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Google Struggles To Diversify Its Workforce
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Why is the continuous strive to diversify one's workforce so important, if people of any gender or race are not interested in following certain professions then so be it, much better to have a workforce who are employed for their skills, rather than because of their gender or race?
/// Mortified by the disclosures, Google and most of its other technology peers have been pouring more money into programs steering more women, blacks and Hispanics to focus on science and math in schools and have stepped up their recruiting of minority students as they prepare to graduate from college. ///
Why is the continuous strive to diversify one's workforce so important, if people of any gender or race are not interested in following certain professions then so be it, much better to have a workforce who are employed for their skills, rather than because of their gender or race?
/// Mortified by the disclosures, Google and most of its other technology peers have been pouring more money into programs steering more women, blacks and Hispanics to focus on science and math in schools and have stepped up their recruiting of minority students as they prepare to graduate from college. ///
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The trouble is, sp, that what the BBC does is rather like April Fool’s jokes – you never know whether what they announce or do is the truth or not. (it was not only reported in the Independent, by the way. It was widely trailed in almost all papers). If it is as you describe then (a) I did not know their brief extended to providing free training courses and (b) they have no more justification to reserve a place for a disabled person than they have to reserve a place for a white person.
“If I went for a job with an IT company and whilst walking around the campus, I realised that every single person working there was a white male, I would question why..”
I think the impressions you get and the puzzlement you say would suffer is different to mine. It would not cross my mind to wonder why (nor, should I add, would it cross my mind to wonder why if they were all black women). It simply doesn’t occur to me.
Of course businesses want to take advantage of all the talent they need. To do that all they have to do is advertise. People who have the required skills to offer will find the jobs. There’s no need for any “diversity” targets. The entire diversity industry is an unnecessary nonsense. It leads to situations such as the one in which the Lake District National Park found itself. Its funding was in jeopardy a couple of years ago because it was suggested that it did not attract a sufficient number of visitors from minority backgrounds. The Lake District has been there forever. People in the UK have been visiting it for almost as long. Suddenly, those who choose not to go there place its funding in jeopardy.
I might also suggest you do not know the full story of the role of women in WW2 and what happened afterwards. Women filled many highly skilled positions during the war – jobs for which they had to “get up to speed” far more rapidly than the men they replaced. The reason they did not pursue those careers after the war was that they were not allowed to. The men were guaranteed their old jobs upon demobilisation. The women were pushed out and those that wanted to continue to work were vilified. Those days have gone. Jobs are open to all. If various sections of the community do not apply for them that’s their fault.
“If I went for a job with an IT company and whilst walking around the campus, I realised that every single person working there was a white male, I would question why..”
I think the impressions you get and the puzzlement you say would suffer is different to mine. It would not cross my mind to wonder why (nor, should I add, would it cross my mind to wonder why if they were all black women). It simply doesn’t occur to me.
Of course businesses want to take advantage of all the talent they need. To do that all they have to do is advertise. People who have the required skills to offer will find the jobs. There’s no need for any “diversity” targets. The entire diversity industry is an unnecessary nonsense. It leads to situations such as the one in which the Lake District National Park found itself. Its funding was in jeopardy a couple of years ago because it was suggested that it did not attract a sufficient number of visitors from minority backgrounds. The Lake District has been there forever. People in the UK have been visiting it for almost as long. Suddenly, those who choose not to go there place its funding in jeopardy.
I might also suggest you do not know the full story of the role of women in WW2 and what happened afterwards. Women filled many highly skilled positions during the war – jobs for which they had to “get up to speed” far more rapidly than the men they replaced. The reason they did not pursue those careers after the war was that they were not allowed to. The men were guaranteed their old jobs upon demobilisation. The women were pushed out and those that wanted to continue to work were vilified. Those days have gone. Jobs are open to all. If various sections of the community do not apply for them that’s their fault.
naomi24
Here here.
All jobs should be open to the most talented people in their respective professions - such as MPs, CEOs of financial institutions such as Lloyds, Washington Mutual, Enron, Lloyds, the board of Tesco etc etc.
These companies lead by one section of society are a shining beacon to what can be achieved in a non-diversified environment.
And why on earth are women allowed to think that they could possibly perform as well as a man in the 21st century?
It's political correctness gone (blah blah).
Here here.
All jobs should be open to the most talented people in their respective professions - such as MPs, CEOs of financial institutions such as Lloyds, Washington Mutual, Enron, Lloyds, the board of Tesco etc etc.
These companies lead by one section of society are a shining beacon to what can be achieved in a non-diversified environment.
And why on earth are women allowed to think that they could possibly perform as well as a man in the 21st century?
It's political correctness gone (blah blah).
