I fail to see the connection between these traits and diversity.
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You may fail to see the them but studies do indicate connections.
Iâm sorry, but I have to be with Cyber on this. I argue that almost every field benefits from diversity.
People who come from different backgrounds have different points of view, and these different points of view (and experiences) bring in a greater selection of solutions to different problems.
As a way of illustrating this point, let me suggest an example from history.
The Europeans of the 17th century were much, much more technically advanced than the Native Americans. The Europeans had sailing ships that could navigate the Pacific, while the Native Americans had canoes. The Native Ameicans had never even invented the wheel (except for childrenâs toys).
On the surface, one might assume that the Native Americans have little to offer (technologically) to the European sea-faring enterprise.
Yet not true!
European sea-faring was often crippled by a mysterious disease called scurvy.
Well . . . it turns out that the Native Americans also suffered from it during the winter, and they discovered that the disease could be prevented with a tea made from pine needles . . . which supplies Vitamin C. This led to a better understanding of the disease, and rations on sailing ships began to include lime juice and sauerkraut whichâof courseâaided European sea-faring (and exploration) immensely.
My point in bringing up this history is that one never knows where answers can come from, and a diverse work force brings a larger selection of possible solutions to the table, and you canât know in advance where innovation might come from, and people who may seem backward and different can bring a lot to the table.
See below, from Wikipedia:
In 1536, the French explorer Jacques Cartier, while exploring the St. Lawrence River, used the local St. Lawrence Iroquoiansâ knowledge to save his men who were dying of scurvy. He boiled the needles of the arbor vitae tree (eastern white cedar) to make a tea that was later shown to contain 50 mg of vitamin C per 100 grams.[39][40] Such treatments were not available aboard ship, where the disease was most common. Later, possibly inspired by this incident, several European countries experimented with preparations of various conifers, such as spruce beer, as cures for scurvy.[41]
Addenum, added later after further thought:
From my prior work as a paramedic, I knew a paramedic-firefighter named Dean, who actually happened to be a little person (âmidget,â although this term is pejorative and offensive). He had achodroplasia, and was less than 4 feet tall.
When he got hired by the City of Boynton Beach, there was a lot of acrimony, as everyone assumed that he had been hired for political reasons to âsatisfy a quotaâ . . . as no one imagined that a little person could be a firefighter.
Everyoneâs opinion changed when he rapidly proved himself as an expert in confined space rescue. He could worm his way into narrow sewer pipes, crushed cars, and collapsed buildings. He was able to deliver advanced medical care in a space that excluded ânormalâ people, and he saved a huge number of lives that would have otherwise been lost.
Below, see image of another little-person firefighter named Vince Brasco:
The existence of little person firefighters only came about by challenging a norm and embracing diversity.
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Simple solution Cog donât accept government funding and convert the business from a wasteful NP to a lean mean private company. 
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Yes, I agree, but note the word âalmostâ in your reply above.
My field is so far removed from everyday experience that thereâs almost nothing that can be adopted from diverse experience in the real world.
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I wouldnât want to tell you about your field (as I might get irritated if you tried to tell me about nursing or EMS), but I find that to be very, very surprising.
So if you say so, Iâll take you at your word.
Iâm interested in any data you can provide for your position.
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One of the big, âwhat ifsâ Iâve wondered about is, how would the world have been different if the European settlers had come to North America with an mind opened to the possibility that there were things they could learn from the people that were already here. Oh, and also, how would the world be different if the boats had sailed without the priests and other mythology fanboys.
Edited to acknowledge that the phrase âmythological fanboyâ may or may not be copyrighted by the poster @Calilasseia.
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No objective data that I can shareâjust my experience from over 40 years in the field. I canât think of a single case where diversity made a difference.
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Is there a difference between this and a theist preacher saying they have 40 years experience in their field that, for instance, prayer works?
