Everyone in a corporate environment, including the recruiter, has a role in the retention of employees. I suggest you get involved in that process. Validate programs of ‘retention’ or ‘assimilaion’ of diverse candidate through support of programs that promote your companies values. You can participate in your agency by providing your executives with numbers. A retained employee is less expensive than a new hire on any given day in the fiscal year. It will also save you valuable time in your daily recruiting duties.

‘the staff in such stores generally does reflect the customer base because most employees live within a few miles of the workplace, as do the shoppers.’
Oh,so that’s why you don’t see people of color working or shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch.

‘But preventing discrimination is why we have laws that explicitly address it.’ That’s a good one.

Your article may stimulate discussion within corporations intent on improving their work culture.The number of concerned employers is faint in comparison to thousands of other firms who know better but care less.

I don’t necessarily agree that there is a weak case for diversity - I think the bigger problem is a lack of good education on the topic.

It is not the business of business to insure equal outcomes, or even equal opportunity under our present system.

If it were so, then we should make a concerted effort to hire the stupid, who are the most discriminated against segment of society in hiring.

The blatant use of interviews and assessments, all perfectly legal in this oppressive society. deliberatly and callously eliminates from consideration the most needy and deserving from opportunity.

It is clear in your presentation that you believe diversity hiring can be helpful in some cases, but, as you state, only if it is done with equal fervor for the assimilation of the hired candidates. That is just as true for non-diversity candidates, and all hiring practices. Let’s be honest…most businesses talk a big game about making sure hired folks fit in, but sadly fail to do much to make it happen.

Diversity hiring is more about hitting the numbers, and less about hiring the quality or cultural fit needed. As a result, those diversity candidates who are hired are too often forgotten when it comes to further development programs. Such attention to the hiring numbers diverts attention away from the needs of the hired diversity candidate, creating a disservice to the very people who are supposed to be helped.

Diversity needs to be less about numbers, and more about the career lifespan experience of the diversity employee. As long as diversity is force-fed to corporations, and as long as the reports have to balance to the ratios required, it will be resented. Failing to understand this simple fact is what has made such program less effective than they should be.

I think yes, there is no hard evidence to support having a truly diverse mix of staff improves $$ results. I’m sure it doesn’t. But, I’m sure it doesn’t hurt results either, other than costing more. I beleive that, yes, a lot of companies just pay lip service to it, especially those big high profit-margin brand name companies who always have plenty of funds in their budget to attend every diversity fair etc. When I was a corporate recruiter I could never do much to address divisty (job fairs, extra targeted web sites etc) because my co. barely had enough money for a regular recruiting budget let alone an extra dicversity effort. It would have been nice though.

I think having a program for diversity recruiting is the right thing to do (regardless of bottom line results) if your company can.

At the end of your article you asked, ?…since we already have EEO and AA, what value does diversity provide as currently defined? If the laws don’t work, then diversity isn’t going to do much to help. If they do work, then what is the point of race- and gender-based diversity?? I don’t believe you have an inclusive definition of what diversity initiatives are. Organizations have AA or diversity programs (or both) for different reasons. AA is mandatory for certain organizations (those with 15+ employees, government, staffing agencies, and unions). Others take a legal / precautionary standpoint. Diversity programs are not mandatory and generally uncommon.

Your article demonstrates a degree of Affirmative Action backlash; it is perceived that minorities and women are given preferential treatment and are under qualified. A very ?us versus them? approach. The spirit of the law for AA is to provide equality during the hiring process; all candidates must be qualified. It is absolutely illegal for companies to focus on quotas and focusing on earning a specified number of ‘diverse’ workers. The intention is to help level the playing ground for diverse candidates that wish to compete for jobs (who have historically fallen second to the majority group). Furthermore, even with the EEOC and AA, equality is not a call we’ve gotten an answer to. If that were the case, why would a material pay gap exist between men and women given the Equal Pay Act of 1963? You wrote, ?I received a lot of e-mail after my last article, some of it very supportive and some highly critical, including some rather colorful remarks of a personal nature. Apparently, when it comes to diversity, a diversity of viewpoints is not welcome.? While not everyone responding to your article has the recruitment/diversity background that you do, I suspect most of them have had work experience. And that is enough to experience discrimination and oppression.

