Rethinking Discrimination

Rethinking Discrimination

Last modified on 2013-02-04 22:38:59 GMT. 4 comments. Top.

Treating Everyone As If They Are White is Discrimination, Not Equality

Talking about discrimination is difficult. The very concept often elicits some combination of confusion, righteousness, and discomfort.

Part of it is the inherent conflict between the legal and general concepts of the word. To have discriminating taste means to understand the differences between things and appreciate the nuances of those differences. Legal discrimination means to treat people unfairly because of a protected class.

Not Knowing is Nonsense

In hiring decisions, the conventional wisdom has been to avoid knowing protected factors as long as possible, so you could claim your decisions were not based on an illegal factor. If you didn’t know the person was Hispanic, or pregnant, or a veteran, you couldn’t base your decision on that information

As a result, there are a million questions employment lawyers tell you not to ask during the hiring process, which boil down to anything that would reveal inclusion in a protected class. Those questions are not usually illegal to ask. It’s making a hiring decision based on the information you learn that is illegal. (Some states like California do regulate what you can and can’t ask in pre-employment inquiries, while paradoxically requiring you to separately collect and track the same information you’re not supposed to ask.)

The trouble is, you can tell a lot about people without ever asking any questions. Where they went to school can reveal race, gender, religion and nationality. Where they have lived and worked can tell you a lot about race, national origin, age, and military status. Last names often reveals race, national origin and religion. When they graduated and how long they have worked can tell you age.

Now, seeing pictures of candidates online, in video interviews, and even in email add-ons like rapportive is common. Claiming we don’t know whether candidates are in a protected class is no longer credible.

As accessibility to information and data about everyone become ubiquitous, we need to rethink our approaches to equal opportunity, diversity, and discrimination.

Treating Everyone As If They Are White is Discrimination, Not Equality

Once someone is hired, you learn about their race, religion, marital status, pregnancy, disability, age, and all the other protected factors. So the conventional wisdom has been to treat everyone equally under the same rules, applied uniformly.

What actually happens is that predominantly White managers think that everyone should be treated like they’re White. The truth is, the only ones who want to be treated like a 50 year old White guy, are 50 year old white guys. And even they have very different lives, interests and needs. Pretending everyone is White is not fostering equality and diversity. It’s the dark side of the golden rule. Not everyone wants to be treated like you want to be treated. That’s because everyone is different.

It is impossible to create a set of employment policies or rules that you can apply to every situation, the same way, every time. And when you try, you end up with a horrible place to work. Rules become more important than people.

Rules also don’t prevent risk. Any time you don’t apply the rule uniformly, and in every instance, you actually open yourself up to more risk, because you made an exception for one person, but not another, and broke the rule.

Rules are also the refuge of lazy and the scared. If an HR manager can simply point to a rule, she doesn’t have to make a decision based on what’s actually going on, and it’s the rule that’s the problem, rather then her decision. Pointing to rules may end the discussion, but it rarely solves the problem.

Different people have different needs and preferences for commutes, schedules, leave, learning, performance, training, and career goals. People who have kids can’t always stay late. People with significant outside interests don’t really want to. Not everyone wants to be in charge. Some people just enjoy what they do, and don’t ever really want to change it.

No functional workplace can be a one size fits all. And pretending it is, or should be, almost always results in people being treated unfairly and insensitively. That’s exactly how you get discrimination claims.

What to Do.

Embrace Data.  Instead of hiding from knowledge about protected factors, use the information to see where your company stands. Look at the information collected by your ATS and see if there are hiring practices that are having a disparate impact on a particular race, gender or other protected class. Look at the information you have (and the flood of information that’s coming) to see whether your work force reflects the qualified people available.

Watch Referrals.  We tend to refer people who are like us. So if you often hire through referrals, check to see if it’s creating a Wonderbread workforce. Conversely, if you have a really diverse workforce, referrals can be a way to promote and maintain diversity.

Hire For Traits and Skills.  Look hard at what skills and personalities your company needs to get today’s work done, and to move the company ahead in the future. Then find people like that. Here’s more on Hiring for Diversity.

Be Accountable for Employment Decisions.   Approach at each situation based on what is going on. If you’re not sure, find out. Then make the decisions on leave, hiring, firing, promotion or transfers based on what is best for the company and what works for the employee. It takes more time, and you have to be willing to be accountable for your decisions. But a more artisan approach to HR is the foundation of a good place to work.

