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.

Um.. why would it be rare for a white person and an ethnic minority to tie for a job?

I think ties are rare anyway, and then if you add in the fact that if interviewees are in line with the general population (ie ~85% white) that will make such a tie even rarer.

Not unlawful discrimination.

You can't hire someone who is female or ethnic minority over someone better who is white male, but if they perform equally at interview you can choose the disadvantaged characteristic person if you wish.

I have no idea what else you're supposed to base your decision on if you're not choosing to hire more ethnic minorities or women

In reality, though, has this ever happened? Does your company have a proportionately diverse workforce already, or is it heaving with privately-educated white men, and this is someone's well-meaning attempt to redress the balance a bit?

@DeeCeeCherry

About time. It's 2021, ethnic minorities have already had to put up with decades of being excluded from jobs and promotion in favour of White people.

I'd like to see diversity policies extended to include disabled people too. It's outrageous that disabled are almost invisible in society and working life. I've worked within organisations that have policies addressing this yet they somehow manage to never employ a physically disabled person, for instance.

You do know that disability discrimination in employment has been illegal for many years?

It seems a bit crude to measure diversity simply by ethnicity - depending on sector, I would want to look at company profile in terms of gender, ethnicity, route in , age ( e.g. Oxbridge, or non graduate etc) .
From a hiring perspective - you could hire the young black male over an older white female based and probably still end up with a discrimination claim.

@phoenixrosehere

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.

Um.. why would it be rare for a white person and an ethnic minority to tie for a job?

Also, an ethnic minority can be considered a broad term. It could include someone who has pale/white skin but not considered white.

Presume an absolute tie is rare.

Are you reading “all non white people are rubbish” into it? I don’t think it means that.

@MapGirlExtraordinaire

Not unlawful discrimination.

You can't hire someone who is female or ethnic minority over someone better who is white male, but if they perform equally at interview you can choose the disadvantaged characteristic person if you wish.

I have no idea what else you're supposed to base your decision on if you're not choosing to hire more ethnic minorities or women

What’s a ‘disadvantaged characteristic’ person? I think you mean a person with a protected characteristic.

At interviews, all candidates are given a score based on how well they do

My issue is far less to do with the tie-break, and much more to do with the interview score.

Recruiting the right person for a role is as much an art as a science. The most qualified and / or experienced person isn’t necessarily the best fit for the role or even the team.

How does the scoring work to take these less tangible factors into account?

Surely it is pretty clear cut who the best person for the job is? Relying on a score just seems, um, odd...

You know what, your workplace clearly has such an issue with diversity that it’s needed. So yes, if two people get to that point then the POC should get the shot. However, and this might make you feel better, the chances of the POC getting that far are slim compared to white candidates. Hence the policy.

It's not just race. It's all protected characteristics if you can evidence a group are underrepresented.

[quote FartleBarfle]@greenalltheway

Some interesting thoughts there. I like the idea of a blind review too.

I often wonder what the outcome would be if they did this for political elections - you choose the candidate based on their policies rather than persona, which would reduce all the mud throwing and media spin. It would be interesting![/quote]
That would be interesting but its perfectly possible we'd often be horrified once we learned who we picked!

People are frothing at the mouth already when they are unaware the policy is legal and applies to any disadvantaged person by virtue of a protected characteristic like sex, disability, sexual orientation etc, not just RACE.

What else are they going to do - toss a coin?

Probably better than this to be honest.

I can see this just ending a company in trouble. I get the point, but if the ethnic minority person finds out, will they be OK with that or pissed off that you hired them essentially just to make your figures look better? Yeah they were equal to the other person (although that would be a coincidence, surely you can find something else different), but they still got picked based on their ethnic minority.

In technology, there are some companies pushing on getting women into board level jobs and making it so that men/women is 50/50. In one way, that sounds good, but there aren't that many women in comparison to men in this industry to start with. You can't force women to work in this area and what if the choices you have aren't qualified? Still going to hire them just because they have a vagina? I'd find that insulting personally.

Yes it's fine and would also be fine if eg you did it with male and female candidates. I actually think there should be more of this. People despise quotas and think then you'll only get the job because you are eg black or female but actually I think it's more offensive to say there aren't any black or female candidates that are good enough (and if there really aren't, you need to sort out your pipeline - fast).

Where I think it falls down is with the people who aren't obviously "ethnic". Imagine Prince Archie turning up! Unless you knew his granny was black you wouldn't know.

It is definitely worth having long and short lists for jobs where you endeavour as far as possible to make sure there is a non-white person on the list and a woman (or man if female dominated job role).

@StoneofDestiny

Put in gender as the difference and how do you think that reads?

It would read the same.

Are they also tied in qualifications and experience?

If so, there's got to be a tie break of some sort. But then, what if the white person has a disability? Or is LGBTQ+? And what % of people working there are already white? And what % LGBTQ+/ disabled? How are you classing people who identify with another ethnicity but may look white (e.g. mixed race) or those from a group that faces discrimination yet look white (e.g. Roma)?

It has the potential to get quite fraught. I don't know what the answer is, but it's an interesting question.

Why are only white people allowed an opinion on this thread?

I don't know if I should say this in case it affects the results, but I was curious to see what percentage of the white employees may react badly if we remind interviewers prior to interviews that this is our policy, and whether this might have any unintended consequences (eg more bias against people from an ethnic minority background, assumptions that people might have been hired because of their race etc.)

The Equality Act says discrimination can be justified if the person who's discriminating against you can show it's a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

I shall post this sporadically throughout the thread.

Out of curiosity what would be the deciding factor if two white people tied?

If the company has a goal to increase their ethnic diversity then you don't have two tied candidates - you have two who performed equally in the task and one who has an additional characteristic the company is looking for. They are a better fit for the teams needs.

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

Imagine Prince Archie turning up! Unless you knew his granny was black you wouldn't know.

but then if you wouldn't know, probably he wouldn't suffer the discrimination, assuming a person with same parentage/looks, but an anonymous name, eg archie bunker.

It raises other issues also- a black male gets the job over a white female? An able bodied Indian female gets the job over a disabled white man?

I should preface this with the fact that I work for an organisation that is incredibly diverse. I have been the "minority" in many a room.

Completely reasonable and legal if you have a workplace where non-white groups are under represented. It is positive action, not affirmative action, the two are quite different. As long.as they are 'as qualified as' then it's ok in terms of the equality act and morally we need to be doing this to redress the lack of diversity in many organisations.

@Woodpecker22

I think it is problematic at the very least. Firstly I don't think all BAME groups should be lumped together as they are not at equal disadvantage. Secondly how does this leave other minorities e.g should a white, disabled female be considered second best to a male asian who is not disabled.

Sex and disability are both also protected characteristics so she wouldn't be at a disadvantage.

When two candidates score the same at interview, it often comes down to who the hiring manager thinks will be the best fit for the team. Positive discrimination works because it takes any unconscious bias out of that decision. It's usually best as a short-medium term measure in response to a documented lack of diversity in the workplace, I think, others will disagree.