4 ms·

"Instead, he said companies should consider race, gender and ethnicity when deciding who to let go." I understand what this meant in the context of the article

"Instead, he said companies should consider race, gender and ethnicity when deciding who to let go." I understand what this meant in the context of the article, but without context, this seems like a potentially dangerous statement.

8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago
Illegal at the federal level, no?
- VWWHFSfQ 4y ago
  I believe it depends on which race, gender or ethnicity is being let go.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  Yes, but I appreciate it when people are so deep in their field that they innocently spout off ideas like this. It's also a little sloppy for Bloomberg to let that get by since it almost encourages something that's possibly illegal.
  - BoorishBears 4y ago
    I think we just found where the root of the disconnect between a certain "victimized" demographic and how D&I works stems from: As the reply above said, D&I isn't about "Don't fire minorities", it's about "If you fire 10% of your workforce, but they end up being 30% of the minorities in your workforce, question why there's a disconnect" The idea being is the 10% actually where 10% of cuts need to happen, or is the 10% including some business unit that didn't have the right people hitting up the after work pub crawl with the founder, so no one one felt personally connected enough to have them stick. - And I feel like the kneejerk is to assume "oh well you're just assuming founders are discriminatory"... it really doesn't have to be a discriminatory thing, it's simple human nature. It's hard to trust someone who thinks that they won't subconsciously lean away from firing people that they've spent more time with and happen to like. They should accept that camaraderie outside of the bounds of business can subtly affect affect business sense even if you are a fair person before you can consciously override that tendency. Similarly even though they're not sexist, they're not a T-1000 and are subject to things like same-gender preferences that have been replicated time and time again: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01863/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.0186... A large part of D&I is supposed to get people to embrace uncomfortable hidden biases without jumping to the least charitable cause: You don't have to be racist to get along better with people who are from your culture when that often means sharing interests, understanding each other better, etc. You don't have to be evil for that to end up affecting your decision making subconsciously.
benjaminwootton 4y ago
It's an interesting question. Is it both legal and ethical to prioritise specific groups when hiring, with the aim to improve diversity? Is it therefore both legal and ethical to use the same metrics when conducting layoffs? Though this is not my field, it somehow seems more unfair in the latter case?
- jxramos 4y ago
  ...in 25 years the practices will be illegal, they are illegal now.
danjoredd 4y ago
I think even in context its a bit dangerous. Who counts as diverse, and who gets cut in that consideration? Imagine there are three employees, and one of them has to go due to budget cuts. One is a straight African American male, one is a white homosexual male, and one is a white straight female. All of these might be considered diverse because they are all minorities in the tech industry in some way. However, taking any of these three people's race, sexuality, or gender into consideration when making the decision might open the door to lawsuits. How do you make the decision between these three people? Is there a certain level of diversity that would ensure that they keep their job? I apologize if I come off as ignorant...Im not sure how these things work in law. However, I can't think of any way that taking someone's personal attributes that they cannot help into consideration when laying others off would result in anything but resentment towards the company.
- kenjackson 4y ago
  I was thinking of it more like, if you look at who you're planning to layoff and it is 50% white females -- and your employee population is only 20% white female... then you should probably take a look at why. Has some unintended bias crept into your decision making.
  - dropit_sphere 4y ago
    The reverse, however, could also be true---how did you get all those fireable white females in the first place?
    - Volundr 4y ago
      Almost everyone is fireable. People who make it through large layoffs like to tell themselves it's because of the value they produce, but in my experience having been close to the decision making process on some of these it has a lot more to do with luck of the draw than anyone would care to admit.
      - danjoredd 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
BurningFrog 4y ago
N of 1, but a corporate lawyer friend told me that when their company was doing layoffs, it was made very clear that it needed to hit all racial etc categories proportionally.
tharne 4y ago
> I understand what this meant in the context of the article, but without context, this seems like a potentially dangerous statement. To be honest, the context doesn't really help much.

8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago

Illegal at the federal level, no?

VWWHFSfQ 4y ago
I believe it depends on which race, gender or ethnicity is being let go.
dehrmann 4y ago
Yes, but I appreciate it when people are so deep in their field that they innocently spout off ideas like this. It's also a little sloppy for Bloomberg to let that get by since it almost encourages something that's possibly illegal.
- BoorishBears 4y ago
  I think we just found where the root of the disconnect between a certain "victimized" demographic and how D&I works stems from: As the reply above said, D&I isn't about "Don't fire minorities", it's about "If you fire 10% of your workforce, but they end up being 30% of the minorities in your workforce, question why there's a disconnect" The idea being is the 10% actually where 10% of cuts need to happen, or is the 10% including some business unit that didn't have the right people hitting up the after work pub crawl with the founder, so no one one felt personally connected enough to have them stick. - And I feel like the kneejerk is to assume "oh well you're just assuming founders are discriminatory"... it really doesn't have to be a discriminatory thing, it's simple human nature. It's hard to trust someone who thinks that they won't subconsciously lean away from firing people that they've spent more time with and happen to like. They should accept that camaraderie outside of the bounds of business can subtly affect affect business sense even if you are a fair person before you can consciously override that tendency. Similarly even though they're not sexist, they're not a T-1000 and are subject to things like same-gender preferences that have been replicated time and time again: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01863/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.0186... A large part of D&I is supposed to get people to embrace uncomfortable hidden biases without jumping to the least charitable cause: You don't have to be racist to get along better with people who are from your culture when that often means sharing interests, understanding each other better, etc. You don't have to be evil for that to end up affecting your decision making subconsciously.

benjaminwootton 4y ago

It's an interesting question. Is it both legal and ethical to prioritise specific groups when hiring, with the aim to improve diversity? Is it therefore both legal and ethical to use the same metrics when conducting layoffs? Though this is not my field, it somehow seems more unfair in the latter case?

jxramos 4y ago
...in 25 years the practices will be illegal, they are illegal now.

danjoredd 4y ago

I think even in context its a bit dangerous. Who counts as diverse, and who gets cut in that consideration? Imagine there are three employees, and one of them has to go due to budget cuts. One is a straight African American male, one is a white homosexual male, and one is a white straight female. All of these might be considered diverse because they are all minorities in the tech industry in some way. However, taking any of these three people's race, sexuality, or gender into consideration when making the decision might open the door to lawsuits. How do you make the decision between these three people? Is there a certain level of diversity that would ensure that they keep their job? I apologize if I come off as ignorant...Im not sure how these things work in law. However, I can't think of any way that taking someone's personal attributes that they cannot help into consideration when laying others off would result in anything but resentment towards the company.

kenjackson 4y ago
I was thinking of it more like, if you look at who you're planning to layoff and it is 50% white females -- and your employee population is only 20% white female... then you should probably take a look at why. Has some unintended bias crept into your decision making.
- dropit_sphere 4y ago
  The reverse, however, could also be true---how did you get all those fireable white females in the first place?
  - Volundr 4y ago
    Almost everyone is fireable. People who make it through large layoffs like to tell themselves it's because of the value they produce, but in my experience having been close to the decision making process on some of these it has a lot more to do with luck of the draw than anyone would care to admit.
    - danjoredd 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

BurningFrog 4y ago

N of 1, but a corporate lawyer friend told me that when their company was doing layoffs, it was made very clear that it needed to hit all racial etc categories proportionally.

tharne 4y ago

> I understand what this meant in the context of the article, but without context, this seems like a potentially dangerous statement. To be honest, the context doesn't really help much.