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This guy! Imagine thinking “diversity programs” are a significant cost center, as if their spend were comparable to real estate or employee compensation

by gcr 4y ago

jimbob45 4y ago
It's not really about the cost though, is it? If they were donating to the KKK or literally setting cash on fire, I doubt you'd have the same outlook. Wasted or misspent money is never something to overlook, particularly when you could have justified keeping a few more employees on if you'd just stopped setting money on fire.
- pjc50 4y ago
  Watch out for the PACs. https://www.protocol.com/tech-company-pacs-2019-2020 https://www.protocol.com/tech-company-pacs-2019-2020 (somewhere between donating to the KKK, setting it on fire, and using it for bribes). I wonder what a company that donates equally to both sides is trying to achieve, hmm?
  - jimbob45 4y ago
    I don't know if you're American or not but that's a common strategy to select higher quality candidates for your side whilst selecting the lowest possible quality candidate for the opposing side via the primary process. That said, that's not always the case and you could absolutely be right.
- minsc_and_boo 4y ago
  Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. Falsely equivocating spending on diversity programs to "donating to the KKK or literally setting cash on fire" is really telling. This monthly discussion comes up on HN and it's already turning into a dumpster fire.
  - it_citizen 4y ago
    > Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. I hope this is right. But I keep seeing stats like that being thrown around and implying that the cause of those high financial returns are diversity when it is as likely that projections of high financial returns give you the money and time to focus more heavily on diversity. Both can also be symptoms of a common cause such as healthier management. Again, correlation is not causation.
    - edgyquant 4y ago
      This is surely the case. It gets old watching progressives paint their interpretations as objective fact.
    - minsc_and_boo 4y ago
      Could you share some of these stats being thrown around that you're eluding to?
  - dmitrygr 4y ago
    > Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. Falsely equivocating correlation and causation is really telling.
    - rdslw 4y ago
      So true. SJW at its finest :-(
    - minsc_and_boo 4y ago
      And yet, somehow, there is zero correlation between hiring KKK members and organizational competitive success - hence the false equivocation. Nobody said anything about causation, you raised that straw man yourself. If you'd look up the stat I quoted, you'd see McKinsey says the same thing: >While correlation does not equal causation (greater gender and ethnic diversity in corporate leadership doesn’t automatically translate into more profit), the correlation does indicate that when companies commit themselves to diverse leadership, they are more successful. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/why-diversity-matters https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizatio...
- babelfish 4y ago
  How can you equate spending on diversity with spending on the KKK?
kypro 4y ago
Feel free to disagree with me on this, but I hold the view that diversity programs erode productivity generally speaking. And for the record here, I'm not even opposed to them as a worker. It bothers me about as much as companies providing me with free lunches (not at all). In my current place we spend around an hour each week either discussing diversity or in diversity & inclusion training, and it's always the easiest hour of my week.
xyzzyz 4y ago
Google is bragging about spending hundreds of millions of dollars on diversity programs every year.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  Revenue: 256 billion dollars. So "hundreds of millions" is .1% of their spending. And it is a line item that can be effortly axed in hard times. As others said, it's basically marketing. If you have a company that actively consumes your personal information, but it's a rapacious creepy fascist company, people aren't going to hand over their data to it. Even if you hate the "woke", you probably still trust a company with a bunch of sensitive, moralistic raving SJWs that will scream if Google is abusing things too much. Which has happened! Likely, worth every penny.
threadweaver34 4y ago
Diversity programs are best viewed as a relatively cheap marketing expense. They exist to make the company look better to certain people. When there are more pressing concerns, you pare them back because you have better things to worry about that what non-customers think of you.

This guy! Imagine thinking “diversity programs” are a significant cost center, as if their spend were comparable to real estate or employee compensation

by gcr 4y ago

This guy! Imagine thinking “diversity programs” are a significant cost center, as if their spend were comparable to real estate or employee compensation

jimbob45 4y ago

It's not really about the cost though, is it? If they were donating to the KKK or literally setting cash on fire, I doubt you'd have the same outlook. Wasted or misspent money is never something to overlook, particularly when you could have justified keeping a few more employees on if you'd just stopped setting money on fire.

pjc50 4y ago
Watch out for the PACs. https://www.protocol.com/tech-company-pacs-2019-2020 https://www.protocol.com/tech-company-pacs-2019-2020 (somewhere between donating to the KKK, setting it on fire, and using it for bribes). I wonder what a company that donates equally to both sides is trying to achieve, hmm?
- jimbob45 4y ago
  I don't know if you're American or not but that's a common strategy to select higher quality candidates for your side whilst selecting the lowest possible quality candidate for the opposing side via the primary process. That said, that's not always the case and you could absolutely be right.
minsc_and_boo 4y ago
Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. Falsely equivocating spending on diversity programs to "donating to the KKK or literally setting cash on fire" is really telling. This monthly discussion comes up on HN and it's already turning into a dumpster fire.
- it_citizen 4y ago
  > Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. I hope this is right. But I keep seeing stats like that being thrown around and implying that the cause of those high financial returns are diversity when it is as likely that projections of high financial returns give you the money and time to focus more heavily on diversity. Both can also be symptoms of a common cause such as healthier management. Again, correlation is not causation.
  - edgyquant 4y ago
    This is surely the case. It gets old watching progressives paint their interpretations as objective fact.
  - minsc_and_boo 4y ago
    Could you share some of these stats being thrown around that you're eluding to?
- dmitrygr 4y ago
  > Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. Falsely equivocating correlation and causation is really telling.
  - rdslw 4y ago
    So true. SJW at its finest :-(
  - minsc_and_boo 4y ago
    And yet, somehow, there is zero correlation between hiring KKK members and organizational competitive success - hence the false equivocation. Nobody said anything about causation, you raised that straw man yourself. If you'd look up the stat I quoted, you'd see McKinsey says the same thing: >While correlation does not equal causation (greater gender and ethnic diversity in corporate leadership doesn’t automatically translate into more profit), the correlation does indicate that when companies commit themselves to diverse leadership, they are more successful. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/why-diversity-matters https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizatio...
babelfish 4y ago
How can you equate spending on diversity with spending on the KKK?

kypro 4y ago

Feel free to disagree with me on this, but I hold the view that diversity programs erode productivity generally speaking. And for the record here, I'm not even opposed to them as a worker. It bothers me about as much as companies providing me with free lunches (not at all). In my current place we spend around an hour each week either discussing diversity or in diversity & inclusion training, and it's always the easiest hour of my week.

xyzzyz 4y ago

Google is bragging about spending hundreds of millions of dollars on diversity programs every year.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Revenue: 256 billion dollars. So "hundreds of millions" is .1% of their spending. And it is a line item that can be effortly axed in hard times. As others said, it's basically marketing. If you have a company that actively consumes your personal information, but it's a rapacious creepy fascist company, people aren't going to hand over their data to it. Even if you hate the "woke", you probably still trust a company with a bunch of sensitive, moralistic raving SJWs that will scream if Google is abusing things too much. Which has happened! Likely, worth every penny.

threadweaver34 4y ago

Diversity programs are best viewed as a relatively cheap marketing expense. They exist to make the company look better to certain people. When there are more pressing concerns, you pare them back because you have better things to worry about that what non-customers think of you.