What is Meritocracy / merit-based hiring? Does DEI preclude or replace merit?

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ZenMode said:
I can see some situations where specific sex, race, etc is actually relevant to a position. For example, maybe you don't want to hire a male to run a shelter for abused women.
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I'd think most marketing and sales programs would benefit from diverse inputs of all types.

Fwiw, I also approve of the increased number of women doctors. Most of my doctors over the last eight years have been women and I've liked them, for the most part, better than the males now or in the 65 years before that stretch.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I definitely see the value of hiring a diverse workforce. For example, somebody that grew up in a Hispanic household is probably going to have their finger on the pulse of Hispanic culture more than someone that didn't. That means that they very well could design products better to meet that market or sell better to meet that market And even if they're the ones in IT or accounting, they could give their non-hispanic colleagues more insight into that culture. And you certainly wouldn't want to cut out more than half your hiring options because you only want to hire white guys. The best managers and companies are going to recognize that and out compete the ones that don't.

I think being required to hire a minority or a woman candidate over someone else is the real problem. It's racist, misandrist and people recognize it. And certainly it's a problem for the person that got discriminated against but also the problem for a minority or a woman that got the job based on merit.
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That's not racism. You really seem to struggle with what that actually means. And if two candidates are both qualified there is nothing wrong with hiring the candidate that would give you a more diverse workforce just to have a more diverse workforce.
 
I'm a southern, white, 50+ male engineer working in a relatively high tech industry for a global, fortune 500 company. I have been here 30+ years, so I knew us before DEI. Here is what I know about our DEI, first hand. We do focus on recruiting from HBCUs and we do look for resumes from under represented classes, but I have never gotten pressure to hire a particular person based on anything other than merit. There are no quotas. However, it does help us identify qualified candidates that otherwise may not have been identified. I think that is a good thing. I do suspect people in "protected" groups get more consideration for promotions, but I have not seen them over-represented in the "unqualified for the job" category. In fact, it has made me more aware of the diversity of qualified people. The other manifestation I see of DEI is organizations within the company consisting primarily of people from a given "under represented" group, intended to raise awareness and provide a place for birds of that feather to flock together. I don't see how anyone could have issues with that. In fact, during all of the BLM stuff in Trump's first term, the black professional organization hosted a lot of REALLY enlightening discussions. So yeah, I think the DEI initiatives at my company are a net positive. I suspect it is similar at other companies.

It is incredibly naive to think people will hire "just based on merit." We are all human, and we all have an instict to hire from within our tribe. Right now, one tribe has almost all of the marbles. I don't have a problem with getting a few extra resumes from outside of my tribe. And yes, even in my technical role, there is benefit to having folks from different cultures and backgrounds.
 
An arguement can likely be made that the Federal govt is the most Merit Based large organization in the US. All those civil service exams etc..
I lived in a industrial Company town once (3 companies actually) and the way you got a job was to have a Dad , uncle, neighbor that worked there "vouch " for you. Large National Brands all of them. Millions of factory jobs filled that way hstorically in the USA
I have an extended family member that is part of a "new wave" tech company. (Venture Capital puts its value at 2 Billion) The Mgt hires were all made by hiring folks "with some kind of title" at Micrososft, Tesla etc............ "name Brand " hires
Lots of occupations (RN, Chemist, Engineer) require proper certification and thats about it-due to relative shortages of properly credentialed folks
 
sringwal said:
Can you give specific examples of "DEI programs [that] have not followed that model?
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It's not really hard to find these. Here are a couple:

-IBM uses an illegal “diversity modifier,” a standard requiring the company to meet hiring quotas based on race, color, national origin, sex, or ancestry.

www.kctv5.com

Missouri AG files suit against IBM for discriminatory hiring practices

Missouri’s Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against IBM after discriminatory hiring practices were brought to his attention.
www.kctv5.com www.kctv5.com

-White NC hospital executive fired because of Novant’s DEI plans, appeals court rules


-under “Qualifications,” the Bears said the fellow must be a “[p]erson of color and/or female law student.”

www.forbes.com

Chicago Bears Settle Lawsuit Over ‘Legal Diversity Fellow’ Role

While the plaintiff's non-speculative damages were minimal, the club was likely wise to settle the case quickly to avoid statutorily-required attorneys’ fees.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com

I think companies are getting sued, and should be, when they're attaching bonuses to minority hiring or promotions, attaching KPIs to minority hiring or staffing rates, or specifically putting race or sex-based criteria in their hiring or promotion standards.

I think they're also getting sued, although the cases are harder to win, for hostile working environments for dei education programs that are discriminatory towards white males. Those seem to be harder to win and the examples have to be pretty egregious.
 
If you're quoting Andrew Bailey, you're losing. That guy is one of the worst and most dishonest AGs around.
 
DEI is recognition of the advances in behavioral economics in this century. As a rule, the inferences we are wired to make about things like pricing and competence are imperfect. DEI, if properly administered, forces us to confront inferences we make in hiring - about background, education and presentation - and question whether they really are indicators of competence. Because they often aren't.

