Have workplace employee networks gone too far

[Holidayheat]

I work in a large retail bank. We have a long list of employee networks we can join. Disability network, LGBTQ+ network, neurodiversity network, women’s network, staff wellbeing network etc etc. I really fail to see the point in them. I’m a nice liberal minded person. My colleagues are all nice liberal minded people. We aren’t bigoted in any way etc etc. I have a colleague who is heavily involved in the running of a network. It’s not in her job description but must take up about 50% of her time, which for an IT professional is a chunk of money for my employer. I just don’t see the point. Deciding how to best decorate the office for pride. Getting the budget right for Eid celebration event. Promoting a ‘how to do presentations for women’ event.

If we were a particularly backward thinking workplace I could see the benefit, but it’s 2025 and this is a modern workplace. no one gives two hoots as to whether someone is gay, or Jewish, or has a stutter or is in a wheelchair, they are just interested in whether someone can do their job. There is no prejudice these days in most workplaces like ours and to claim there is or worry that there is seems a little patronising. It seems a massive investment for what? Nothing.

Love your user name, K-Man! 😉

If you look at the WRES and the WDES for any large organisation, it is clear that anyone with a protected characteristic but more specifically women, disabled people and anyone from an ethnic minority experiences discrimination and limitations in opportunity. Organisations need to do more, and your choice to not join, is just that, a choice.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/equality/equality-hub/workforce-equality-data-standards/wdes/

https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/equality/equality-hub/workforce-equality-data-standards/equality-standard/

Some light bedtime reading about the NHS.

Is it NatWest by any chance?
Might explain why they keep messing up my account and not answering the phone.
It’s got to a ridiculous state now why companies spend all of this money on activities nothing to do with the business.

Enjoy it all while it lasts. The climate is changing. I can see a future where a much,much more conservative government ( either right wing Tories, or Reform) will express its deep opposition to this sort of performative virtue signalling. Business will fall in step. They always do.

Hey!! 👋 🤣

If you don’t think prejudice exists in most workplaces I would question how much attention you really pay to the world

That would be the one. I just caught up with Linzi Smith's interview with Mr Meno:

I'm sure some employee networks do some great stuff but they do seem prone to this kind of overreach which creates real risk for the organisation. It leads to them acting unlawfully and doing the opposite of what they were set up for.

I agree with you. There are plenty of other places to find such groups and people tend to ‘find’ one another in workplaces anyway. Also what about diversity and learning to get along with others rather than just, ironically creating another clique?

If there isn't a group that you want to join - make one up. That's what the civil service does. How about one for the professionally offended?

Which bank do you for?

They have all seemed to have closed a good few years ago where l live.

I think your Management let you have all these si called diverse groups Si that they dont have to provide and pay for additional HR and other support staff.

If there are problems they can distance themselves

Also getting it on the cheap.

Are you neerings held on Zoom or similar?

You should also rethink your happy, clappy midern working environment

People are people and often put on their best face at work However, they still have the same faults, jealousies, prejudices and shortcomings as they ever had.

But due to Societal Fascism. They are no longer allowed to speak up in case they offend anyone

I used to help run the Disabled staff network at work but I have been there a long time and frankly can no longer be bothered, my bad I know. However I am pissed off weekly at least by microaggressions.
I work for a large Local Authority, obviously many of our service users will be disabled people and people in receipt of benefits. When I get to the office I cannot access the staff entrance in my wheelchair so I have to use the front door, public entrance. There are lots of staff members in customer services and regularly new people sat on reception who do not know me by sight. Invariably I get greeted as a service user when I enter the office, despite wearing my ID badge on a lanyard around my neck.
People who don’t experience microaggressions won’t get it. They won’t get how it wears you down and confirms your fear that you can only be seen as your disability.