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Well, that depends on what you mean by diversity. I my job, we deal with scientific, technical, and technological issues in a field that is highly specialised and quite far removed from everyday experience. Although we use the tools that university courses provides their students with, universities or colleges that offer specialised courses on the stuff we do are few and far between.
When recruiting new people, we look for candidates that have a general and solid education in the sciences. Although we mostly do physics-based work, whether you are a trained physicist, cosmologist, mathematician, chemist, or IT specialist doesnât really matter that much, as long as you are willing and able to learn complicated stuff. Of course, the team becomes stronger as a whole with people that have a variety of science backgrounds, as we fill each other out with our core competences and knowledge bases. So in that sense, diversity in scientific and technological background is an asset.
On the other end of the diversity spectrum: A white, female, lesbian, left-handed beer and wine connoiseur that also plays in a death metal band is exactly as competent in doing the stuff we do as a brown-skinned, straight, one-legged teetotaler that loves opera, provided they both have a comparable professional education + experience. And exactly none of that kind of personal attributes are in any way relevant. In short, you need to be smart enough to have an advanced degree in a science field. Itâs also a plus if youâre a likeable person. Those are the important parameters. Other types of diversity contribute epsilon(*) to the work they do.
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I suppose not. I canât say, for example, that we got this project done more quickly because Sally is black, or we solved a difficult technical problem because Fred is Croatian. I have never encountered a circumstance where any of this mattered.
While we donât hire based on diversity, we do have a diverse team. My team, however, probably would not be as strong as it is if I was told that I had to hire, say, 16% blacks, 10% hispanics, or 25% women despite their technical qualifications. We hire purely based on technical qualifications and the diversity falls where it may. Itâs hard enough to find qualified people to fill positions in my company while also requiring candidates to be in some specific diversity pigeon holes, and HR has never told me I had to consider diversity when hiring. They do tell me that I canât discriminate based on race, religion, ethnicity, age, etc., and I never use any of those factors to disqualify a candidate. I can, and do, disqualify candidates what donât have the basic technical skills needed to do the job.
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Thanks for your obvious honesty.
Might you add, ââŚof which Iâm aware.â?
This has been a wonderful discussion, @SodaAnt ! Thanks!
My take away is that the sum of the benefits gained via diversity are likely scaled based on a number of factors (team size, industry, geography, etc.). I think, though, based on study data, that there are indeed benefits.
Where I think all the hiring bars (so to speak) are most important to consider is in civil service. I am, always have been, and likely always will be convinced that the demographics of a community should be mirrored in its civil servants (jobs paid for by taxpayers).
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You can not benefit from diversity when the people of diversity you are hiring are not up to par. When you are being forced to hire from a significantly limited sample of the available skill set within a population. Itâs great if you find a diamond in the rough but if you do not, you are picking from a 10% probability and hoping to hit it big. If you were playing poker, or running a real business, anyone familiar with statistics could tell you, this is a formula for failure. And it does fail, time and time and time again. I am not arguing against diversity. I am arguing against basic skill sets, If a person does not have the skill sets for the job, I donât care what color their skin is, they do not qualify, And being forced to hire based on skin color is exactly what the government forces companies to do while at the same time denying them the right to advertise âWe are looking for a black man to fill a position.â And this would be âHonest Advertising.â It would save the company time, energy, and money, It would also point out the blatant hypocrisy of the EEOC. The system does not work.
The government was a little looser than that. The minority population in Anaheim Ca, was around 20%. People are assigned point values. A black man is worth 1 point. A black woman is worth 2 points. She is black, and a woman. A black woman with a handicap is worth 3 points. (*Black, woman, and handicapped.) I shit you not. My office manager was a one-legged black woman. And she was fantastic. She quit when the clients stole her leg and would not give it back.
Okay, if the company fell below 20% for two consecutive reporting periods, all funding would be stopped. When this lady quit, I had to hire three women, three black men, a black woman, a white woman, or another handicapped black woman to take her place and keep our funding. (I just used black as an example. It was easy to write. All minority groups were given assigned values by the government.) This is how things work under the EEOC. Itâs a joke.
