Diversity in the workplace - why am I not included?

[FayCarew]

As I watch a new set of corporate videos, I realise that I am not represented in them. They are full of young attractive smartly/business casually dressed people of a range of ethnic diversity.

Yet my colleagues are generally 50+ white and grey and wear WFH clothes. As am I. We are not board level.

AIBU to feel invisible?

Things swing like a pendulum. My company now - every expert they use, every sound bite, every picture etc is from someone who is nonwhite. Despite the fact that 80% of the company is white. It makes me laugh. It used to be all white people and now they have erased white people and it is all non white. Eventually it will hopefully land somewhere in the middle with a mix of white and nonwhite.

I get that it's harder to visually "show" other types of disabilities, but this annoys me too. "Disabled" and "wheelchair user" are not the same thing.

I flagged this to my employer.

I was told…‘you’re not middle aged, you’re still attractive’

@ToiletPoster2 , I have seen a lot of similar videos, and they are generally the same. I wouldn't comment were it not for the 'employees' usually looking nothing like the actual employees.

Great, the corporate stuff shows beautiful youngish people of different ethicity, but reality is the employees look nothing like them.

Middle-aged people of different ethnicity who look normal would be a start.

@VaddaABeetch , your employer would say I was middle-aged

@FayCarew i was disgusted. It really sends a message that if you’re not ‘attractive’. Then you don’t count.

i asked ‘am I on the countdown to being unattractive.

I am also neuro diverse with a hidden disability.

None of the above affects my ability to do my job.

There are no adverts with White people? Seriously! 🙄

Why won’t somebody think of the poor white people.

Bullshit

I recently complained to my HR department about a training video that we had to watch about equality and diversity except there was hardly any diversity in it. I can't remember if there were different ages but there were still very few people from ethnic minorities and no one with a visible disability. I also complained about the outdated language which referred to 'disabled people' as I was led to believe that you should recognise the person first and to say people with a disability. They'd also used stats which were over 10 years old. I've had no response other than a holding email to say my complaint had been received and would be forwarded on.

No a single white family on TV? How long did you watch? 2 minutes?

😂😂😂

Oh that’s a good one! Thank you for the laughs!

As an older woman? Yes we are often left out.

As white people? Nah.

I think there is an over representation of those from a BAME background at advert level, especially compared to the actual make up of ethnicities in this country

Did you also complain when there was an over representation of white people?

After watching a series of adverts, my DS asked me the other day why aren’t there any families like ours (white) on TV.
It made me pay attention, and he is right.

There are no white families on TV? 🤔 What have you been watching, because I see plenty of them.

On TV adverts, whenever they depict a lesbian couple, they always have them kiss. Why? They manage to show hetero couples doing other things, but no, the lesbians have to be intimate. It's getting boring now.

In a country where white people make up nearly 90% of the population, black about 3 and South Asian about 5 I would expect advert participants to 17 times out of 20 to be white too. Simply to be representative of the population. This is definitely not the case now.

They never represent the Jews, how about a little Pesach recognition ??

White people make up 87% of the country, so to mirror the actual make up of ethnicities in the country then 87% of people in adverts would be white. I don’t believe that is the case at all, hence saying people of other ethnicities are “over represented”.

its a factual statement and observation, im certainly not complaining

That only makes sense if you think the purpose of advertising is to reflect reality rather than, say, attract novel demographics to a product.

White people make up 87% of the country, so to mirror the actual make up of ethnicities in the country then 87% of people in adverts would be white. I don’t believe that is the case at all, hence saying people of other ethnicities are “over represented”.

its a factual statement and observation, im certainly not complaining

Again, when white people were over represented, did you complain? Or even notice?

There was an article in the Times at the weekend/last week about ageism in the workplace and how important it is to combat it, because we all have to work longer and it's no good employers writing everyone off over the age of 40/50. My employer likes to think that it's hot on diversity and there are quite a few people around in their late 40s and 50s but ageism is one of the hardest to crack I think (social mobility being the hardest, although there was an article in the Times yesterday about someone who's devised an algorithm for employers to do contextual offers for jobs, similar to universities).

also complained about the outdated language which referred to 'disabled people' as I was led to believe that you should recognise the person first and to say people with a disability

I was told this in a training session about ten years ago, but more recently it has changed again. You say "disabled people" as they are disabled by society.

Yes I noticed, I sit on my company’s DEI board hence the rest of my comments about it diversity not translating to the workplace further on my original comment. If you’d chosen to read it rather than just cherry pick part of the quote

YANBU. If we want to represent the society we live in then the vast majority of people in ads etc should be white and not just young. Only 14% are BAME in this country, yet when I saw an ad break the other day it seemed that everyone appeared to be in a mixed race relationship, interestingly all black with white, no Asians. The next ad break I counted and it was over 50% BAME, under 50% white people. Corporate presentations now have to show people of colour much more prominently so I find myself looking up things like 'confused looking middle aged black man' or 'Asian looking stressed' on the stock photo sites because diversity is apparently more important than representation. We live in a multi cultural society but the UK is not a country which is totally mixed, most people here are northern European heritage, which should be reflected.