For what it's worth, I have found LinkedIn's experience quite helpful (full disclosure - it suggests using LinkedIn for candidate identification as self-advertising, which I found quite useful) for further ideas. In addition, I run all job descriptions through Textio for inadvertant poorly phrased terminology that can have the effect of dissuading potential candidates.
posted by saeculorum at 4:44 PM on April 17, 2016 [13 favorites]
I hire people, and I'm interested in any avenue I can take to improve the quality of my applicants. I have no social justice reason to do this - I have an interest in making my applicant pool broader (in order to make hiring easier) and more qualified (in order to have more awesome employees). Currently, one way I have to do that is to make my applicant pool more diverse. Unfortunately, corporate structure makes that quite difficult to do - I've had problems even removing the lifting requirements on job descriptions for desk workers. Any justification I can find is useful to me, and profit is the most useful justification I can use at a for-profit company.
I appreciate any chance to convert social justice into actionable plans. For what it's worth, I have found LinkedIn's experience quite helpful (full disclosure - it suggests using LinkedIn for candidate identification as self-advertising, which I found quite useful) for further ideas. In addition, I run all job descriptions through Textio for inadvertant poorly phrased terminology that can have the effect of dissuading potential candidates.
posted by saeculorum at 4:44 PM on April 17, 2016 [13 favorites]
You're doing diversity wrong!
posted by 2N2222 at 4:57 PM on April 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by 2N2222 at 4:57 PM on April 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
If subsequent studies found the opposite — that companies that are a homogenous composition of the privileged group — should we then argue for rolling back anti-discrimination laws?
posted by indubitable at 5:26 PM on April 17, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by indubitable at 5:26 PM on April 17, 2016 [8 favorites]
There might actually be fatally wrong reasons for doing right things.
They're companies. Expecting them to do anything that is not in their explicit self interest is a losing game. Companies are effectively sociopaths. That's why regulation is necessary.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:57 PM on April 17, 2016 [7 favorites]
They're companies. Expecting them to do anything that is not in their explicit self interest is a losing game. Companies are effectively sociopaths. That's why regulation is necessary.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:57 PM on April 17, 2016 [7 favorites]
Textio is a pretty useful tool. Thanks for linking it, saeculorum.
posted by michaelh at 6:02 PM on April 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by michaelh at 6:02 PM on April 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
Gah, this is the second article on Metafilter today that is behind an ad-wall. At least the other one gave me the option to make a (not-so-micro) payment to read the article, Forbes doesn't even do that.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:36 PM on April 17, 2016
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:36 PM on April 17, 2016
"In 2010, Ford purchased $3.8 billion in goods and services from approximately 200 minority-owned suppliers and $866 million from more than 150 women-owned businesses. These results are an improvement over 2009 and exceed our goals for minority and women-owned suppliers."
posted by clavdivs at 9:07 PM on April 17, 2016
posted by clavdivs at 9:07 PM on April 17, 2016
"If subsequent studies found the opposite — that companies that are a homogeneous composition of the privileged group — should we then argue for rolling back anti-discrimination laws?"
Well, I'm not sure these arguments are about the legal situation. Technically it's against the law to discriminate against an applicant based on gender or ethnicity. This study incentivizes corporations to be more pro-active in trying to ensure their workplaces are more diverse.
I will grant you that if subsequent studies found the opposite, it indeed might disentivize companies to focus their efforts on diversity... But antidiscrimination laws were not constructed because it would help an organizations bottom line, so there is little reason to believe that these studies will impact the legal framework at all. But companies don't need legal pressure to incorporate practices that will increase their profit - they are already organized in a way where it's easy to justify programs and processes that will help the bottom line.
Even though 'companies are effectively sociopaths', people within organizations aren't (necessarily), and studies like these may help people within organizations fight to do the right thing (with data that shows doing the right thing can help improve profit).
posted by el io at 9:31 PM on April 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
Well, I'm not sure these arguments are about the legal situation. Technically it's against the law to discriminate against an applicant based on gender or ethnicity. This study incentivizes corporations to be more pro-active in trying to ensure their workplaces are more diverse.
I will grant you that if subsequent studies found the opposite, it indeed might disentivize companies to focus their efforts on diversity... But antidiscrimination laws were not constructed because it would help an organizations bottom line, so there is little reason to believe that these studies will impact the legal framework at all. But companies don't need legal pressure to incorporate practices that will increase their profit - they are already organized in a way where it's easy to justify programs and processes that will help the bottom line.
Even though 'companies are effectively sociopaths', people within organizations aren't (necessarily), and studies like these may help people within organizations fight to do the right thing (with data that shows doing the right thing can help improve profit).
posted by el io at 9:31 PM on April 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
"Gah, this is the second article on Metafilter today that is behind an ad-wall. At least the other one gave me the option to make a (not-so-micro) payment to read the article, Forbes doesn't even do that."
