[News] diversity equality and inclusion

[Thunder Bolt]

I’m referring to young new recruits, straight out of University without a racist, mysoginistic or homophobic bone in their bodies.

The situation I am talking about is a group of young guys sitting in the Met canteen and one mentioning that he was going to visit Auschwitz with family. Someone, not present at the table, decided that this was an unacceptable topic and he was reported for A-S. He was told that if he admitted he was in error no further action would be taken, but as he had said nothing wrong, he refused and was dismissed.

Do you think that’s fair then?

I would like to read evidence that happened as it seems extremely unlikely. The England football team were taken to Auschwitz.

 

[schmunk]

I don’t mean to be rude but I’ve already explained this and I get the impression you didn’t read my original post about this.

I was hired freelance for a contract by the council, I was delegated to hire two staff reporting to me. I was asked to hire ideally someone who isn’t a non-white man. The person delegating me this task, said they have internal targets to be met regarding hires. I was told women and POCs were “strongly encouraged”.

When I didn’t get suitable candidates (again, see original post) I was given a bit of a telling off, and more explicitly told about “target employees” which I assume is their slang for “target quotas”.

I essentially shrugged and said I didn’t have the candidates. Fulfilled my contract with no issues.

So yes, I assume the council set those targets, because my boss was a council employee.

You can believe me or not, doesn’t matter to me, but it’s put me off the whole DEI through employee census thing.

Out of interest, were you contracted 'outside of IR35', i.e. off-payroll?

 

[dwayne]

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.

Fair enough. But what's the % ... We need to push for more equal numbers

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

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!!

Quite.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Absolutely.

My point is in my experience it is simply impossible based on the candidates available to make an inclusive hire if the candidates aren’t available to you who could actually do the job advertised.

Not all jobs are the same, not all industries are the same. Job requirements vary, not every protected group instantly makes them a hireable candidate in every profession in every part of the country, which is where DEI initiatives need to use common sense and show flexibility.

I was told in no uncertain terms I was expected to hire either a woman or a POC for at least one of the two roles I was recruiting for, because the council had targets in these areas.

That shouldn’t happen.

I agree with DEI completely.

But you do know that even DEI departments also have some stupid buggers working in them, although I'm not sure whether there's a quota

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Someone made a false accusation by fabricating an A-S comment in an innocent conversation they were not part of and ended a young guys career. This came from a friend’s son who I have known since birth. That’s all the evidence I need.

So he was sacked because of someone’s lies, not because he said he was going to Auschwitz
Surely there were witnesses to the original conversation to vouch for him?

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Fair enough. But what's the % ... We need to push for more equal numbers

Women have been fully integrated since 1993. You are decades behind.

 

[dwayne]

Women have been fully integrated since 1993. You are decades behind.

Chatgpt suggests otherwise

The percentage of women in frontline combat roles in the British Army is low, with only a small fraction of female soldiers serving in infantry and Royal Marine units. While women are increasingly represented in the UK Armed Forces overall, with 11.9% being female in regular forces as of October 2024, their representation in close combat roles remains relatively small.
Specifically, in April 2023, there were only 50 female other ranks and 10 female officers serving in the British Army's Infantry regiments, representing just 0.33% of the total Infantry strength of nearly 18,000 personnel. The Royal Marines have yet to have a single woman join their ranks. Since 2019, only 85 women have joined the infantry and 45 have joined the Royal Armoured Corps, with these 130 women representing about 0.5% of the total tank and infantry personnel, according to The Telegraph.
While all combat roles have been open to women since 2018, the current rate of progress suggests it will take over 100 years for the main close combat units to reach the target of 30% female recruitment across the armed forces.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

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

I've only ever seen it written as EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) in this country*, although I can imagine the E might sometimes get lopped off in some contexts.

A couple of years ago everybody in my team was told they needed to have an EDI objective listed in their annual review goals. This was fine, I just made something up and then ignored it like I ignore most of my annual review objectives.