Get Rid of Bigots.  Okay, maybe assholes need love and tolerance too. But not at work.

Our world is changing fast. We can no longer pretend that we don’t know a lot of information about the people we hire, promote and fire, including legally protected traits and status. It’s time to quit trying to manage information and risk, and start managing people and work. The best way to do that is to acknowledge people as individuals and find ways to make work work for everyone.

Five Links: Managing the Real

Last modified on 2013-01-25 15:12:03 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

This week's links include a piece about the relationship between offshoring and capabilities, skills gap stuff, social recruiting, analytics and user adoption guides.

Five Links: Manging the Real

This week’s links include a piece about the relationship between offshoring and capabilities, skills gap stuff, social recruiting, analytics and user adoption guides.

• The Boeing Debacle: Seven Lessons Every CEO Must Learn
  The article is a discussion of the way to manage risk in offshoring and outsourcing. This is a critical concern for HR Execs. The relative capabilities of the organization are theessence of its human capital. While subcontracting may confer cost advantages, there is good reason to investigate the consequences for the company in other dimensions.“The decline of manufacturing in a region sets off a chain reaction. Once manufacturing is outsourced, process-engineering expertise can’t be maintained, since it depends on daily interactions with manufacturing. Without process-engineering capabilities, companies find it increasingly difficult to conduct advanced research on next-generation process technologies. Without the ability to develop such new processes, they find they can no longer develop new products. In the long term, then, an economy that lacks an infrastructure for advanced process engineering and manufacturing will lose its ability to innovate.”

  Also see the followup: What Went Wrong At Boeing

• Mass skills shortage: Britain could be lacking 3.1m workers by 2050
  The rhetoric of skills gaps and shortages is getting shriller with each passing day. This short British piece is a typical example of hundreds of daily articles around the globe. There are real demographic crises on thre horizon in Western Europe.
• The Reality of Social Recruiting and How to Approach It
  Andrew Karpie is rapidly becoming a voice to be reckoned with in Recruiting circles. In this series, he describes social recruiting for a third party staffing firm. It’s particularly insightful and void of the usual cheerleading. Also see Part 2 and Part 3
• Things Users Don’t Care About
  If you are responisble for interface design or change management or a new software rollout, print this out and tape it somewhere you can see it. Users do not care about you and your trials and tribulations. They care about themselves and getting their work done.
• Using Analytics to Win the War for Talent
  Okay, so ‘War For Talent’ is a little breathy. The thing here is that the use of analytics is becoming mainstream. This is one of those articles you forward to your boss

Events, Happenings and New Resources

• HRExaminer Radio:Industry News and Commentary. Fridays @ 11AMPST (2PMEST)
  • Friday Jan 25: Heather Bussing
  • Friday Feb 1: Kelly Robinson
  • Friday Feb 8: Kevin Grossman
  • Friday Feb 15: China Gorman
  • Friday Feb 22: Chris Russell
• Open Course: Learning Analytics and Knowledge (online, free, Starts Feb 11, 2013) Good place to experience large scale online learningon an interesting Talent MAnagement issue
• Social Recruiting Strategies Conference (San Francisco, Jan 30-31, 2013) John Sumser keynote on the history and future of social recruiting
• HRTech Europe: Spring Warmup (London, March 19-20, 2013) Sumser on Where Ideas Come From and a half day of Cutting Edge HR
• NeuroGaming 2012 Conference: (San Francisco, May 1-2, 2013) The place to learn about human-sensor integration

Great New Demos

Last modified on 2013-01-25 10:21:22 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Here's who we've been talking to this week.

Great New Demos

Here’s who we’ve been talking to this week.

• HireVue Presents CodeVue
  Finally, one of the video interviewing players demonstrates that they get that it has to be about more than video. Video itself is free. That means that the video interviewing players all have to scramble to identify the real value add. HireVue hit this one out of the park. CodeVue is a method for scoring code and validating the identity of the person who generated it. Home Run.
• When I Work
  This Minneapolis based startup is gaining ground at the ultra low end of the scheduling market. Simple but effective functionality make it a great candidate for the sub 100 employee universe. It’s surprisingly robust with a mobile app that includes the ability to get shift info with a simple SMS interaction. With 1,000 paying customers and no meaningful debt, these guys might just surprise you.
• CareerCloud
  This is the next act for serial entrepreneur Chris Russell. The core idea in its first incarnation is to give job hunters a way to assemble their social resume. By collecting all inputs form all social media sources into a single ‘document’, CareerCloud gives job hunters the ability to showcase their range and to signal that it’s okay to look at their social media stuff. Expect to see consistent progress on this one.