Forbes is weird. You click on the link once, you get that weird Welcome page. You click on the link again, it goes straight to the article.
posted by I-baLL at 9:33 PM on April 17, 2016
Forbes is weird. You click on the link once, you get that weird Welcome page. You click on the link again, it goes straight to the article.
posted by I-baLL at 9:33 PM on April 17, 2016
My all-time favourite example of this was Don Cherry's management of the OHL Mississauga Ice Dogs (my home town hockey team). Don Cherry was a very open Canadian hockey natavisit blowhard (as any who watch Hockey Night in Canada will know) and he refused to have any European players on the team at first. This resulted in repeated poor place finishes and is charitably referred to as a "building phase" on the wikipedia page.
posted by srboisvert at 4:42 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by srboisvert at 4:42 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
If subsequent studies found the opposite — that companies that are a homogenous composition of the privileged group — should we then argue for rolling back anti-discrimination laws?
Would you rather not know?
They're companies. Expecting them to do anything that is not in their explicit self interest is a losing game. Companies are effectively sociopaths. That's why regulation is necessary.
This is a strange way to frame it. I think the world would probably be a better place if only companies acted in their best interests. Because there are many examples of companies explicitly acting against their best interests, even to the point of self destruction. The comparison is not so much of sociopath. More like companies behave effectively like people do. Regulation can't always fix irrationality or plain stupidity.
It just seems like metafilter can't resist looking the gift horse in the mouth, blowing through its ears, and probing under its tail for good measure. Why can't people just sit back and accept some good news when it comes along?
posted by 2N2222 at 5:32 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
Would you rather not know?
They're companies. Expecting them to do anything that is not in their explicit self interest is a losing game. Companies are effectively sociopaths. That's why regulation is necessary.
This is a strange way to frame it. I think the world would probably be a better place if only companies acted in their best interests. Because there are many examples of companies explicitly acting against their best interests, even to the point of self destruction. The comparison is not so much of sociopath. More like companies behave effectively like people do. Regulation can't always fix irrationality or plain stupidity.
It just seems like metafilter can't resist looking the gift horse in the mouth, blowing through its ears, and probing under its tail for good measure. Why can't people just sit back and accept some good news when it comes along?
posted by 2N2222 at 5:32 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
I feel like even if it's for the wrong reasons, this pattern of hiring will eventually re-arrange the popular ideas about who is capable. If everyone sees that a variety of people do as well or better than before diversifying, then a lot of the discrimination in hiring will disappear as it becomes expected that any person could be a good hire. So it starts out as a crazy idea for change, becomes a profit-generation strategy, and ends up as Just What You Do. Which I can live with.
posted by blnkfrnk at 6:20 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by blnkfrnk at 6:20 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
If subsequent studies found the opposite
I think that is incredibly unlikely. Everything I have ever seen in life or read suggests to me that when you put any restrictions whatsoever on it other than "getting the folks who are competent" you harm performance. My recollection is that the most successful Mafioso in history was the one who broke with tradition of "Italian mobsters only work with Italians and Irish mobsters only work with Irish people etc". They were willing to work with anyone who could get the job done and they were wildly successful. (Naturally, this meant they had to be stopped. Duh.)
So, my understanding is turning a blind eye to race, gender etc when hiring is simply a good practice. Because any hiring restrictions whatsoever that aren't pertinent to getting the work done de facto cuts out potential candidates, and, thus, interferes with hiring for excellence.
That is without getting into a lot of other implications here. When I worked for BigCo, one of the things they talked about was something like " We hire everyone so we can more effectively sell to everyone." Their position was that they needed minorities and women internally so they could understand their customers effectively -- I.e. if you have no women or minorities working for you (or too few, with too little power), don't be all shocked when you have blindspots and cannot figure out how to sell to certain groups. This is a Fortune 500 company that gets a lot of press for how wildly successful they are.
posted by Michele in California at 10:42 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think that is incredibly unlikely. Everything I have ever seen in life or read suggests to me that when you put any restrictions whatsoever on it other than "getting the folks who are competent" you harm performance. My recollection is that the most successful Mafioso in history was the one who broke with tradition of "Italian mobsters only work with Italians and Irish mobsters only work with Irish people etc". They were willing to work with anyone who could get the job done and they were wildly successful. (Naturally, this meant they had to be stopped. Duh.)
So, my understanding is turning a blind eye to race, gender etc when hiring is simply a good practice. Because any hiring restrictions whatsoever that aren't pertinent to getting the work done de facto cuts out potential candidates, and, thus, interferes with hiring for excellence.
That is without getting into a lot of other implications here. When I worked for BigCo, one of the things they talked about was something like " We hire everyone so we can more effectively sell to everyone." Their position was that they needed minorities and women internally so they could understand their customers effectively -- I.e. if you have no women or minorities working for you (or too few, with too little power), don't be all shocked when you have blindspots and cannot figure out how to sell to certain groups. This is a Fortune 500 company that gets a lot of press for how wildly successful they are.
posted by Michele in California at 10:42 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
Am I missing something, or does this article skip right over clearly representing the ACTUAL EMPLOYEE DIVERSITY within the wonderfully high-performing companies who have embraced all the high-impact inclusivity and diversity management practices?
posted by desuetude at 11:13 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by desuetude at 11:13 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
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-- Diversity is For White People
posted by The Giant Squid at 4:24 PM on April 17, 2016 [6 favorites]