Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

[Nominal Animal]

As I have watched various arguments on this topic, it seems that when the term 'equity' is used, it means equality of outcome. This gets stuck in my mind because it goes flatly against 'equality', in my mind equality of opportunity. Equality of outcome automatically supersedes the tenet of merit, in the case of job performance.

Yes, exactly; and that is precisely why 'equity' is used instead of 'equality'.

It is a very deliberate, very careful replacement.  Do not think for a second that it could just be changed to 'equality', so we could agree, because the moment you do, it completely eradicates the underlying intersectionalist/tribalist idea that is the true purpose of why this is being pushed.  Try, and you'll be a bigger enemy than even the most racist bigot.

Money is not evil, but the love of money and power often corrupts.

If we had time and space to delve into it really deeply, we'd find out that it is not actually money or power itself, but the ease of applying them, and the temptation of applying them for personal short-term gain and completely ignoring everything else.  Most humans do not like to think; they just have to, in order to survive.

This also means that having a very competitive, very power-hungry persons in your executive team, can be a positive thing.  You just have to contractually make sure they are the company's own monsters, and not just monsters that happen to stay with the company for a while.  And you must pick ones that can be leaders, instead of accidentally eating your workforce for dinner.

For example, having a diversity policy helps to maximize the pool of candidates when hiring.

This I don't understand.  Isn't it more important to get good candidates instead of many candidates?
Or is the idea that as long as you have sufficient numbers of candidates, some of them will do?

I think you are being willfully obtuse here.

No, I can assure you I am not.  Yes, I agree that it is crucially important to reach all candidates that would be acceptable for the task, and that's not easy.

If you artificially restrict the size of the pool, it is possible you might have excluded the best choice. For example, suppose some hypothetical conservative company in prior decades were to pre-filter all the resumes and only keep the ones for males under 40 with western sounding names? Don't you think they would have a strong chance of missing out on some really good people?

Don't be silly, of course they would miss out of majority of suitable candidates.  My point is, any company that is stupid enough to shoot themselves in the foot, is already dying.  You cannot compete in todays global economy and marketplace, if you hobble your own workforce like that; and any company that did something as stupid as that ought to fail rather quickly.  You do not need to teach successful executives to not do that, because they already know that it would be a waste of resources; it would be the equivalent of rejecting profit.

Let me throw the question back to you: Do you seriously think any decades-old company is today pre-filtering resumes to keep only the males under 40 with western sounding names?  I do not, exactly because they're learned how business works.  If they hadn't, they'd gone under already.

It may have been possible a few decades ago when there was much less competition –– remember, nowadays you compete against every other company on the planet, basically; not just those nearby –– but for sure isn't tenable today, not for long.  (It may be possible for a small garage that has a loyal customer base and zero growth and basically zero margin, or something similar, but they will go under whenever someone sensible starts a competing business.)

[fourfathom]

If you artificially restrict the size of the pool, it is possible you might have excluded the best choice.

Nobody here will suggest that restricting otherwise qualified individuals because of [category] is a good thing.  I think the objection is to artificially *inflating* the size of the pool, by reducing the entry requirements for certain classes of people.

[pcprogrammer]

If you artificially restrict the size of the pool, it is possible you might have excluded the best choice.

Nobody here will suggest that restricting otherwise qualified individuals because of [category] is a good thing.  I think the objection is to artificially *inflating* the size of the pool, by reducing the entry requirements for certain classes of people.

If the entry requirements are strictly focused on the needed skill set, there would not be a problem one would think. For a technical job I could see English speaking and writing as a requirement, which in turn rules out possible minorities. Is that a good reason to force hiring them anyway, and then have to pay for them learning English, because otherwise it won't work? Sure if the candidate has a good or better fit for the other skills it might pay off.

I'm not in the market for work so don't know what job adverts look like nowadays, but would be very surprised if there was mentioning of do not apply when you are a woman, or gay, or trans gender. That would be discrimination.

But for inflating the pool of applicants it would mean lower the required skill set, and how is that of value when you need a trained FPGA engineer and you lower it to "if you know something about electronics just apply". (Over exaggerating to get a point across)

[daqq]

For example, having a diversity policy helps to maximize the pool of candidates when hiring.

How?

Any hiring policy aside from the following:

We'll hire anyone who meets the position expectations. Anyone can apply.

is by definition discriminatory based on arbitrarily chosen characteristics. How does

We'll hire an engineer, black people preferred since we ain't got enough of those to fill the quota

improve your hiring pool?

edit: Modified font size to be seen as "more calm" where it was meant for emphasis only.
This is basic statement logic. You are literally trimming an all inclusive statement and stating that it's more inclusive.

