[News] diversity equality and inclusion

[jcdenton08]

What is it with Pringles and the British? I don't get it. Or is it just this board?

Pringles are the new Ferraro Rocher

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

Does anybody on here work somewhere that actually uses the acronym DEI (as opposed to EDI), or are they just copying the latest nonsense from America / Farage?

This might seem like me being pointlessly pedantic, but there's a serious point there about how the course of thoughts and discussion are guided down certain paths by the language we use.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

The point that everyone seems to miss is that there is lots of research evidence showing that diverse groups make better decisions. So recruiting people based on gender or ethnicity could be the right thing to do to improve the organisation.

Matthew Syed wrote about this in his book Rebel ideas. Providing the example of the CIA missing the danger of osama bin laden because the people monitoring were basically all the same person. Taught at the same uni by the same people and had the same background so they all thought the same. Studies have been showing showing that people from different backgrounds approach problems in different ways.

Apply it to real life here. Teaching for example. If you have a black potential teacher with decent grades from a working class background vs a middle class white teacher who went to independent boarding school and has excellent grades applying for a role in a deprived urban and diverse school then does the person who looks best on paper have the best chance of getting the best out of those kids? Possibly not because they won’t have the full understanding of the complexities of life for those kids. Many kids living in deprivation don’t have people to look up to and emulate. Now imagine those kids have someone who they consider the be like them teaching them. They can engage and think “hang on, if they can do it then so can I” rather than battling against someone who does not understand them.

I appreciate this is far too nuanced for the “just pick highest qualified person” debate but hopefully useful.

I can’t recommend the book enough.

Yes, this is so bad, and reflects the craven feebleness of some people.
Being seen to be seen to be doing something being far more important to them than doing the right thing.

I am involved in various initiatives to improve 'reproducibility' in drug research.
The first thing needed is to ensure studies are blinded and randomized.
Unfortunately people who use bits of animal tissue, cell cultures and even in vivo animals very often were never trained to do blinded and randomized studies. Their PhD supervisors never did it. "John Vane got the Nobel prize for showing how aspirin works but he never did blinded and randomized studies".
So we have a 'dry pipeline' where Pharma can't invent new drugs.
When I advocate blinding and randomization I get pushback in any number of ways.
"Not necessary". "Not practicable".
f*** me, if the data come from a gamed study that allows unconscious bias to run riot, the data are f***ed.
(Unfortunately I struggle to not make my point in exactly that format).
Instead my 'colleagues' come up with other solutions.
"Transparency" is one.
If you say exactly how you did the study then all will be well, they claim.
So a finding will go from false to correct if the researcher admits they did not blind or randomize the study?
These are university academics, mostly professors.
If they are so comfortable with cant, bluster, absurdity and bullshit.....
You can imagine how council managers can f*** up their DEI and recruitment with positive discrimination.

I was talking to a guy in charge of a Bridge Engineering team the other day (white male, obviously ) who made the point that what provides the benefit in productivity is diversity of viewpoint and thought process, not necessarily race or sex or whatever.

Obviously on average groups of people from more diverse backgrounds will have more diverse thoughts about things, but the issue is that even if we strip everything identifying a candidate's background out, the employer still tends to look for the same marks of a "quality" candidate. This tends to lead to people with similar personalities and approaches being hired, which doesn't really help anything.

In other words, you may well be better off deliberately hiring people with "worse" applications, if that means employing people who've taken a different path to the job, as they'll be the people who actually provide a different perspective and challenge on things.

 

[Triggaaar]

Yes, any preferential treatment based on skin colour is racism.

Best person for the job, irrespective of race/sex/religion.

But sometimes the best person for the job is dependant on that person falling into a particular category.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I'm reminded of a visit to my first pub I owned, by the disability (?) officer from the council. She asked me a series of questions, one was if I could lower the bar to allow a wheelchair user to serve behind the bar. I just looked at her shaking my head. After being grilled for about a hour I was about to blow. At this point one of my staff, a mature woman, spoke out. She said to her that she had massive mental health issues and I fully understood if she had a wobble she could go home at any point. And that I was the only person to offer her a job in over 10 years. My cleaner then piped up that he was disabled with parkinsons and that again I knew his limitations though he'd often joke he was bloody good at polishing tables with his right hand.

This officer left firmly put in her place about my policies.

You could of raised the floor

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

You could of raised the floor

The fridge doors wouldn't open, stupid

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

The fridge doors wouldn't open, stupid

Saw off the bottom of them then.

Problem solved.

 

[dwayne]

Complex issue.

Having a more diverse workforce is surely better. I've worked in the city for 20 years and things are slowly changing for the better, although most trading floors are still white men and in tech very few women want to get into tech support or engineering.

On the flip side....

1) in this day and age surely maternity and paternity leave/pay should be the same everywhere.
2) maternity/paternity leave/pay is unfair on those people who choose not to have kids.
3) I kind of agree with Andrew Tate in the sense that from a male/female perspective women are pushing hard to have the same job opportunities, place in the workplace, pay etc (which is fine). But what happens if war breaks out? ..... It will be the bloody men who are expected to be the ones fighting

 

[Eeyore]

Complex issue.

Having a more diverse workforce is surely better. I've worked in the city for 20 years and things are slowly changing for the better, although most trading floors are still white men and in tech very few women want to get into tech support or engineering.

On the flip side....