In terms of assimilation, it is absolutely NOT the answer. In this instance subcultures are not preserved and workers are expected to leave their personal values and beliefs at the door ? as nice as it sounds, not a sustainable solution. Pluralism is ideal; for workers to assimilate to the core values (mission and vision) of the organization and sustain their culture. The purpose of diversity (versus AA) is to create an inclusive work environment for all employees. Not just those with diverse primary traits (race, gender) but secondary traits (socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, disabilities, religion, language, education, health, family status, etc., etc.).

I guess the big question at hand is what is the business case? As you stated, ?Diversity is like an expensive hood ornament, out there for everyone to admire but serving no practical purpose.? As you know, the diversity function has only existed in the last 10-20 years. In its inception it was believed to be a socially responsible action. Those consultants that did not find the business case washed out with the so-called-fashion.

The good news, is there is a business case for diversity. There should be a diversity scorecard to relate the objectives of the diversity function to the strategic mission of the company. The purpose of diversity is not the same in all companies; it is not just to diversify the racial / gender composition of the workforce. Based on the industry and culture of your company, you will have different objectives. A software company may face issues with age discrimination. Another company may have a problem with high turnover among female employees. While diversity topics surround soft issues, they are often quantifiable. Moreover, the color of diversity is many times green. If you hire a female employee with a salary of $35,000 and she feels that she works in a ?good-ole-boys club? environment or that she’s under-appreciated, the value on your capital investment is diminished. The cost of turnover among dissatisfied female workers is costly as well. The cost of lost production, posting jobs, hiring manager’s time for interviews, cost of severance, etc…it is no cheap feat! If this became a real issue, you may want to spend money on, for example, sexual harassment seminars (or whatever is the underlying issue). You will need to know how to measure the ROI to be sure the seminars are effective and solving the issue at hand.

Surveying employees and customers is a great way to find internal and external opportunities to add value and profit to the company through diversity. Customers can provide great insight as well; you will need to understand a diverse market if you plan on selling to a diverse market (note successes such as Andrea Jung). It is not to be confused, however, with globalization. Outsourcing to China and India has very little to do with diversity in terms of knowing your customer considering the American workers are designing, advertising, and selling to the American market. As far as the Mayo clinic example goes, employees will need to have some cultural sensitivity. While customers would not refuse medical care, nurses/doctors could mistreat groups of people (ex: lower socioeconomic classes) and create a bad reputation and what is the cost of that?

In response to, ? Whatever happened to not being judged by the color of your skin but by the content of your character?? my answer is that it never existed. When was the last time you met an Asian American person and not remembered their race? Or remembered them as a Euro-American person? Probably never. We should not teach one another to be color-blind because we are all different people in different dimensions. The purpose of an inclusive environment is to understand the uniqueness of different groups so we can better understand one another and better work with one another (to decrease affective and task relevant conflict). Equality does not mean Sameness. You need to understand that an Islamic woman will not shake your hand before an interview because it is against her religion. Or that avoiding eye contact is polite in many Latin American and African American cultures. You will need to critically examine these things so that you do not discriminate against qualified candidates or employees. That is the purpose of diversity.

From a recruiter stand point, this has long been a difficult topic to bring up to your management. Not only are you looked down on for questioning the benefit of such programs, if you are not a ?diverse? employee yourself, you somehow do not have the right to question the practice.

I have long been a proponent of hiring the best qualified candidate available for a position, regardless of diversity. Diversity should not trump qualifications. I would also venture to guess that the majority of hiring managers are much less concerned about a candidate?s ethnicity, race or sex than they are with the candidate?s ability to perform the required job and to fit into the team and not cause any waves.

Do I not hire Larry Bird because he is not a diversity candidate? Do I only hire Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods because they are diversity candidates?

To be truly effective in your recruiting, you have to get past the superficial characteristics of a candidate (be it race, sex, ethnicity, weight, appearance, height, hair color, etc.) and look at their qualifications, skills and their desire to help your company reach its goals. Not only should we be color blinded in the recruiting process, we should be blind to all but their qualifications, abilities.