[IanB]

Shouting is the last resort of those who don't have an argument.

[Simon]

Can we calm it down please.

[daqq]

For example, suppose some hypothetical conservative company in prior decades were to pre-filter all the resumes and only keep the ones for males under 40 with western sounding names? Don't you think they would have a strong chance of missing out on some really good people?

In this fictional company, the HR department is mostly made up of strawmen I assume?

Shouting is the last resort of those who don't have an argument.

Was meant as emphasis and kind of "Please look at what you've actually wrote. Really, really look at it. Do you not see the problem?"

[IanB]

Was meant as emphasis and kind of "Please look at what you've actually wrote. Really, really look at it. Do you not see the problem?"

No, I don't. It seems unlikely that any company overtly filters resumes these days, especially given all the anti-discrimination laws. But people apparently are concerned about unconscious bias, such that they think its worth talking about it. For sure, all the policies and training materials are most likely for legal protection and compliance, to avoid falling foul of the law, but there is still an element of cultural awareness involved.

[EEVblog]

Don't be silly, of course they would miss out of majority of suitable candidates.  My point is, any company that is stupid enough to shoot themselves in the foot, is already dying.  You cannot compete in todays global economy and marketplace, if you hobble your own workforce like that; and any company that did something as stupid as that ought to fail rather quickly.  You do not need to teach successful executives to not do that, because they already know that it would be a waste of resources; it would be the equivalent of rejecting profit.

Let me throw the question back to you: Do you seriously think any decades-old company is today pre-filtering resumes to keep only the males under 40 with western sounding names?  I do not, exactly because they're learned how business works.  If they hadn't, they'd gone under already.

You may be underestimating the sheer inertia of large corporations. It seems as if almost every major corporation, at least a few years ago, had some sort of diversity quota program, it was extremely common almost to the point of becoming a meme.
Yes it will eventually bite them if it impacts that talent pool, but that could take a very long time.

[tszaboo]

For example, having a diversity policy helps to maximize the pool of candidates when hiring.

This I don't understand.  Isn't it more important to get good candidates instead of many candidates?
Or is the idea that as long as you have sufficient numbers of candidates, some of them will do?

I think you are being willfully obtuse here. You have a pool to choose from. If you artificially restrict the size of the pool, it is possible you might have excluded the best choice. For example, suppose some hypothetical conservative company in prior decades were to pre-filter all the resumes and only keep the ones for males under 40 with western sounding names? Don't you think they would have a strong chance of missing out on some really good people?

I agree with your argument. This is not what we have an issue with. The issue is diversity quota, which has been documented several times, that it is happening. How about BBC: https://www.cineuropa.org/en/dossiernewsdetail/3372/398580/ Being an actor is also a job. How about the EU corporate board quota: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-08/eu-set-to-adopt-gender-quota-requirement-on-corporate-boards#
These sort of quotas go directly against merit and choosing the best candidate.

[james_s]

You may be underestimating the sheer inertia of large corporations. It seems as if almost every major corporation, at least a few years ago, had some sort of diversity quota program, it was extremely common almost to the point of becoming a meme.
Yes it will eventually bite them if it impacts that talent pool, but that could take a very long time.

A friend of mine is a fairly senior manager of a very large, very well known software company. He told me a while back that they have an official policy that he cannot hire a white male unless he can demonstrate that he tried to find a qualified diversity candidate. Bonuses are in some way tied to the level of diversity on the teams, with "diversity" meaning specifically race and gender. The company I work for has a similar policy in that people of certain races and gender are given a shortcut to the head of the line in the interviewing process.

[PlainName]

Being an actor is also a job

Although a straight, white actor isn't allowed to act other than in a straight, white part. Non-white LBGT++ actors are OK in any role, though, even straight, white ones.

[wn1fju]

Many years ago I worked at a company who was interviewing for a software position.  We interviewed two candidates, one of which was a minority.  Turns out that in the months it took our company to go through the hiring process, the funds dried up, a hiring freeze was enacted, and we didn't extend an offer to either one of them. 

The minority candidate then filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the USA federal agency that enforces civil rights actions in the workplace.  A representative for the EEOC came to our company to take depositions.

The representative interviewed the head of our software development group and asked straight blank, "Do you discriminate when hiring?"  Our software guy responded, "hell, yes I discriminate."  The EEOC agent smiled as he thought to himself that he had a live one here and said, "What do you mean you discriminate."  The software guy looked him straight in the eye and said, "I discriminate because I hire the best candidate."