Unfortunately at some point that year my line manager changed to somebody who hadn't got that memo about everybody needing an EDI objective, so I had to try and explain that I hadn't been told to review a load of EDI information as a result of being massively racist.

This requirement seems to have been dropped or forgotten about now. They like to have these big pushes on random issues that everybody immediately forgets about every now and then.

* Excluding nonsensical announcements by Reform councillors.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Chatgpt suggests otherwise

The percentage of women in frontline combat roles in the British Army is low, with only a small fraction of female soldiers serving in infantry and Royal Marine units. While women are increasingly represented in the UK Armed Forces overall, with 11.9% being female in regular forces as of October 2024, their representation in close combat roles remains relatively small.
Specifically, in April 2023, there were only 50 female other ranks and 10 female officers serving in the British Army's Infantry regiments, representing just 0.33% of the total Infantry strength of nearly 18,000 personnel. The Royal Marines have yet to have a single woman join their ranks. Since 2019, only 85 women have joined the infantry and 45 have joined the Royal Armoured Corps, with these 130 women representing about 0.5% of the total tank and infantry personnel, according to The Telegraph.
While all combat roles have been open to women since 2018, the current rate of progress suggests it will take over 100 years for the main close combat units to reach the target of 30% female recruitment across the armed forces.

You do realise the armed forces are voluntary, not conscription. If women don’t want a front line job, then who is going to enforce it?

I notice you’ve only quoted Army figures, not RN nor RAF as I did.
Kate Nesbitt MC (Military Cross) won her medal in 2009 in Afghanistan. Look her up.

 

[dwayne]

You do realise the armed forces are voluntary, not conscription. If women don’t want a front line job, then who is going to enforce it?

I notice you’ve only quoted Army figures, not RN nor RAF as I did.
Kate Nesbitt MC (Military Cross) won her medal in 2009 in Afghanistan. Look her up.

You do realise the armed forces are voluntary, not conscription. If women don’t want a front line job, then who is going to enforce it?

I notice you’ve only quoted Army figures, not RN nor RAF as I did.
Kate Nesbitt MC (Military Cross) won her medal in 2009 in Afghanistan. Look her up.

Sorry I missed the figures , where did you quote them ?

And your other point kind of backs up mine. Women want equality yet they won't volunteer for the armed forces!!

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Sorry I missed the figures , where did you quote them ?

And your other point kind of backs up mine. Women want equality yet they won't volunteer for the armed forces!!

I said they don’t volunteer for front line Army jobs. Who would?
The Royal Navy is the senior service.

 

[5Ways Gull]

Is better than Segregation, Discrimination and Exclusion.

 

[dwayne]

I said they don’t volunteer for front line Army jobs. Who would?

Men ..... It would appear

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Men ..... It would appear

That figures. Squaddies are thick.

 

[mr sheen]

Someone made a false accusation by fabricating an A-S comment in an innocent conversation they were not part of and ended a young guys career. This came from a friend’s son who I have known since birth. That’s all the evidence I need.

Well, we already know your friend's son is dishonest from his lie on the application form.

 

[jcdenton08]

Out of interest, were you contracted 'outside of IR35', i.e. off-payroll?

I don’t remember or have the details handy

 

[schmunk]

I don’t remember or have the details handy

No need to out yourself if so, but that kind of activity by a contractor would be a HUGE red flag for disguised employment.

 

[jcdenton08]

I agree with DEI completely.

But you do know that even DEI departments also have some stupid buggers working in them, although I'm not sure whether there's a quota

Maybe there should be a DEI hiring process specifically for hiring DEI friendly recruitment bods, who will be in turn hired by DEI hired people who in turn…

I was thinking how great this thread was before, but welcome.!

 

[jcdenton08]

No need to out yourself if so, but that kind of activity by a contractor would be a HUGE red flag for disguised employment.

I went through the books of the council I worked for, I just self-declare tax wise

Also, what is disguised employment?