1) in this day and age surely maternity and paternity leave/pay should be the same everywhere.
2) maternity/paternity leave/pay is unfair on those people who choose not to have kids.
3) I kind of agree with Andrew Tate in the sense that from a male/female perspective women are pushing hard to have the same job opportunities, place in the workplace, pay etc (which is fine). But what happens if war breaks out? ..... It will be the bloody men who are expected to be the ones fighting

And if we want more children it's the women who have to do the labour. I don't hear them moaning.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

My only experience of this was a friends son who when applying to join the Met Police was told (by someone ITK) that as a straight white male his chances of acceptance would be very slim. He ticked the box saying “bisexual” and was soon taken on as a DC.

I love the smell of anecdote in the afternoon

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Sadly, he’s currently working his notice as despite liking the job, apart from dealing with domestic violence cases, which he found really upsetting, there was a pervasive atmosphere of colleagues being constantly monitored and reported for innocent comments being construed as something else. He and his fiancée are moving to Devon and he’s going to retrain as a QS.

Interesting. Presumably this is the backlash to decades of a continuous freedom to make objectionable comments that foster an ambience that allowed the likes of David Carrick to graze on vulnerable women in plain sight.

 

[rippleman]

I have absolutely no head for heights. Any higher than the third rung of a ladder and I'm sweating, shaking, change of heart rate and breathing. I have never and would never apply for a job that involved scaling ladders. I think we would all agree that deaf or sight restricted people should never be employed as school crossing lollipop persons. What I'm trying to get across is that disabled or not, there are jobs that we aren't suited to doing.

The worst "ticking the box" I have seen was the BBC employing a guy in a wheelchair to present "Escape to the Country". His job was a de facto estate agent showing prospective buyers around properties. But he couldn't show them the upper floors of any domestic property. So he could really only do half the job. Those with other physical disabilities could have done the job perfectly well. But an estate agent in a wheelchair?

There's some jobs that I am totally incapable of doing and that's without having any registered disability. And I totally accept that. I'm baffled why the BBC decided that the best person to employ to conduct prospective puchasers around multi-level residential properties is a guy in a wheelchair!!

 

[Berty23]

Complex issue.

Having a more diverse workforce is surely better. I've worked in the city for 20 years and things are slowly changing for the better, although most trading floors are still white men and in tech very few women want to get into tech support or engineering.

On the flip side....

1) in this day and age surely maternity and paternity leave/pay should be the same everywhere.
2) maternity/paternity leave/pay is unfair on those people who choose not to have kids.
3) I kind of agree with Andrew Tate in the sense that from a male/female perspective women are pushing hard to have the same job opportunities, place in the workplace, pay etc (which is fine). But what happens if war breaks out? ..... It will be the bloody men who are expected to be the ones fighting

You can share maternity and paternity leave at many employers. This is despite my body not being mangled by giving birth. I was also not expected to catch up immediately at work after a year off where everything changes.

My aunty was a major in the army. I am pretty sure she was gone for ages during the Gulf war. Plus men can’t have babies so if all the women were sent to war then that ends the nation (or massively reduces the population of lots of women die because usually only one child a year will be produced) whereas men can have loads of kids. It is not complicated.

I don’t see that many men pushing for jobs in nurseries and care sector. Those low paid industries.

 

[Berty23]

Sadly, he’s currently working his notice as despite liking the job, apart from dealing with domestic violence cases, which he found really upsetting, there was a pervasive atmosphere of colleagues being constantly monitored and reported for innocent comments being construed as something else. He and his fiancée are moving to Devon and he’s going to retrain as a QS.

This sounds quite sensible with a zero tolerance approach which then just becomes normal. Maybe some casual racism or sexism should be okay?

 

[heathgate]

Edit: I guess I would add that if there are no DEI officers, how can a company claim they are not racist hirers?

So what you are saying here is that you are taking the position that every HR department is racist as a default unless they have the objectively racist DEI recruitment infrastructure.

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

This sounds quite sensible with a zero tolerance approach which then just becomes normal. Maybe some casual racism or sexism should be okay?

Why should it?

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Complex issue.

Having a more diverse workforce is surely better. I've worked in the city for 20 years and things are slowly changing for the better, although most trading floors are still white men and in tech very few women want to get into tech support or engineering.

On the flip side....

1) in this day and age surely maternity and paternity leave/pay should be the same everywhere.
2) maternity/paternity leave/pay is unfair on those people who choose not to have kids.
3) I kind of agree with Andrew Tate in the sense that from a male/female perspective women are pushing hard to have the same job opportunities, place in the workplace, pay etc (which is fine). But what happens if war breaks out? ..... It will be the bloody men who are expected to be the ones fighting

Have you seen the roles women have in the forces recently? Fighter pilots, commanding warships, and serving on submarines?
Torpedoes and missiles don’t discriminate.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Sadly, he’s currently working his notice as despite liking the job, apart from dealing with domestic violence cases, which he found really upsetting, there was a pervasive atmosphere of colleagues being constantly monitored and reported for innocent comments being construed as something else. He and his fiancée are moving to Devon and he’s going to retrain as a QS.

Are you surprised?

Met Police: Call-handler resigns over colleague's reinstatement

Issy Vine reported a colleague who made discriminatory remarks but resigned after he was reinstated.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I’m sure that you’re right. It’s just a pity that young recruits are seemingly suffering as a result the institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic behaviour that has pervaded the Met in the past, and probably still does to a degree.

Absolutely.
Sadly I am not shocked the met has gone from institutional hideousness to institutional neurosis.

 

[schmunk]

Does anybody on here work somewhere that actually uses the acronym DEI (as opposed to EDI), or are they just copying the latest nonsense from America / Farage?

This might seem like me being pointlessly pedantic, but there's a serious point there about how the course of thoughts and discussion are guided down certain paths by the language we use.

D&I is the more common abbreviation in the UK, as far as I'm aware.