That was the end of the EEOC complaint, at least as far as our company goes.  I have no idea what happened with the disgruntled candidate.

[EEVblog]

You may be underestimating the sheer inertia of large corporations. It seems as if almost every major corporation, at least a few years ago, had some sort of diversity quota program, it was extremely common almost to the point of becoming a meme.
Yes it will eventually bite them if it impacts that talent pool, but that could take a very long time.

A friend of mine is a fairly senior manager of a very large, very well known software company. He told me a while back that they have an official policy that he cannot hire a white male unless he can demonstrate that he tried to find a qualified diversity candidate. Bonuses are in some way tied to the level of diversity on the teams, with "diversity" meaning specifically race and gender. The company I work for has a similar policy in that people of certain races and gender are given a shortcut to the head of the line in the interviewing process.

The problem here is that when you have policies like that then it becomes very hard to do the usual thing you should do when hiring people in that if you have two reasonably equally qualified candidates then you pick the one you like the most based on "the vibe", and how well you think their personaility will fit in with the team etc. If one meets the diversity requirement and one doesn't, then it becomes harder to justify the one you liked better if they happen to be outside that diversity requirement.
This become especially more relevant with graduates as they have more of less pretty much the same qualifcations and (lack of) experience, so it's very often simply who got along with the best.
It quicky becomes blatant sexual and racial discrimination, but that's the entire point of "positive discrimination".
Sometimes it's good, like having female only gyms for those that want that. But problmes arise when you try and implement it everywhere just because you can.

[pcprogrammer]

How about the EU corporate board quota: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-08/eu-set-to-adopt-gender-quota-requirement-on-corporate-boards#
These sort of quotas go directly against merit and choosing the best candidate.

Looked at the mentioned article and thought "the fight is about equal rights and opportunities" with the emphasis on equal but the demanded quota of 40% woman is still not equal. Further more it states "non-executive director" positions, so executive director staff is still free of it.

They do quote “There are plenty of women qualified for top jobs: they should be able to get them.” which indicates the jobs need to be filled with qualified women, not just women.

In a way it is sad that legislation is needed to force the world into some equality.

[Nominal Animal]

Don't be silly, of course they would miss out of majority of suitable candidates.  My point is, any company that is stupid enough to shoot themselves in the foot, is already dying.  You cannot compete in todays global economy and marketplace, if you hobble your own workforce like that; and any company that did something as stupid as that ought to fail rather quickly.  You do not need to teach successful executives to not do that, because they already know that it would be a waste of resources; it would be the equivalent of rejecting profit.

Let me throw the question back to you: Do you seriously think any decades-old company is today pre-filtering resumes to keep only the males under 40 with western sounding names?  I do not, exactly because they're learned how business works.  If they hadn't, they'd gone under already.

You may be underestimating the sheer inertia of large corporations. It seems as if almost every major corporation, at least a few years ago, had some sort of diversity quota program, it was extremely common almost to the point of becoming a meme.
Yes it will eventually bite them if it impacts that talent pool, but that could take a very long time.

True.  I did not consider the Pareto effect on the overall output, in a large organization.  (That is, something like 20% of workers produce 80% of the results.  So, if you have a fifth to a quarter of really capable workers, and the organization is large enough so they do not clearly see themselves as carrying the rest on their backs, the rest could basically do nothing with a minor impact on overall productivity.  It's when you lose those capable workers when you crash.)

However, I still stand behind my claim that no owner would let an executive limit the talent base to say males under 40 with western sounding names, because that obviously excludes too many productive employees for no reason other than that executives social preferences.  Maybe in a family-owned business?
But in most Western countries that kind of discrimination is already illegal; definitely so here.  (Only "positive" discrimination, i.e. discrimination against white male Finns, is legal in Finland.  Even though our constitution says every Finnish citizen is equal.  Some are just more equal than others, I guess.)

[tszaboo]

How about the EU corporate board quota: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-08/eu-set-to-adopt-gender-quota-requirement-on-corporate-boards#
These sort of quotas go directly against merit and choosing the best candidate.

Looked at the mentioned article and thought "the fight is about equal rights and opportunities" with the emphasis on equal but the demanded quota of 40% woman is still not equal. Further more it states "non-executive director" positions, so executive director staff is still free of it.

They do quote “There are plenty of women qualified for top jobs: they should be able to get them.” which indicates the jobs need to be filled with qualified women, not just women.

In a way it is sad that legislation is needed to force the world into some equality.

