There really is no mentionable amount of DEI hiring quotas, at least the market I am familiar with (US). It’s practically illegal due to the Supreme Court’s recent decisions. Though it was rare even before that. Not sure if that is the case in other places.
I think that’s sort of an impossible task though, for any sufficiently large idea. You can’t control all people
Sure, it is impossible to do perfectly. But don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Look how many comments into this thread we are based on my perception that DEI hiring involves preferential treatment for only minorities. And this is not the only thread.
At most people mention that not many companies do that. So far, no one outright stated giving preferential treatment to minorities when hiring shouldn’t be part of DEI.
Even you didn’t come out and explicitly say, let’s only look at peoples socioeconomic backgrounds, not race and gender. It even sounds a bit like you want them to, it’s just the pesky SCOTUS blocking it.
Supporters of DEI are either afraid to commit to not doing certain things, or they do want them, which is why these bad perceptions are able to spread so much.
That’s certainly a fair point. Though, there is a difference between complaining about what something actually is versus what some supporters may desire. Not sure I see much distinction made from the grumbling crowd when they cry DEI hire.
My opinion on that matter isn’t a simple yes or no. If we could realistically make significant progress undoing generations of institutional racism purely looking at socioeconomic background, I’d be much closer to no. Socioeconomic background is not really a checkbox that many companies are willing to suss out, however, since it requires a lot of effort and has many dimensions.
The hope with using it as part of decisions is that, since in aggregate a race or gender may have statistically worse representation, you’ve got increased likelihood of a hit than going in blind. But if a company is achieving the same results going on their metric of socioeconomic background, that’s sufficient to me.
I’m sorry if recognizing the complexity of the situation leads to bad perceptions, but I’m not going to pretend the world is simple to appease those who are not interested in nuance. My interest is in achieving outcomes and frankly we don’t have the knowledge on which methods are most realistic and effective. I can’t make a hard decision about something without that.
I’d really like for there to be a mostly agreeable method of evaluating socioeconomic background that companies would be willing to implement and have real A/B testing. That’s total fantasy considering how the world works, though that is why I don’t take a hard stance that there’s one way to work at it.
My interest is in achieving outcomes and frankly we don’t have the knowledge on which methods are most realistic and effective. I can’t make a hard decision about something without that.
My issue isn’t with trying varying methods. My issue is with labeling very different methods with the same name (DEI), which results in confusion and not constructive discussions, since everyone is working with different definition of the word.
The resulting vagueness then makes the issue far more divisive then it needs to be as proponents pick best policies to defend and detractors pick the worst examples to criticize.
DEI is not a singular method. It’s a larger framework in short concerned with certain outcomes. A number of different methods may be part of DEI at a particular place. I think you are driving at a salient point in that the grammar used with it can give that impression. It’s easier to speak about in a way that isn’t repetitive by using shorthands, and there’s definitely danger there that uncurious people not willing to have good faith discussions like we are will make assumptions.
Conquering that is going to be difficult because it’s a larger linguistic issue common to many unproductive politicized topics. I hate that a lot of discussion time is taken up by essentially semantic arguments rather than substantive ones. I’m not sure how to solve for that because language almost always creates more generic categorizations to lump similar but distinct ideas to save time. To your point, by its nature that introduces vagueness.
For me, the lesson needs to be to seek depth where something seems disagreeable but has vagueness, especially ideological labeling. I wish that was a realistic ask for all people. It has made me change my opinions a lot over the years as I’ve learned more—not necessarily dramatically, but it has tempered them with nuance.
For me, the lesson needs to be to seek depth where something seems disagreeable but has vagueness, especially ideological labeling. I wish that was a realistic ask for all people. It has made me change my opinions a lot over the years as I’ve learned more—not necessarily dramatically, but it has tempered them with nuance.
This indeed is a really good takeaway, but I think we also need to at least try and make messaging clearer for those that are not going to. For example, many companies have statements of commitment to DEI on their webpages, but rarely what it does and more importantly doesn’t include.
