The Rise of the Woke Corporation

[AncientLights]

Interesting piece on The Spectator 9th March by Toby Young.

Apparently Credit Suisse, employer of our old friend Philip/Pips Bunce, has a reverse mentoring scheme whereby recent graduates coach older employees about diversity issues.

How the old 'uns must enjoy that.

Indeed

But this is a long established practice at many firms. No huge surprise and not limited to CS. My form had this 15 years ago. Very helpful and useful for all.

*firm

Genuine question working - in what way was it useful? What specific skills and knowledge did young graduates bring?

My experience of such things is that recent graduates often have technical/IT knowledge some older staff don’t. However, they are always somewhat wet behind the ears in terms of life wisdom, self control, learning to navigate the corporate world etc. As one would expect, I had to learn these things too.

If it’s genuine skill transfer I can see it being useful. If it’s lecturing on how unwoke older staff are I can see it being a major bone of contention.

Sorry, but Toby Young is an obnoxious racist misogynist snobby arsehole.

No "sorry" needed *Millytant". He's a grade-A cock.

We didn’t select totally raw graduates as reverse mentors, but people who had worked in the firm for 3-5 years. They had to apply to the scheme and had to propose a clear plan of what their coaching plan was for their reverse mentee. People were selected for some kind of diversity to the experience of the managers they were mentoring. So the male CEO had a younger woman, the female marketing director had a younger BAME male, I had a hijab-wearing Muslim female. There were some LBGT mentors, some disabled mentors too. The programme ran for six months.

Things we learnt? Some things of useful business relevance eg how the young were using social media and technology, their attitudes to work etc. And a lot that would make us better leaders of a diverse workforce. Much you might view as obvious now, but this was a while ago and it was less so. For example I learned about the barriers to a Muslim woman caused by workplace socialising that often focused on events with alcohol; the problems caused by other people using the designated prayer room; talked a lot about what ‘modest’ dress did and meant for her; coping with Ramadan and what adjustments we could make; and things like how our holiday processes made it difficult to do Hajj. It benefitted me as a person, as a manager and it also enabled me to make changes to policies and processes.

Each of us got a lot out of it. I remember how pleased we were that a particularly sexist man got a very feisty young woman who raked him over the coals. But all the mentors were great and as a team we learnt a lot. But fair to say we all worked pretty hard at it and took it seriously. It doesn’t automatically deliver change but used well can be really fantastic.

My husband's company have just started going woke with a new diversity person sending regular emails, a recent one was all about a pansexual employee, which just resulted in all the blokes having a wtf discussion about what pansexual meant. It seems to be just pissing them off as it is very nanny stateish. Toby Young is often a plonker but I agree with him on this.

I can see it being an HR nightmare. I disagree with it because it’s a potential conflict point for the individual. you’re setting up two individuals with conflicting views. Any potential disagreement will likely happen in private and become a he said she said.

What if our pansexual thinks their mentee isn’t taking it seriously enough? Why should the mentee be having to indulge someone in their random sexual orientation at work.?

What if our religious person thinks their mentee has disrespected their religion? What if their mentee thinks religion is irrelevant to the workplace?

These confrontations are set up on the individual level. If challenge mentoring like this is to happen it needs to take the form of one person explaining to a group. NOT being linked with someone who has private and opposing views.

Alcohol on work dos for example. I dont really drink at all, and I’d not be up for too many boozy nights, but also I respect others rights to have a couple of drinks with a meal etc. Who sets the limits? What if one side get offended? Do we now never go anywhere with alcohol? Remember offence is perceived now, not defined.

So it’s a nope for me. HR nightmare. It’s setting up people to fail, reality TV style.

Bowl honestly if it were being set up confrontationally you would be right: but in an atmosphere of mutual commitment and respect it proved to be very powerful.

So on the alcohol for example - it just meant we mixed things up a bit more. Still did the after work pub drinks but added some activities not in pubs so that those who would feel uncomfortable going to a pub could still enjoy bonding experiences. It wasn’t about taking offence or stopping perfectly normal things, just about broadening things out so everyone could participate. That’s a great thing to do.

And to be clear it wasn’t about opposing views but about differing life experiences. I am certainly not anti-Muslim but there is plenty I didn’t know.