So maybe the assumption is that "qualification only is required to so the job" is wrong.
Take for example a used car salesmen. The qualifications needed for that is let's say elementary school or high school diploma. Would you hire someone based on qualifications alone? Or are soft skills are necessary?
How about disagreeableness as a necessity to become a CEO of a company? You need to be able to negotiate deals, and be able to say "no. Being a CEO or board of director requires this personality trait, and by the looks of it, a lot of it. Studies show that 12% of CEOs show psychopathic traits, and something like 80% of psychopaths are men.
I put the relevant statistics below, that explains why the difference. It's a small difference in the distribution, resulting a huge difference at the extremes. And that's where you hire CEOs, engineers, oil rig workers, but also at the other end nurses or elementary school teachers.

[paulca]

A controversial view point, but the problem with diversity and equa(l)ity is they are can be mutually exclusive or at least contradictory.

The fundamental problem is you cannot say that woman as a demographic have differences in skills based on gender.  Even if that is true (when inclusive of upbringing and cultural alignments).  Even if you can prove that with study after study after study.

So IF you are looking for a particular skill set, picking a woman over a man, may actually BE selecting the right candidate for the job.  But you are unable to do so.

This over-arching issue with this is, it's a campaign to make INVALID any point of diversity.  We are being told that by having a diverse employee base, the diversity will benefit you. But HOW?  If we are picking up latent skills by diversifying our employee base, what are those latent skills, where do they come from and if we want more of them where do we look?  It's a bit hand wavey.  Let's start trying to concrete define WHY it improves the work force and allow us to select for those qualities?  Or.... is that what the world is afraid of?

I mean there is no point hirering a diverse work force, if they then install a set of corporate values where NONE of those diversity factors are allowed to have the slightlest bearing on anything for fear of discrimination and non-inclusive work culture.

Either that or make all interviews double blind with no face to face and voices played by actors.

However, this won't work, because people are not stupid and we are playing with many millions of years of evolution and I'd expect most people would work out the gender of the other party fairly quickly.  Thus, even if we did do it completely black-box, blind it would not remove the accusation of selection bias based on gender.

Also, lets play parallel to other sectors.  Nursing is allegedly 90% female.  Health Care in general is something like 78% women.  What is happening there?  Is nursing turning away women and artificially expanding their applicant pool and intake to 50/50?  I don't see it, do you?  (Sarcasim: Are MEN being subconsciously biased OUT of the workforce!?  It's a war on men I say, it's discrimination, clearly the nursing profession is profiling us, it's a bunch of matriarchically totalitarian bigots.   We should FORCE them to employ 50% men!)

What about "pair" hirering, as an extreme example of "cancelled out" discrimination.  For every man a company hirers for a position, they must hirer a woman for the same position and v.v..  Of course there are single position roles, but that can be tweaked.  That pretty much puts an X through the whole gender discrimination thing entirely.  It would be interesting to see the results, as long as the review process was conducted openly and fairly to see who rises, who falls, who leaves, who stays, who excels.  However, if 70% of the women subsequently leave stating they just didn't enjoy it, the message will be put that it's because of men and we didn't like women invading our space and we drove them away.

[paulca]

I remember getting into a heated argument with a senior engineer over a projects direction.  There were many points we didn't see eye to eye on, we worked out most of those were because of management directive, not engineering decision.  But one we continued to see in two completely different ways.

My point was, if the goal is working software and the primary tools we have are the people we have, then we should keep the project simple as possible to allow best development based on the tools/people you have.

The fact that my own engineering methodology is one of make it as simple as it can be and only as complex as it has to be, did not align with his was part of the problem, he was of the mindset that every problem should be infinitely expanded in complexity to try and make it more and more generic, abstract and extensible.  My problem with that approach is it creates horrible, generic, abstract, academic code which excludes 90% of engineers with less than 5 years of strong OOP working.  It makes the code hard to follow and those lower level OOP abstractions should be wrapped tightly in a separately managed framework component and the engineers using that framework are the customers of the ones writing it.  This balances the two off each other in my view.

However it does demonstrate were a "practical" engineer will include people factors in the methodology used to progress.  Simply because, it's completely undeniable that without the people, you have nothing.

Pure engineering, for engineerings sake, ie, engineering a problem until you simply cannot find another single thing you can add, is best kept in university and hobby space.  We have work to do.  Of course that does not mean through away the vast majority of engineering standards or anything, just focusing on "working software", instead of "academically correct engineering", requires you include the people part of the equation.

