Diversity Policies Rarely Make Companies Fairer, Feel Threatening to White Men

https://hbr.org/2016/01/diversity-policies-dont-help-women-or-minorities-and-they-make-white-men-feel-threatened

by mpweiher • 9 years ago

26 9 9 years ago

hbr.org

dom0• 9 years ago

Currently, diversity initiatives’ strongest accomplishment may actually be protecting the organization from litigation

Cynical: works as intended?

fishnchips• 9 years ago

Of course. HR's main job is to keep the company safe, not make its employees comfortable. The latter could be a nice side effect.

b6• 9 years ago

Of course "diversity" policies don't make companies fairer. Treating people differently because of bodily attributes is fundamentally unfair.

And I don't oppose this stuff because I feel threatened. I oppose it because chopping up humanity according to notions of supposed ethnicity is barbaric, and we're in the process of getting over it, even if some people will have to be dragged along.

Kevve• 9 years ago

chopping up humanity according to notions of supposed ethnicity is barbaric, and we're in the process of getting over it, even if some people will have to be dragged along.

I find your comment offensive and unsettling. My people were discriminated and persecuted because of their ethnicity. If things have gone worse we could have been wiped out of existence.

What you're basically saying is that it wouldn't be a big deal, because all people are interchangeable. Who cares if some ethnic group goes extinct, just replace them with someone else, because a human is a human, right?

2017throw• 9 years ago

And then it turned out if you have chinese, inidian, white eastern european and white american employees it's still not diverse enough!

thriftwy• 9 years ago

There are companies which prefer their employees to come from a short set of schools.

How would it help them if they have diverse employees coming from the same limited set?

owebmaster• 9 years ago

And also threatening to black men because of the threatened white men.

benjohnson• 9 years ago

Oh boy. Speaking for my own feelings as a white man, there is truth in what you say.

I own a small IT company - and every time I interview someone from a protected class, I think to myself: "Is this the person that is going to sue me and my family and put us out of business?"

I've been able to ignore that voice in my head, and plow forward and hire great candidates who are all over the human spectrum and our little company is all the better for it.

But I'd be lying if I don't think about it.

itsdrewmiller• 9 years ago

This article is misleading to the point of being dishonest, imho - if you read the first study cited, it suggests many different policies are effective, which they dismiss in the article by saying that not "all" policies are effective.

From the study abstract:

"Efforts to moderate managerial bias through diversity training and diversity evaluations are least effective at increasing the share of white women, black women, and black men in management. Efforts to attack social isolation through mentoring and networking show modest effects. Efforts to establish responsibility for diversity lead to the broadest increases in managerial diversity. Moreover, organizations that establish responsibility see better effects from diversity training and evaluations, networking, and mentoring. Employers subject to federal affirmative action edicts, who typically assign responsibility for compliance to a manager, also see stronger effects from some programs."

Diversity Policies Rarely Make Companies Fairer, Feel Threatening to White Men

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