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.

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

I don't get this at all. The score is a way of quantifying who is the best person, and how much better A is than B. The criterion you score are those which make people better for the job. Eg if ability to talk slowly and calmly to difficult customers is more important than having a first-class degree then adjust your scoring accordingly.

@blueangel19

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

this ha been the norm where i have worked, for many years. what's outrageous. it rarely happens that 2 are equally matched, but if they are, what's wrong with this policy. i am surprised at people's outrage. i don't understand it. apart from details of who exactly fits the category. that is a secondary question, and how they are ranked against each other.

Thinking about this further, I wouldn’t actually have a problem with this if it’s either to address a specific underrepresentation or if all / all underrepresented protected characteristics are prioritised (but then how do you decide if both candidates have different protected characteristics?)

But if the aim is a more generic “to increase diversity”, I think using race as the sole protected characteristic “tiebreaker” is wrong.

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.

Ah. Thanks for clarifying.

It's section 159 positove action in recruitment and promotion.

You have to have to candidates of ewual merit and you have to prove that one group eith protected characteristic is underrepresented so you can use the tie breaker. You also can't have any other policies in place to already about different treatment of the group when it comes to recruitment.

It can be that company has massive underrepresentation of women. They have 2 final candidates who are of equal merit and either could do job equslly well. Then they can apply the tie-breaker.

I also absolutely don't think that you should be remimding the interviewers before the interviews.

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

Well obviously. What's that got to do with it? Presumably they will be using the equality and diversity form rather than just eyeing up someone's skin colour.

Who decides the ethnicity of the candidate? Do they declare it or does the interviewer have to guess?

Just eant to point out that it is NOT just about skin

often comes down to who the hiring manager thinks will be the best fit for the team.

That seems to me like a massive euphemism for all sorts of bias and wrongful discrimination!

It's positive action - everyone is supposed to do it. Don't see the women on here complaining that exactly the same thing happens to hire women over men...

When do you stop though? My area of Scotland is 95% white. If you have 5% ethnic workforce do you stop or keep going? What about the majority of the population then? What happened to "the greatest good of the greatest number?" It doesn't sound good for race relations.

@flashbac

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.

If it were applied to all protected characteristics, it might not be so potentially upsetting to those in other categories.

Yours, somebody disabled and with Ashkenazi and Traveller heritage.

But then, how do you rank them? Is the most visible protected characteristic the one that wins? So you've got a head to head between a superfit and healthy 27 year old BAME male who attended private school and Oxford and the 51 year old white skinned woman who went to a sink school and did her degree with the Open University whilst unable to work through an invisible disability/after fleeing domestic violence? Taking into account that both people with Traveller heritage and disabilities are often unwilling to disclose this because it usually results in 'you did not meet the person specification for this position' or if they manage to get to interview (which despite two ticks allegedly guaranteeing an interview - if they aren't filtered out as above - 'another candidate had greater experience').

Ffs sorry qbout the typos🙄 i need new phone

@MissRabbitsDayOff

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.)

I think that would be too off-putting before an interview, you want to encourage people to do their best, not throw them off at the last minute.

I would have both candidates in for a second interview and appoint on merit.

Women are 50% of the population. I do oppose positive discrimination for women

My view is that policies like this are usually well meaning, but essentially put in place so organisations can tick the 'taking positive action to increase diversity' box on the action plan.

In reality, this situation would never arise. Everyone knows that the hiring managers will pick the candidate they believe will be the best fit and will ensure the scoring supports the outcomes they want to achieve.

I would avoid, and ensure that the selection and scoring process was predictive enough, and sensitive enough, to produce a healthy range of outcomes. I would not like to rely on this approach as a deciding factor in itself, since selection is such a subjective matter. After the selection decision has been made, there are a lot of people who have to live with that decision for a long time, so it should be based on both breadth and depth of information about an individual's ability to perform well in the role.

I know that this doesn't answer the question, but FAR better to have a well-designed, sensitive selection process that will give all candidates a balanced opportunity in the first place.

Very reasonable. And as a bonus, implementing the policy might piss off any racists enough that they leave. Win/win.

Well obviously. What's that got to do with it? Presumably they will be using the equality and diversity form rather than just eyeing up someone's skin colour.

As you said.. presumably.. doesn’t mean you don’t have people that would just look at skin colour.

@HunterHearstHelmsley

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.

Well if disabled people and women aren't under-represented then they wouldn't need to include them would them they?

It's a perfectly reasonable policy (assuming you're other groups aren't also under represented?), and I'd accept it. Though I'd probably be a bit miffed if that was the only reason I didn't get the job.

I dont see a problem with awarding the job to someone who comes from an underrepresented group, if they and another candidate have produced an equal score at interview.

@2Rebecca

When do you stop though? My area of Scotland is 95% white. If you have 5% ethnic workforce do you stop or keep going? What about the majority of the population then? What happened to "the greatest good of the greatest number?" It doesn't sound good for race relations.

It should reflect the population afaik. So overal scotland is 5% so that's what the company could defend. But if they are in one city where it's 16% they can use local demographic to assess the underrepresentation. AgIn. This can be used for any protected characteristic, not just race

If it's genuinely tied and you could see both doing the job well, I really don't see what the issue is. I think it's only really necessary in organisations/sectors where there is an under representation of people based on the general population. If your work force was already 40% black or ethnic minority, if that is more than average, then I don't think it needs to be applied.

But what else do they usually do to unpick a tie? I can't imagine a tie happens very often, I've never seen it.