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> This results in some people (mainly white men) feeling like they are being left out when they really weren’t the best fit but in the past may have picked over

> This results in some people (mainly white men) feeling like they are being left out when they really weren’t the best fit but in the past may have picked over someone else. There would be merit to this line of thinking, if the diversity initiatives came in the form of anonymizing resumes and interviews (which is easier to do with remote interviews). But that's not the case. More often than not, diversity initiatives come in the form of quotas or penalties for hiring or promoting too many "non-diverse" people. And those penalties often kick in at levels of representation lower than "non-diverse" people's representation in the candidate pool. This is why I'm not irked by over-representation of Asians in tech. They're not advantaged relative to whites, if anything they're penalized for their race (at a past company asian males were categorized as "ND", Negative-Diversity even more undesirable than white males). However, this is often not how diversity initiatives work. More often than not, they're not aimed at eliminating discrimination, they're aimed at mandating it: attaching bonuses to hires and promotions of particular races and genders, or achieving specific representation numbers (AKA quotas). This isn't eliminating discrimination, this is creating it.

winternett 4y ago
If you think white men have it hard... Try being a black woman. Your rosy portrayal of white struggle is deeply mis-informed... People struggle because of corporate cost-cutting strategies, not because minority hires are taking jobs from white men in droves. A lot of the posts in this thread are evoquing memories from Birth of a Nation... geesis.
omegaworks 4y ago
>More often than not, diversity initiatives come in the form of quotas or penalties for hiring or promoting too many "non-diverse" people. This is literally not the case for the author. From the article: >I told HR that I had considered it and I believed my recommendation was correct. HR said “OK, then we don’t need to change anything. I just wanted to check that you had considered them.” That's literally all the author had to do. He made up the idea that it had an impact on his ability to advance in his career in his own mind. >Again, there was no quota, but it seemed clear that promoting this person would have made HR and my corporate vice president happy. It only "seemed clear." Weasel words. Engaging in the hyperbolic. This entire discussion is predicated on the fabrication that there is some racialized penalization system in place. It is scaremongering, nothing more than balking at the requirement to do the bare minimum.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  Because explicit quotas are illegal, they're often conveyed ambiguously. "You don't need to hire X% of Y group. But hiring X% of Y group would demonstrate inclusivity, which is one of the core company values. And upholding our core company values is crucial to advancement." Also, as per "Diversity Slating Guidelines" quotas are indeed being used. They require at least one Black or Latin candidate, and one female candidate. If there's only 4 people on the slate, this could mean that 50% of the pool is subject to racial or gender quotas. There's more context behind Microsoft's diversity initiatives. Hiring managers were given bonuses for hiring diverse applicants. Or conversely, they were penalized for hiring non-diverse applications: https://qz.com/1598345/microsoft-staff-are-openly-questioning-the-value-of-diversity/ https://qz.com/1598345/microsoft-staff-are-openly-questionin...
DebtDeflation 4y ago
This is how literally everything in corporate America works. You start with a good idea. It gets turned into a metric. Targets for this metric are assigned at various levels in the management hierarchy. Bonuses are made dependent upon meeting the target for the metric. Eventually everyone forgets the initial objective and just focuses on managing the metric. I work in consulting, client satisfaction is obviously very important, leadership made the determination that NPS is the best way to measure csat, we all have NPS targets, our bonuses are tied to them, so what does everyone do? They only send NPS surveys to specific clients they know will give a good score and then they spend time and effort to make sure the client follows up and does in fact give a good score. Everyone manages the metric, same as with the DE&I stuff.
int_19h 4y ago
What's especially troubling is that blind interviews and auditions, and other similar anonymizing techniques, are now being explicitly attacked from the DE&I perspective on the basis that they don't produce results that are "diverse enough".

winternett 4y ago

If you think white men have it hard... Try being a black woman. Your rosy portrayal of white struggle is deeply mis-informed... People struggle because of corporate cost-cutting strategies, not because minority hires are taking jobs from white men in droves. A lot of the posts in this thread are evoquing memories from Birth of a Nation... geesis.

omegaworks 4y ago

>More often than not, diversity initiatives come in the form of quotas or penalties for hiring or promoting too many "non-diverse" people. This is literally not the case for the author. From the article: >I told HR that I had considered it and I believed my recommendation was correct. HR said “OK, then we don’t need to change anything. I just wanted to check that you had considered them.” That's literally all the author had to do. He made up the idea that it had an impact on his ability to advance in his career in his own mind. >Again, there was no quota, but it seemed clear that promoting this person would have made HR and my corporate vice president happy. It only "seemed clear." Weasel words. Engaging in the hyperbolic. This entire discussion is predicated on the fabrication that there is some racialized penalization system in place. It is scaremongering, nothing more than balking at the requirement to do the bare minimum.

Manuel_D 4y ago
Because explicit quotas are illegal, they're often conveyed ambiguously. "You don't need to hire X% of Y group. But hiring X% of Y group would demonstrate inclusivity, which is one of the core company values. And upholding our core company values is crucial to advancement." Also, as per "Diversity Slating Guidelines" quotas are indeed being used. They require at least one Black or Latin candidate, and one female candidate. If there's only 4 people on the slate, this could mean that 50% of the pool is subject to racial or gender quotas. There's more context behind Microsoft's diversity initiatives. Hiring managers were given bonuses for hiring diverse applicants. Or conversely, they were penalized for hiring non-diverse applications: https://qz.com/1598345/microsoft-staff-are-openly-questioning-the-value-of-diversity/ https://qz.com/1598345/microsoft-staff-are-openly-questionin...

DebtDeflation 4y ago

This is how literally everything in corporate America works. You start with a good idea. It gets turned into a metric. Targets for this metric are assigned at various levels in the management hierarchy. Bonuses are made dependent upon meeting the target for the metric. Eventually everyone forgets the initial objective and just focuses on managing the metric. I work in consulting, client satisfaction is obviously very important, leadership made the determination that NPS is the best way to measure csat, we all have NPS targets, our bonuses are tied to them, so what does everyone do? They only send NPS surveys to specific clients they know will give a good score and then they spend time and effort to make sure the client follows up and does in fact give a good score. Everyone manages the metric, same as with the DE&I stuff.

int_19h 4y ago

What's especially troubling is that blind interviews and auditions, and other similar anonymizing techniques, are now being explicitly attacked from the DE&I perspective on the basis that they don't produce results that are "diverse enough".