The intellectual dishonesty going on is that politics and tech are the two industries that use behavioral economics most aggressively to promote engagement and persuade people to buy or vote. Yet they reject the notion that similar inference imperfections may impact us as hiring managers.
 
finesse said:
I'd think most marketing and sales programs would benefit from diverse inputs of all types.

Fwiw, I also approve of the increased number of women doctors. Most of my doctors over the last eight years have been women and I've liked them, for the most part, better than the males now or in the 65 years before that stretch.
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My primary doctors for the last 30 years have been women.
 
I have like exactly zero knowledge of constitutional law, but how is forcing people to remove pronouns from their email signature not a violation of the first amendment?
 
CFordUNC said:
I have like exactly zero knowledge of constitutional law, but how is forcing people to remove pronouns from their email signature not a violation of the first amendment?
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The government has greater power when it acts as an employer than as a government. Government employees have fewer rights in their employment relationship than they would have otherwise.

If that directive were aimed at the population at large, it would be instantly enjoined. But if it applies to federal employees only, it's a closer case.
 
Been on both sides of this fence. A couple of anecdotes:

-Whenever I've been a manager (headed up a department of 70 persons), I looked to hire a diverse team. Down in CR race is not as big a deal, but obviously diversity goes beyond race. We aimed for diversity of experience (internal promotions vs external hires), geography (including foreigners), age, and lifestyle (including LGBQ). I was proud to have an extremely diverse team. Our overriding principle, though was to hire the person most qualified for the job.

-Prior to COVID, we had a rather large restructuring. I was passed over for a job even though my experience in the field was significantly greater than the lady who ended up as my boss. The general manager explicitly told me that he picked her over me because he had too many men reporting to him and needed to have an even amount of women on the senior manager team.

-During COVID we had another large restructuring. When the round pf cuts came to management ranks, it was almost exclusively among guys 50+. We were probably the more expensive part of management, but the coincidence that we were all men in that 50-57 range was an uncomfortable coincidence. No women were let go in that round (at the senior level).

-While job hunting I applied to a position with a fortune 500 company. I knew the manager, sent in my resume. He tells me..."This is exactly what we need, if anything you're overqualified. Only problem is that I need to fill this with a woman to hit my Diversity Score target."

-My wife was a corporate warrior for 25 years at a Fortune 500 company. She was eventually one of the highest ranked women in the Latin American unit. She absolutely hated diversity quotas, which in LatAm usually boil down to gender. She always felt like people thought she was diversity hire when in reality she had two advanced degrees and was a high-level performer. She hated she had to promote some women who weren't ready for positions because of their gender. But she also hated that the cheese maze at her company was set up to favor men and was antithetic to having a family.
 
CFordUNC said:
I don't know how anyone could be opposed to the concept of DEI in principle. I do understand that corporate DEI programs can be awkward, clunky, ineffective, and an inefficient use of time and resources that accomplish little if anything tangible. But that is different, in my mind; just because the programmatic implementation of a concept is poor doesn't mean that the actual concept itself is poor.
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Because DEI is a very real danger to mediocre white men. When you can't separate yourself from others based on skill, knowledge, and technical achievement, the best chances you have to advance are privilege and connections.

And in the world of Republicans, DEI has become a modern day synonym for affirmative action, which has long been deemed the reason that white guys don't get their just reward in any and every position.
 
Meanwhile, in DEI purging/revising history news …



“… By Monday morning, a section of her online biography titled, “She advocated for women in science,” was gone. It reappeared in a stripped-down form later that day amid a chaotic federal government response to Trump’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

While there are far more seismic changes afoot in America than the revision of three paragraphs on a website, the page’s edit trail provides an opportunity to peer into how institutions and agencies are navigating the new administration’s intolerance of anything perceived as “woke” and illuminates a calculation officials must make in answering a wide-open question:

How far is too far when it comes to acknowledging inequality and advocating against it?

… [One paragraph that had been removed was restoring full.] That was not the case for the paragraph that followed: “Science is still a male-dominated field, but Rubin Observatory is working to increase participation from women and other people who have historically been excluded from science. Rubin Observatory welcomes everyone who wants to contribute to science, and takes steps to lower or eliminate barriers that exclude those with less privilege.”

That paragraph was gone as of Thursday afternoon, as was the assertion that Rubin shows what can happen when “more minds” participate in science. The word “more” was replaced with “many,” shifting the meaning.

… “I’m sure Vera would be absolutely furious,” said Jacqueline Mitton, an astronomer and author who co-wrote a biography of Rubin’s life. Mitton said the phrase “more minds” implies that “you want minds from people from every different background,” an idea that follows naturally from the now-deleted text on systemic barriers.

She said Rubin, who died in 2016, would want the observatory named after her to continue her work advocating for women and other groups who have long been underrepresented in science.

It’s unclear who ordered the specific alterations of Rubin’s biography. …”
 
CFordUNC said:
I don't know how anyone could be opposed to the concept of DEI in principle. I do understand that corporate DEI programs can be awkward, clunky, ineffective, and an inefficient use of time and resources that accomplish little if anything tangible. But that is different, in my mind; just because the programmatic implementation of a concept is poor doesn't mean that the actual concept itself is poor.
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It is often accompanied by lowering standards and there is no place for equal outcomes for all. It is the most unamerican concept ever.
 
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