I know the receptionist is trying to be helpful, they probably don’t even realise that they see a wheelchair and instantly think ‘customer who needs to see adult social care team or benefits claim’ but if they are working reception they should probably know there are 2 employees who use wheelchairs and a bit of thought wouldn’t hurt.

People are people and often put on their best face at work However, they still have the same faults, jealousies, prejudices and shortcomings as they ever had.

But due to Societal Fascism. They are no longer allowed to speak up in case they offend anyone

Bigots being restricted in their bigotry is 'Societal Fascism', seriously?

I agree with this:

Rather, in a lot of workplaces these networks have overreached their original purpose of mutual support and have become a kind of parallel power - an alternate source of authority and decision making within an organisation.

I tick some of the “ inclusion” boxes..
I was finger wagged at by my manager last week for not being at all active in any of the endless networks and events. This is impeding my chances of promotion. I was advised to join the menopause one and share experiences of peri menopause. With my work colleagues ( including many men).
I said no thank you.
I don’t see middle aged men being asked to share about male pattern baldness or young men being asked to share about how they can’t get much work done for thinking about tits all day.
Come to that, the older men are equally forgetful and foggy- which happens in middle aged- but they know they are marvellous in other ways so they don’t sweat it..
In my public sector workplace it’s shocking how much time ( and therefore how much of our tax money) is wasted on these lip service box ticking vanities. And the young women and men who enthusiastically jump on board every d and I bandwagon are patted on the head by senior management and rise up the ranks v quickly ( to continue the grift).
I am so so over it.

I run our age network. We’ve forced our office to take age discrimination seriously and to provide statistics on protected characteristics that include age. And departments are now having to look at why they don’t employ many over 50s (these departments also score poorly on ethnic minorities and disabled employees). So yes, I feel we’ve done something useful.

Sorry l forget that l live in a bigot free land which has niw been taken over by Wokism, almost demented political correctness and where l live mandatory virtue signally.

The above are the Noveau Bigots and their views and opinions are always right. They wear their views like a safety blanket because they cant think fior themselves and are and too scared an scared to speak out.

They are like sheep and just adopt the latest trend. BAAHHH!!!

🐑🐑🐑🙈🙉🙊👎

Everybody has at least three protected characteristics.
Many people have more.
The PCs each of us have change over time.
PCs regularly conflict so have to be balanced

Far too many of the "employee networks" have been allowed to influence organisational policy
bringing it into direct conflict with the actual law.

They are really patronising/performative and cringey.
They had them at my old job and not joining a network designed for people like you (woohoo) was treated like the equivalent of shitting in the office bin.

My colleagues are all nice liberal minded people. We aren’t bigoted in any way etc etc

Except your post reveals that you are nowhere near as liberal and non-bigoted as you think you are.

If you don't think staff networks are important, don't join them. But you've no business telling people from minority groups that their networks are a waste of time and money because you happen to think they don't face any discrimination.

People who don't think there's any value in these kinds of networks are exactly the reason these networks still need to exist.

People who don't think there's any value in these kinds of networks are exactly the reason these networks still need to exist.

They may have value
but some of the louder ones are causing an existential risk to their hosts
and that is a bad thing

The ones at my work are exactly like this, open to "all genders and identities". So, actually, mixed sex. And no, I don't want to join a network to talk about menstrual flooding or issues with the menopause with men in the group. I wouldn't talk to my husband about that as how would he be able to advise or empathise when he has no experience of it?! Never mind strange male work colleagues. It's insane.

Also getting it on the cheap.

Not necessarily. We got to organise a women's conference. Some professional speakers cost tens of thousands.

People who don’t experience microaggressions won’t get it. They won’t get how it wears you down and confirms your fear that you can only be seen as your disability.

I tried explaining the concept of death by a thousand cuts to my [then] manager - a cut on its own is barely noticeable and certainly not a problem. A thousand, and you bleed to death through the cumulative effect.

I'm just over-sensitive, though. (He's a middle-aged, middle-class white man, so, you know...)