New Judge
You wrote:
"The trouble is, sp, that what the BBC does is rather like April Fool’s jokes – you never know whether what they announce or do is the truth or not."
Not true really...I knew it was cobblers a few hours after the story broke.
Once again, I want to point out that much of what we read in our national newspapers is 'churnalism' made up from a mixture of PR and PA stories. A story will hit one news source, and be replicated all over the place.
This is one of those stories.
You also wrote:
"I think the impressions you get and the puzzlement you say would suffer is different to mine. It would not cross my mind to wonder why (nor, should I add, would it cross my mind to wonder why if they were all black women). It simply doesn’t occur to me."
Really?
So, you're saying that if you went for a job in a large English city (let's say in graphic design), and every single person working there were black, or an eskimo, or Algerian, it would cross your mind to think, "Well that's odd"???
I laud your apparent colour blindness. It's an utterly admirable state of being.
Regarding advertising...no - a company that wants to attract as much from the talent pool as possible will consider it's advertising strategy to accommodate that.
For instance, a new bar opening in Shoreditch will focus on magazines and publications aimed at the young (NME, Time Out, Wallpaper etc). It's unlikely to put an advert in the latest issue of Saga magazine.
Like I said in my previous post, there are three main reasons why companies want to be seen as diverse. I understand two of them, and suspect that the third is more to do with public image.
Public image and 'the protection of the brand identity' is crucial to many companies.
Also, I suspect we need checks and balances because let's be honest - there are some who will reject applicants with 'non-white' names simply because they have non-white names.
It's an ugly truth that few want to acknowledge.
However, there seems to be silence from many people when confronted with evidence of this.
I myself am lucky to work an industry which is full of 'techies'. Either you can do it or you can't - but there are many places where irrational prejudice still exists.
I understand the antipathy to targets, but there should be an equal antipathy to those companies and smaller businesses who effectively operate a colour bar.
Looking at some of the posters on AB, it seems that there is less of an issue with this.
You wrote:
"The trouble is, sp, that what the BBC does is rather like April Fool’s jokes – you never know whether what they announce or do is the truth or not."
Not true really...I knew it was cobblers a few hours after the story broke.
Once again, I want to point out that much of what we read in our national newspapers is 'churnalism' made up from a mixture of PR and PA stories. A story will hit one news source, and be replicated all over the place.
This is one of those stories.
You also wrote:
"I think the impressions you get and the puzzlement you say would suffer is different to mine. It would not cross my mind to wonder why (nor, should I add, would it cross my mind to wonder why if they were all black women). It simply doesn’t occur to me."
Really?
So, you're saying that if you went for a job in a large English city (let's say in graphic design), and every single person working there were black, or an eskimo, or Algerian, it would cross your mind to think, "Well that's odd"???
I laud your apparent colour blindness. It's an utterly admirable state of being.
Regarding advertising...no - a company that wants to attract as much from the talent pool as possible will consider it's advertising strategy to accommodate that.
For instance, a new bar opening in Shoreditch will focus on magazines and publications aimed at the young (NME, Time Out, Wallpaper etc). It's unlikely to put an advert in the latest issue of Saga magazine.
Like I said in my previous post, there are three main reasons why companies want to be seen as diverse. I understand two of them, and suspect that the third is more to do with public image.
Public image and 'the protection of the brand identity' is crucial to many companies.
Also, I suspect we need checks and balances because let's be honest - there are some who will reject applicants with 'non-white' names simply because they have non-white names.
It's an ugly truth that few want to acknowledge.
However, there seems to be silence from many people when confronted with evidence of this.
I myself am lucky to work an industry which is full of 'techies'. Either you can do it or you can't - but there are many places where irrational prejudice still exists.
I understand the antipathy to targets, but there should be an equal antipathy to those companies and smaller businesses who effectively operate a colour bar.
Looking at some of the posters on AB, it seems that there is less of an issue with this.
sp1814
/// It's an ugly truth that few want to acknowledge. ///
/// However, there seems to be silence from many people when confronted with evidence of this. ///
/// I myself am lucky to work an industry which is full of 'techies'. Either you can do it or you can't - but there are many places where irrational prejudice still exists. ///
/// I understand the antipathy to targets, but there should be an equal antipathy to those companies and smaller businesses who effectively operate a colour bar. ///
You seem to make very many accusations, but I have yet to see you name these companies or even smaller burlinesses that operate a 'colour bar'
/// It's an ugly truth that few want to acknowledge. ///
/// However, there seems to be silence from many people when confronted with evidence of this. ///
/// I myself am lucky to work an industry which is full of 'techies'. Either you can do it or you can't - but there are many places where irrational prejudice still exists. ///
/// I understand the antipathy to targets, but there should be an equal antipathy to those companies and smaller businesses who effectively operate a colour bar. ///
You seem to make very many accusations, but I have yet to see you name these companies or even smaller burlinesses that operate a 'colour bar'
I think the thing that a lot of people are missing is that, while in an ideal world diversity is just something that should naturally happen, it isn't happening naturally a lot of the time. It remains unusual that top jobs are occupied by women, for example. The trends are positive but we aren't there yet.
