Diversity and Inclusion - not diverse or inclusive

[BewaretheIckabog]

I work as a consultant and am so fed up of D&I initiatives. Every single organisation has been Stonewall trained and brainwashed. 10 minutes on all other protected characteristics and 2 hours on LGBTQI+, bring your whole self to work.

There are other initiatives. I have recently advocated for wellness and mental health awareness.

I’m not disparaging anybody’s sexuality and don’t actually care who my colleagues sleep with or their sexual preferences are. As long as they are not being discriminated against or receiving derogatory treatment in the workplace it’s irrelevant.

I have not had to make a business decision in years where sexuality was a factor.

I do have to make decisions around religious beliefs e.g. not doing a working lunch during Ramadan, ensuring kosher, halal, or vegetarian food is at meetings.

We, quite rightly, have to adapt, make reasonable adjustments and be aware of disabilities.

The gender pay gap and inequality around women in the workplace is real. Today someone indicated they were considering the likelihood of a woman going off on maternity as part of a recruitment decision!

None of these things have been a focus event in any company I’ve been working with; it’s all been Pride LGBTQI .

Let’s get real diversity and inclusion back up on the agenda.

Ah I didn't realise that - but I don't envy anyone trying to define socioeconomic background in law! It's so slippery and often based on things like "so and so would be a better fit" or "has the skills we need" which may be related to class and connections. The poor drafting in the gender reassignment and sex PCs (and the single-sex exemptions) is evidence of that as well.

In my (massive global) company we have a target for a % of women in senior management roles - and they keep presenting slides stating and lauding this fact - however I have had it confirmed to me by a number of HR senior people that women can also mean men in dresses.
In my company in your HR records you can also self-identify as whatever you want - includes non-binary.
So any gender pay gap recording will also be based on fantasy.
DE&I training includes the ‘gingerbread man’ and lots of be kind and bring your whole self to work.

So if you are a woman at ‘the top’ and choose to drop your hair short and wear trouser suits you can really bugger up their ratios?

I think practically this would be a disaster.

This thread caused me to do a quick Google. Pips Bunce left Credit Suisse last month; probably more down to the takeover by UBS, they had a big clearout. No sign of a new role elsewhere, or of a shift into EDI.

The “DearPips” comments on their Linked In are quite funny.

He (it's Thursday today isn't it?) he must be near retirement?

Hi @littleburn really interesting to read about your approach.

I remembered this thread when I read this article from Andrew Doyle today.

andrewdoyle.substack.com/p/is-this-the-end-for-dei

I'm neurodivergent. Believe me, no-one wants my whole self in the office - no-one! I mask and then some because I'm paid to be a professional. No, it's not at all healthy but we all know inclusivity doesn't mean awkward people like me.

Yes, me too. I struggle with quite a number of things but do my best to stay professional and focus on the job I've been hired to do.
People these days seem incapable of keeping their personal and professional lives separate.

Organisations focus on the sexuality and gender stuff because they see those as low cost easy wins. Accommodating disabilities, maternity & paternity rights, sickness leave, religious beliefs etc take hard work and cost money plus they’re boring so that’s why HR and DEI aren’t that interested in them.

The ‘bring your whole self to work’ thing is baffling.

Surely you should only bring your professional self?

In my work there has never been sex or disability ‘training’. It’s exclusively rainbow spunking. Only because it’s trendy. Where is the evidence that in 2024 being a lesbian accountant, for example, is more difficult then being a straight one??

Massive LOL at 'rainbow spunking'. Thank you, @WomensRightsRenegade

I plan on bringing my whole self to work from now on. Shall I?

My mood swings from bouncing around like an overexcited puppy to feeling like - well you can imagine (very dark). Always been like that.

Plus I sometimes feel like telling people to fuck off, stop being an utter dick, or shut the fuck up and stop popping into my office with some random bullshit… I may feel like telling certain colleagues to stop being such a bitch or a whiney baby. Or ask some to stop being an arsehole and get on with their work. Or stop singing at the top of their voice when I’m on a conference call.

I go to work - I smile and am polite. I do my work and make sure my colleagues and boss are happy with it and that I do it to the best of my ability.

I bring in cake on my birthday and pop a bunch of flowers in the desk of the birthday boy/girl. I ask how peoples weekends/ dog/ holiday/ projects are going and commiserate / celebrate with them.

That’s because I bring my professional self to work.

Mine was like that too (work training) there was one (they were videos and online quiz) that I refused to complete because it was 99% about trans (women - one non bio woman) and the rest about ‘and be nice to everyone else). It stayed that any male who said so could use the ladies loos, and that even hinting that Jenny in accounts was James 2 weeks ago was the most devastating and potentially genocidal statement anyone could even think about. The clip showed a very large man in sport gear about to play in a works tournament and a man did a double take. Queue the male, head down, shoulders shuddering being comforted by women and the man who did the double take being told off by a woman.

It waffled on about the moon waxing and waning like gender…

I told HR I wasn’t doing it (it was all ‘c*s’ and ‘assigned’) and told them it didn’t reflect the equality act properly and used activists language.

Our so called training involved having to complete a section stating ‘what I can do to be more LGBTQIA+ inclusive at work’ which is then graded by a member of our diversity team.

I wfh 80% of the time and the days I go in it’s a local office where there’s rarely more than about a dozen people in at any one time.

Ive refused to fill it in and keep getting pop up reminders. Honestly I just want to do my job, be equally polite to everyone and log off. Its box ticking BS

I volunteer for a charity that prides itself on being inclusive .
The recent training material has included annoying language that is definitely excluding of people who don't use 'corporate-speak'.
The job we do Involves working with people from all walks of life, and we try to recruit from a diverse pool.
It's not going to happen if they start with a load of poncy bollocks.
I think my time there might be up.

Did they reply to you?

I told her to her face (our HR bod). She laughed, said ‘oh dear, I wonder where they get their stuff from? Are you going to write to them to complain?’

I agree - it's a certain type of diversity and a certain type of inclusion.

I have raised this with my employer's DE&I committee (which I sit on). It will be interesting to see if anyone takes any notice.

Labour have it in their manifesto to introduce socio-economic as a protected characteristic I'd missed that, that is interesting. I sort of agree with that but I think at the moment we are in danger of creating downward mobility. If you are rich/private school educated, you still have all the advantages of that. If you come from a poor background, there are lots of schemes in place to help you eg Sutton Trust, Flex Legal, Strive, among others. If you are in the middle and your parents have a affluent-ish postcode, there are no schemes to help you, and your parents won't have the same sort of contacts.

I'd go along to our D&I meetings, but I really can't be arsed with going up six flights of stairs with no lift to get to the preferred meeting room for them, TBH.

EDI at my work is currently 90% about neurodiversity. The remaining 10% is menopause, but every talk begins with the reminder that the most important thing to remember about the menopause is that it doesn’t only affect women. They seem to have lost interest in LGBTIetc recently, and they don’t appear to give a shiny shit about race or religion.

I'm sure that until the whole thing collapses, there will be a new flavour every few years. New groups looking to get in on it, and diversity trainers looking to sell new workshops.