To be anxious about my work's lack of diversity?

[hellokitty67]

I work for a listed firm - we are well known and respected in our field.

Our specific department is quite elitist and we do our own independent hiring (60 people in my department). They hire mainly from Oxbridge and a few London universities.

We have a huge issue with diversity, there are 3 women. We have a few Asians but they are all international students from wealthy backgrounds. 90% of the department are white males.

I knew we had an issue with private school hiring, as I think there's only a few of us who went to state school. However, I looked through our graduate intake for September... our biggest hiring to date, every single one of the 15 went to private school.

I feel really sad. I'm in charge of coming up with a scheme to improve our diversity. How do I broach this subject - we have a class issue surely? I just think it's shocking.

I do not believe that out of every person who did the relevant degree and applied that only private school educated grads were the best.

I am the token pupil premium, BAME girl.

Thanks.

Well done you for getting on in that environment it would be intimidating for many people, I would find it so. I guess now you’re there you could have some input to change things?
I think there are many barriers and you’ve listed some, private schools, middle class and male. People from other groups eg working class, BAME, mothers etc may have so many barriers not including just the belief that they belong in such a role.
Maybe get out to your local high school careers event and talk to the kids about how you got where you are

Would seek a job somewhere better!

Did you post pretty much this exact thread about two or three months ago?

People will hire someone like them as they know they will fit in to the current set up.

Absolutely sounds dreadful. If they want you to improve diversity then step one has to be acknowledging the lack of it you currently have! Do you know who is currently on the hiring panel? At my work we noticed there was a couple of years in a row where the 2 - 3 successful graduate trainees were all female, and it was an all-female panel. Since then we've always tried to have at least one male on the panel too, and it has increased the number of men getting the job. Can you push to ensure that panels are mixed gender and ideally mixed race? Can you suggest shortlisting is done without seeing candidates' names or school names, so that a more diverse pool of applicants gets through to interview?

As well as hiring though it's also worth thinking about retention. I've felt in the past that non-white trainees seem to be judged more harshly at my workplace. It's hard to know how to address it though because it's quite insidious and not easy to measure.

Look at the hiring processes and try to make them as assessment based as possible. Make hiring managers view cvs without gender/ ethnicity information and potentially remove school details as well. If you look at gov.uk ‘gender pay gap’ information they have lots of ideas of how you can reduce bias in hiring decisions- many of them will work for ethnicity as well as gender.

To be honest, I'd start by questioning why the BAME female has to take on the labour of fixing this. Did you volunteer?

I remember your last thread.

One option would be to encourage applicants to submit a form rather than a CV which means you have greater control over what is known about the candidates before they go through the selection process. Don't allow the candidates to name which school they go to which would eliminate favouritism towards private education, with a reasonably simple IT programme, you could even allocate a number rather than a name to conceal the candidates' gender and possibly their ethnicity too. That way selection is genuinely equal and bias cannot be shown.

You have been asked to address diversity but don’t know how to present the fact that your recruitment demonstrates bias against social inclusion.

Present the facts, intelligence and the data. Do some research on the benefits of diversity in organisational performance. There is academic evidence of this. Show what competitors and peers are doing.

Why would you turn to social media. 🤷‍♀️

I also thought this sounded familiar.

Diversity is huge at the moment. Most large companies are falling over themselves to improve their stats. Does your firm have to pitch for work to large companies? Pitch documents almost always ask for diversity stats. Plus studies show that improving diversity is good for business (I read a paper recently that indicated companies with a higher proportion of women on their boards are more successful).

@VodselForDinner no - especially as I've just found out the grads as they joined today

I've been part of the hiring process... everyone is. Some more junior employees screen CVs, I did interviews. The issue is that screening stage but also who knows to apply to us I guess.

I want to go up to management and say "are you fucking kidding me?" I don't want this statistic to get lost in the corporate bullshit.

I told a colleague today and they were shocked. I'm obviously the only one who went through all the CVs and googled their schools!

@LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett I was the only one who cared enough

@user12642379742146 not posted about this before. Can some one direct me to this thread?

@eurochick no I don't think it does, usually only a few people put forward proposals but they're experts in their field and therefore their reputation proceeds them. Our department is new-ish.

OK. You're the only one who cares about this. That means that you can't fix it on your own - sorry, but you can't. You need senior sponsorship and serious resources to a) make the whole organisation care and b) change the entire recruitment process.

So you either devote the next year of your life to fixing something that is unfixable or you take your undoubted talents elsewhere. Vote with your feet.

I don't mean to sound like a cow but I am getting on now and I am fed up of bright, brilliant young women devoting time to all these issues that aren't theirs to fix. Imagine how you could fly in a company that was truly diverse? Why spend your time fixing somewhere - you'll get no thanks for it. Save your energy and go and be amazing somewhere where you'll be valued.

I'm very tired.

You don’t have a diversity issue, you have a class issue. Most things are a class issue and It just so happens that the more diverse humans are in the lower classes in the majority of cases sadly, can’t deal with one without the other.

What you do is put forward a board proposal to remove gender, ethnicity, social class and details of school, location etc from the CV screening process. Just don’t let them submit that detail. .gov does this well.

You then look at outsourcing your hiring for a bit to an independent HR service to break down the elitist approach.

You also then start a programme of activity to build better links with colleges and universities outside of Oxbridge to draw more people into the career.

You propose it and keep at it like a terrier until they take you seriously, angling it on the PR benefits to them, the studies that show success rates and the PR negatives if they don’t do it.

But actually after reading Lonnys post she’s sadly right, unless you are in a position of power you will be seen and a pain in the arse. So maybe propose it, then prove the point by fucking off elsewhere you are more valued and not a token.

Clearly they are just hiring more people exactly like themselves. It’s easy for them to offer the job to candidates who present just like the them and the other people they already work with. It’s lazy really.

Point out that business research shows that companies lacking in diversity are less productive and less creative, as everyone thinks the same.

If the private schools are the best in the world then hiring 15 graduates who went to them is surely recruiting within the law (as you are not allowed to discriminate on grounds of colour etc under English law).

Surely if the private schools provide the best education and given class discrimination (if indeed there is any here where they just recruit the best people academically) is not included in the Equality Act 2010 their policies may be brilliant and getting the best people for the jobs though?

I hate to say it but I agree with lonny. I'm Assuming you're fairly young -
they're shutting you up. Patting you on the head patronisingly. They won't take anything you come up with seriously - you're a token. If they cared about diversity they'd have addressed this before, and it would be something on senior management radar. Everyone would be bending over backwards to get on the diversity project if it was ever going to be taken seriously. They're not. And that speaks volumes.

What @LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett said.

Focus on building your career, not this. You won’t get thanked for trying to do this and will just find it frustrating. Find a company that will value you (they are definitely out there). This department will eventually learn when HR get on to them if it is a big company / they struggle to recruit / people stop wanting to do business with them. They doubt they will listen to that message from an internal source.

Some more junior employees screen CVs

This might be part of your issue, young people might be too conservative and less able to see the bigger picture.

How are your adverts worded (easy to check on line for male/female bias in adjectives used), are there photos of white males on your job adverts?