There are presumably several reasons for this. Most simply, everything could be (almost) set up correctly now, with minimal or no discrimination when it comes to applications, and it's just a matter of allowing things to move along naturally. This is probably mostly the case, but there remain several companies where discrimination is a problem -- I'm not going to name names either, because this is probably one of those things that's hit-and-miss rather than actually systematic, but studies tend to suggest that the chance of, say, a black person getting a job increases if the CV application doesn't include a photograph compared to when it does, even if in every other detail the CVs are the same. There is such a thing as latent discrimination and it's unlikely ever to go away entirely. People just don't tend to trust people who looks or seem different.
It does seem that this trend is reducing, though, and the chances of getting a job are decoupling from your background now. On the other hand, you then hit the second and third reasons for a lack of diversity -- it can be that there actually isn't any discrimination when it comes to applying for a job, but the perception is the opposite, and people feel that they are likely to be discriminated against. This could be an historical hangover not helped by the fact that the profession in question doesn't "look" diverse enough. An example that has nothing to do with race and a lot to do with the old class system might be the Oxbridge application system. Historically there was a heavy public-school bias, so that there was basically no point in applying from a state school. This hasn't been true for decades now, but the old impression still lingers sadly, and it's reflected in the student make-up. Indeed, sometimes active efforts to encourage state-school students to apply are rebuffed by the schools themselves (this has happened). Oxford and Cambridge Universities are working to fight against this impression and it is having an impact, but they have to do that work to ensure that the applications are as diverse as possible -- that they can be ensured of having the widest range of candidates to choose from and ensure that high-quality candidates aren't being missed.
The third problem is that it is often true that the talent pool isn't diverse even before there's any job application. Black people tend to do less well at school, for example. Or fewer girls study physics and boys, and vice versa for biology. This may be linked to long-term perceptions of the "oh that's just a girls'/ boys' subject" variety. Again, it's important to combat and dispel these attitudes if they exist. It benefits everyone to ensure that as wide a range of people as possible are trained highly.
Despite all the above, the absolute worst thing to do is to enforce quotas. They remain horrible ideas. But if a workforce is not reflective of the diversity of the population then it does suggest that there is a systemic problem somewhere along the line that must be addressed.
There are presumably several reasons for this. Most simply, everything could be (almost) set up correctly now, with minimal or no discrimination when it comes to applications, and it's just a matter of allowing things to move along naturally. This is probably mostly the case, but there remain several companies where discrimination is a problem -- I'm not going to name names either, because this is probably one of those things that's hit-and-miss rather than actually systematic, but studies tend to suggest that the chance of, say, a black person getting a job increases if the CV application doesn't include a photograph compared to when it does, even if in every other detail the CVs are the same. There is such a thing as latent discrimination and it's unlikely ever to go away entirely. People just don't tend to trust people who looks or seem different.
It does seem that this trend is reducing, though, and the chances of getting a job are decoupling from your background now. On the other hand, you then hit the second and third reasons for a lack of diversity -- it can be that there actually isn't any discrimination when it comes to applying for a job, but the perception is the opposite, and people feel that they are likely to be discriminated against. This could be an historical hangover not helped by the fact that the profession in question doesn't "look" diverse enough. An example that has nothing to do with race and a lot to do with the old class system might be the Oxbridge application system. Historically there was a heavy public-school bias, so that there was basically no point in applying from a state school. This hasn't been true for decades now, but the old impression still lingers sadly, and it's reflected in the student make-up. Indeed, sometimes active efforts to encourage state-school students to apply are rebuffed by the schools themselves (this has happened). Oxford and Cambridge Universities are working to fight against this impression and it is having an impact, but they have to do that work to ensure that the applications are as diverse as possible -- that they can be ensured of having the widest range of candidates to choose from and ensure that high-quality candidates aren't being missed.
The third problem is that it is often true that the talent pool isn't diverse even before there's any job application. Black people tend to do less well at school, for example. Or fewer girls study physics and boys, and vice versa for biology. This may be linked to long-term perceptions of the "oh that's just a girls'/ boys' subject" variety. Again, it's important to combat and dispel these attitudes if they exist. It benefits everyone to ensure that as wide a range of people as possible are trained highly.
Despite all the above, the absolute worst thing to do is to enforce quotas. They remain horrible ideas. But if a workforce is not reflective of the diversity of the population then it does suggest that there is a systemic problem somewhere along the line that must be addressed.
-- answer removed --
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