[pcprogrammer]

So maybe the assumption is that "qualification only is required to so the job" is wrong.
Take for example a used car salesmen. The qualifications needed for that is let's say elementary school or high school diploma. Would you hire someone based on qualifications alone? Or are soft skills are necessary?
How about disagreeableness as a necessity to become a CEO of a company? You need to be able to negotiate deals, and be able to say "no. Being a CEO or board of director requires this personality trait, and by the looks of it, a lot of it. Studies show that 12% of CEOs show psychopathic traits, and something like 80% of psychopaths are men.
I put the relevant statistics below, that explains why the difference. It's a small difference in the distribution, resulting a huge difference at the extremes. And that's where you hire CEOs, engineers, oil rig workers, but also at the other end nurses or elementary school teachers.

Sure you have a point there, but there are still women capable to do the job and should be given a fair chance.

The need to be able to say "no" could be seen as a skill. I, a heterosexual white male, did not have it in my skill set for a long time. It was one of the reasons I got a burn out long ago. There are other skills I lack to become a CEO, and I now that. And maybe that is the problem in this world. That people don't know their limitations and want what is not in reach and then start to moan about it.

[paulca]

And maybe that is the problem in this world. That people don't know their limitations and want what is not in reach and then start to moan about it.

I'm not a phylosopher, a historian or a sociologist, but what you said, to me, describes exactly the problem with advertising "equity".  If we have equity, there is nothing stopping village idiots being CEOs.

[pcprogrammer]

What about "pair" hirering, as an extreme example of "cancelled out" discrimination.  For every man a company hirers for a position, they must hirer a woman for the same position and v.v..  Of course there are single position roles, but that can be tweaked.  That pretty much puts an X through the whole gender discrimination thing entirely.  It would be interesting to see the results, as long as the review process was conducted openly and fairly to see who rises, who falls, who leaves, who stays, who excels.  However, if 70% of the women subsequently leave stating they just didn't enjoy it, the message will be put that it's because of men and we didn't like women invading our space and we drove them away.

That will only solve the woman/man gender problem, but to fulfill all of them you need many equal positions. Just search google for "known genders". Amongst others you get this one https://www.medicinenet.com/what_are_the_72_other_genders/article.htm

[paulca]

On the economics of equity in the workplace.  "Equal job", "Equal pay".

What will happen is you will see roles with a hierarchy subdivide into many smaller roles, Class 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7 8, 9 Engineer.  Class 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Senior engineer.  All of which will be a ladder of fixed pay bands.  Instead of arguing your point for a salary bump, you just start arguing you point for a bump up the scale.  It still won't do anything to help the distribution between those grades/classes/bands.  It will just move the problem around (The Public toilet roll effect)tm.

Then those quarterly/yearly reviews will become a warren of metrics and KPIs and SMART scoring to try and show it's "blind", which will just make everyones life even more hell, cause a bunch of people to leave the industry...

[pcprogrammer]

My point was, if the goal is working software and the primary tools we have are the people we have, then we should keep the project simple as possible to allow best development based on the tools/people you have.

The fact that my own engineering methodology is one of make it as simple as it can be and only as complex as it has to be...

A very good methodology to adhere. The "KISS" principle.

A small example of what I experienced as a manager. There was a project that needed several different modules to make a product. Within the team an argument started about the language to write it in. C or C++. I myself like C and can write all I need with it, but there was one team member who kept insisting that C++ was far superior over C and should be used. My ruling was, "you can write your part in C++ as long as you properly comment and document what you make" Same message to the other members, use the language of the two you like the most and make sure we get something working. Problem was solved and a working product was created.

Could have forced it to be C only but might have got crap all from the one with the C++ chip on his shoulder.

Did not do managerial work long because it did not agree with me that well. Can work with others but rather work alone

[pcprogrammer]

On the economics of equity in the workplace.  "Equal job", "Equal pay".

What will happen is you will see roles with a hierarchy subdivide into many smaller roles, Class 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7 8, 9 Engineer.  Class 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Senior engineer.  All of which will be a ladder of fixed pay bands.  Instead of arguing your point for a salary bump, you just start arguing you point for a bump up the scale.  It still won't do anything to help the distribution between those grades/classes/bands.  It will just move the problem around (The Public toilet roll effect)tm.

Then those quarterly/yearly reviews will become a warren of metrics and KPIs and SMART scoring to try and show it's "blind", which will just make everyone's life even more hell, cause a bunch of people to leave the industry...

That is something riddled with problems. Some will argue years at the job should count because it is experience points. So they demand a pay rise every year. A new comer to the same job will start at the entry level and get less. Doing the same job for less pay.

So no matter how many roles you invent it will never solve the problem of equality. And it can't because we are not equal, we are individuals with some similarities but mostly differences.