As far as company material, at least public facing, you’re entirely correct. It’s almost exclusively corporate speak rather than anything useful. That’s not unique to DEI, though, and convincing corporations to make their public HR content more exact when they’re not quoting the law is unfortunately pissing up a rope.
Sure, it is impossible to do perfectly. But don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Look how many comments into this thread we are based on my perception that DEI hiring involves preferential treatment for only minorities. And this is not the only thread.
At most people mention that not many companies do that. So far, no one outright stated giving preferential treatment to minorities when hiring shouldn’t be part of DEI.
Even you didn’t come out and explicitly say, let’s only look at peoples socioeconomic backgrounds, not race and gender. It even sounds a bit like you want them to, it’s just the pesky SCOTUS blocking it.
Supporters of DEI are either afraid to commit to not doing certain things, or they do want them, which is why these bad perceptions are able to spread so much.
That’s certainly a fair point. Though, there is a difference between complaining about what something actually is versus what some supporters may desire. Not sure I see much distinction made from the grumbling crowd when they cry DEI hire.
My opinion on that matter isn’t a simple yes or no. If we could realistically make significant progress undoing generations of institutional racism purely looking at socioeconomic background, I’d be much closer to no. Socioeconomic background is not really a checkbox that many companies are willing to suss out, however, since it requires a lot of effort and has many dimensions.
The hope with using it as part of decisions is that, since in aggregate a race or gender may have statistically worse representation, you’ve got increased likelihood of a hit than going in blind. But if a company is achieving the same results going on their metric of socioeconomic background, that’s sufficient to me.
I’m sorry if recognizing the complexity of the situation leads to bad perceptions, but I’m not going to pretend the world is simple to appease those who are not interested in nuance. My interest is in achieving outcomes and frankly we don’t have the knowledge on which methods are most realistic and effective. I can’t make a hard decision about something without that.
I’d really like for there to be a mostly agreeable method of evaluating socioeconomic background that companies would be willing to implement and have real A/B testing. That’s total fantasy considering how the world works, though that is why I don’t take a hard stance that there’s one way to work at it.
My issue isn’t with trying varying methods. My issue is with labeling very different methods with the same name (DEI), which results in confusion and not constructive discussions, since everyone is working with different definition of the word.
The resulting vagueness then makes the issue far more divisive then it needs to be as proponents pick best policies to defend and detractors pick the worst examples to criticize.
DEI is not a singular method. It’s a larger framework in short concerned with certain outcomes. A number of different methods may be part of DEI at a particular place. I think you are driving at a salient point in that the grammar used with it can give that impression. It’s easier to speak about in a way that isn’t repetitive by using shorthands, and there’s definitely danger there that uncurious people not willing to have good faith discussions like we are will make assumptions.
Conquering that is going to be difficult because it’s a larger linguistic issue common to many unproductive politicized topics. I hate that a lot of discussion time is taken up by essentially semantic arguments rather than substantive ones. I’m not sure how to solve for that because language almost always creates more generic categorizations to lump similar but distinct ideas to save time. To your point, by its nature that introduces vagueness.
For me, the lesson needs to be to seek depth where something seems disagreeable but has vagueness, especially ideological labeling. I wish that was a realistic ask for all people. It has made me change my opinions a lot over the years as I’ve learned more—not necessarily dramatically, but it has tempered them with nuance.
This indeed is a really good takeaway, but I think we also need to at least try and make messaging clearer for those that are not going to. For example, many companies have statements of commitment to DEI on their webpages, but rarely what it does and more importantly doesn’t include.
As far as company material, at least public facing, you’re entirely correct. It’s almost exclusively corporate speak rather than anything useful. That’s not unique to DEI, though, and convincing corporations to make their public HR content more exact when they’re not quoting the law is unfortunately pissing up a rope.
Yeah, this