More on Attraction vs Promotion

Last modified on 2013-03-19 22:24:43 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

When it becomes clear that working with you is a pathway to a successful career, talent flows in your direction.

More on Attraction vs Promotion

If you want to attract great talent, develop your people. Build a reputation for being a place that great people come from. When it becomes clear that working with you is a pathway to a successful career, talent flows in your direction.

If you want to grow stale, make plans to handcuff your talent to their jobs. Advertise heavily. Hire only passive candidates. Write articles about what a great place to work you are. Win some awards.

The goal of a great talent attraction system is to make people want to come to work for you. While a passive candidate is indifferent and requires persuasion, peole who actively want to join your operation come with positive motives. Their desire creates and cements higher expectations that you get when someone’s arm needs twisting. Creating a dynamic that causes people to take action on their desire to work for you takes a lot of work

The objective of every employment branding initiative should be to increase the perceived desirability of working with your organization. Done well, this means unearthing the values already implicit in the culture. (Take a listen to Michael Long talk about this on last week’s HRExaminer Radio Hour)

The Office is a Great Place for Fun and Games

Last modified on 2013-01-22 14:39:59 GMT. 4 comments. Top.

Dr. Todd Dewett | Founding member, HRExaminer Editorial Advisory Board

A friend informed me that at his place of work there is a new rule – no playing video games on your computers! Apparently there was too much Facebook farming going on. This wasn’t a simple comment from one boss to one member of the team. It was a new formal policy introduced with much fanfare.  Wow. It’s fascinating that some managers still consider playing games (or other things that don’t fit the traditional notion of workplace behavior) as odd or problematic or just plain wrong. Corporate America has been waking up to a new view of productivity at work for the better part of three decades – but, alas, old ways of thinking are hard to shake. In the face of many successful companies who aggressively advocate play at work there is still resistance.  Even though play of different types is a stress reliever (thus potentially lowering health care costs) and a stimulus to creative thinking (supporting change and innovation) it still receives a bum rap.

FarmVille, Sudoku, Angry Birds, chess, or ping pong – they are all the same: forms of non-work. Before berating someone caught enjoying five minutes of playful non-work, consider this crucial question: is this person (or group) achieving what he or she is supposed to be achieving? The question speaks to the need to manage outcomes, not processes. The goal is always to manage outcomes (monitoring what is expected of the employee or group – the deliverables, the goals, the metrics) and not the process (the specific ways they use their time to accomplish their goals). When you manage outcomes and avoid micro-managing the process you signal to employees that you trust them.  Boy do we need more trust in organizations! In return, employees who feel this type of autonomy typically respond by showing more responsibility for their work and by espousing the value of their work to others. I understand that not all employees should be given a lot of freedom and autonomy. Fine. The rule is to give as much as is reasonable given their ability and the requirements of the task at hand. The point is, if you are actually using adequate goals and holding people accountable, providing autonomy is an amazing boost to positive working relationships.

When adults have autonomy at work they might not focus on their normal tasks 100% of the time. That’s normal. Guess what? Using some of that autonomy for small doses of play at work actually facilitates productivity for most people. It represents a fun not-related-to-work break that stimulates healthy thinking. If you see excessive playing and there has been a pattern of work products that have not been acceptable – intervene. However, in the presence of high standards, that’s not likely to happen. So step back and let them play whatever it is they are playing. It just might shake up their brains enough to stumble upon the next great idea for your company.  Think of it like this, most people can’t work at full capacity, at the very top of their potential, all day every day. They need to vary how hard they push their brain. Since non-work, especially “playing,” is frowned upon, most employees simply fall into a trance like state half the time while trying to complete their work. Thus, the average employee performs at about 65% of their potential. If you let them “play” for 5 -10% of their time, I promise the remainder of their effort will be at 90% or higher. What would you rather have: employees consistently at 65% all the time or employees at 90%+ of their potential 90% of the time? That’s what I thought. Maybe you should play Angry Birds too.