Is this employment policy at my work reasonable? **Title edited by MNHQ**

[MissRabbitsDayOff]

Name change. Long-term poster. This might sound goady but I'm just trying to see what people think about the following policy at my workplace.

At interviews, all candidates are given a score based on how well they do. In the rare event of a tie between a white person and a person from an ethnic minority background, the job will be offered to the person from the ethnic minority background to increase diversity.

YABU - The policy is unreasonable.
YANBU - The policy is not unreasonable.

@Babygotblueyes

PS. Think it should happen for women too, where they are under represented.

It does happen for women - even where they're over represented.

I think this is a good policy. The positive benefits of affirmative action, in my opinion, outweigh any disadvantages. But as a PP has said, I hope a day will come when it is no longer necessary.

Instead of ethnic minority it could have said disabled or female or gender reassignment or gay and been equally ok in my eyes

Anyone fancies to see the law

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/159

Is that not what the Guaranteed Interview Scheme is for though? I think that does a decent job of ensuring disabled people are having any bias against them removed

I've got a story about that.

I applied for a particular position. I was doing the same job, had all the qualifications and fully evidenced high level skills for everything listed in the essential/desirable boxes. I had relevant work history, volunteering - it was as though this job and candidate spec had been written for somebody with my history in mind - and then I thought 'fuck it, I'll tick the box to declare my disability' - which also was 100% relevant to the organisation. They were offering a Guaranteed Interview For Everybody Who Meets The Essential Requirements and I therefore ticked the box/filled in the details.

I got a 'you did not fulfil the requirements of the job specification' email. As I was slightly annoyed, I contacted HR for a polite clarification on how I didn't meet the requirements for a guaranteed interview. The poor woman on the other end innocently told me that she didn't understand, as everything matched up and I'd been put forward. As soon as she said 'maybe something happened at the manual sift or when they thought about the building access -' and hastily realised what she was saying, it seemed clear that the charity that claimed to represent people with my disability didn't want to even interview somebody with that disability.

I have never, ever been offered an interview if I have declared my disability to a 'we guarantee to interview the disabled' employer. I have had plenty of interviews with other employers when I haven't declared it and some have said 'oh, it was so close, we wanted to give it to you, but the other candidate the one who didn't turn up with a cast on their foot got it' and I've been successful with other employers where I haven't completed the monitoring form until afterwards/when they have already decided to offer me a position. My current place is great, I don't think they even cared about that part of the form as it felt like they had decided to employ me as soon as I'd entered in the room. I still didn't disclose anything until after I'd accepted the job offer.

I'm clearly not unemployable, as I have a job. I don't waste my time applying for things where I don't remotely match the essential requirements. I am perfectly capable of matching experience and qualifications to job specifications. But it seems strange that I have never even got to interview for a single 'we guarantee an interview' employer where I have disclosed it on the monitoring form.

It's shit that people still get filtered out whether they declare or don't declare a protected characteristic that is obvious. But those schemes? I think they're lip service to pretend that they are actually doing something when a lot of the time, your application still ends up being dumped as soon as it's seen you've ticked that box.

Interesting point about the black candidate being Eton educated, upper middle class and the white candidate being working class first in the family at uni scenario.

Also "white looking" people can be from minority ethnic groups or have other protected characteristics that cannot be discriminated against.

There are so many nuances it isn't as simple as skin colour. It's far to simplistic a definition to have in a policy and I'd have an issue with it based on the described situation.

This feels a bit wrong to me. Jobs should be given to those who are most worthy/qualified/best fit and should have nothing to do with ethnicity, gender, religion etc. What's wrong with using a tie breaker to decide? I struggle to understand why someone should be placed in a certain job over someone else purely because of something like ethnicity or gender. What is best for the business is to hire the best person for the job.

That is absolutely shit @NeverDropYourMoonCup
Interestingly this is nkt the first time I heard about this going on with charity representing people with disabilities 😳
Sad state of affairs. What's a shame is that this might be really difficult to proove in a tribunal so prople don't take it there. Shame.

I've just been reading David Baddiel's (eye-opening!) book about anti-Semitism so this is an example. It could easily be a person of another minority such as from the traveller community who perhaps doesn't want to identify as such - even on a public sector equal ops application form - because they feel they are subject to systemic racism (which is almost certainly true). So they've ticked 'prefer not to answer' to these questions about ethnicity.

They may be a white person. What if they're were up against a person of colour in this situation and not chosen? Isn't this problematic? I'm really struggling with understanding this, despite wanting better representation for everyone in the workforce.

Why does one kind of ethnicity/disadvantage trump another?

@Embroideredstars

Interesting point about the black candidate being Eton educated, upper middle class and the white candidate being working class first in the family at uni scenario.

Also "white looking" people can be from minority ethnic groups or have other protected characteristics that cannot be discriminated against.

There are so many nuances it isn't as simple as skin colour. It's far to simplistic a definition to have in a policy and I'd have an issue with it based on the described situation.

Who said it would be judged on skin colour? This is why the equality and diversity monitoring forms exist. Obviously it won’t just be something guessing based on what you look like.

@TatianaBis

This is what the future looks like for white people. I think is outrageous and can’t believe is legal

'When you're used to privilege equality feels like oppression'

@TatianaBis absolutely nailed it.

There's no such thing as positive discrimination.

Discrimination is discrimination.

What happens if two people from a white background score evenly?

The word 'diversity' has been hijacked by the left wing to only mean differences in race or sex. Implicitly, they're saying that people of the same sex or race are all the same, as if one white male couldn't possibly be diverse from another.

@sunshinepunch

There's no such thing as positive discrimination.

Discrimination is discrimination.

What happens if two people from a white background score evenly?

The usual.

The likeability decides. Unless one of them has protected characteristic which is underrepresented and company wants to address that

This is 'positive action' which is legal. Companies can pick a person with a protected characteristic if there are 2 candidates that are equally qualified.

Positive discrimination is illegal (except in some specificcircumstances), this would mean selecting a candidate even though they are not the most qualified.

@Pea1985

This is 'positive action' which is legal. Companies can pick a person with a protected characteristic if there are 2 candidates that are equally qualified.

Positive discrimination is illegal (except in some specificcircumstances), this would mean selecting a candidate even though they are not the most qualified.

Shame this will be ignored like all the other posts explaining what this is

If both candidates are equally qualified for the position (if it’s a tie, yes they are), and the action being taken is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim (improving the diversity of the workforce - and this could be any underrepresented group, it’s not just race) it is legal. If we ever come up with a better way to get rid of unconscious bias in recruiting I’m here for it, but for now this is necessary. It’s helped many women get into industries where they would probably otherwise have been rejected from the role due to the male candidate being preferred for no real reason.

Ds is job hunting and has seen all the forms and positive action claims.

There was one I saw yesterday which guaranteed an interview for disabled/non-white British applicants. Fair enough. But it is encouraging a “race to victimhood”. I know applicants are casting around for anything to get them brought the door. A disability is no longer a wheelchair user or sight impairment, but anxiety. I know this as my cousin was recruiting for a programme, and she said practically half the applicants had ticked the box for disability and had cited a vague “mental health issues”. Unless you are required to produce some proof of disability then this is going to become rife.

I don't like this because it's not clear where the line is on who counts as having an ethnic minority background and who decides that.

To use DropDTuning's comment as an example ('I am middle eastern/ashkenazi jewish so I don't know if you would count me as white or not. Some do, some don't. I don't look very white, but I'm not brown or black either.') who decides on whether this person 'deserves' to be given the job or the person whose background is white?
Or people who look white but have other backgrounds, and haven't ticked the box on their application that gives their ethnic background?

In any case how often is it that two people have the same scores anyway?

@TheLastLotus

In any case how often is it that two people have the same scores anyway?

Rarely. And as you say, it's hard to implement for different reasons as well.

That's why it's reported as VERY rarely used provision. Except on mumsnet. Someone should tell all the researchers and academics that it's actually commonly used. And the company bosses who replied to that researchers saying they don't use this and/or never heard of it🙈

I am white and ethnic minority and I feel strange about it. Not outraged, no, but I definitely don't want to be in the shoes of an HR person making a judgment on how "white" every candidate is.

@TheLastLotus

In any case how often is it that two people have the same scores anyway?

It happens sometimes on grad recruitment programs, for example, where the means of initial assessment is a formalised test. So if the max score is 20 and you have 200 bright candidates, there is often a tie for the top place.

Happened at least twice in my working life so far (I usually sit on grad interview panels). Obviously, the decision is usually to invite the candidates for an extra interview before the next round.

Are all of.those frothing aware that most public sector organisations operate the 2 tick scheme?
That means if they meet the minimum criteria, anybody with a disability who wishes is shortlisted to be interviewed.

Everyone else will be judged on essential and desirable criteria.

Public sector is different to private companies because they have an equality duty under EA

For private companies positive action is not compulsory, it's just there if they can use it, but they don't have to. Most companies uses s 158 though from the looks of it.