Now if a black woman quits, I have to hire another black woman or two black men. If a white woman quits, I am thrilled to replace her with a qualified black man or black woman because that will give me some cushion. I always want my minority rates to be high enough to protect my grant money. This is the reality of day-to-day business and the inherent bigotry in hiring practices sanctioned by the government.
I really want to emphasize: No one said anything against âDIVERSITY.â Have all the diversity you want. Diversity is great. I could care less what color anyone is. It makes no difference at all. NONE. The issues are qualifications and abilities. Not all qualified people have the ability. I hired PhDs who were idiots. Putting a degree, or qualification, behind someoneâs name says nothing about their skill set.
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Good discussionâŚ
My first exposure to quota hiring was when I was about twenty years old and, although qualified, I was told that I had no chance of being hired unless I was a black woman.
The next time was many years later when I lived in Ohio (U.S.) and the Montgomery county Sheriffâs dept. was dealing with a situation where due to quotas, they had skipped over the majority of qualified applicants to get to a minority, just to meet the quota. All of those skipped over had demonstrated higher qualifications and, understandably, there was a serious brouhaha which resulted.
Later still, while working for Motorola, I witnessed blatant bigotry and prejudice against the only minority employees, as well as the intolerable working conditions resulting from a complete resistance to diversity.
I have worked many different jobs, some with fairly diverse work forces and some not. I have been the minority (a Korean company) and I have experienced diversity as well.
From my view, employment is a business arrangement. I agree to work for you, perform to an acceptable degree, comply with declared standards and requirements, and behave in an acceptable manner towards fellow employees, etc.
You, as the employer, agree to pay me an acceptable wage, treat me with respect,
make no unreasonable demands upon me, and show me consideration for my contribution to your enterprise.
If we can have this type of arrangement, then my race, gender, religious preference, etc., should not be a deciding factor in my employment opportunities. If qualifications do not supersede social identity, then quality, productivity and consistency may well suffer.
I am adamantly opposed to discriminatory hiring practices and have turned down opportunities for employment with companies known to discriminate.
Correcting the injustices practiced for so long is not an easy task.
I think that publicly funded enterprises should make every attempt reasonable to insure equality of opportunity. Private organizations will just have to be shown the benefits of diversity hiring, where they indeed can be shown.
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Are you saying that the first criteria you short list candidates on is ethnicity and only after that do you consider whether they have the training and educational qualifications for the job. If so our neck of the wood are worlds apart.
YES! The first criterion is Ethnicity. It has to be to keep government contracts. Only then can other things be considered. That is exactly what EEOC means. Then (Days of wasted time are spent calling and sending letters to all the white people with perfectly good qualifications who "CANNOTâ be considered for a position âBASEDâ solely on their âSKIN COLOR.â Excuses are made. They are told that we are still collecting resumes if we have not found an acceptable minority and must rerun ads. They are unjustly kept waiting for a response to their resume while we run the ads hoping to find someone in that 10% that we think will be a good fit. In the meantime, the pool of white applicants grows. This is a FACT OF LIFE with working with government money and grants. (AGAIN - DIVERSITY has nothing to do with anything. It is a complete non-issue.)
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This brings us to another problem. Even when you do hire a qualified minority who ticks all the boxes and you are genuinely happy with the employee, they have to prove that they are not one of the people hired to fill a quota. Generally, the people who know what is going on, donât trust them and donât rely on them until they prove themselves. This does happen. I have sat with my employees and helped them work through some initial phases. The good ones last. Thatâs just the way it seems to be. Iâve had heartfelt discussions with white, Asian, and Black, colleagues. Iâve sat in front of labor boards and listened to complaints. No complaint was ever substantiated.
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Although not in the US, and therefore not under the US diversity regime: There is more to the diversity than just the numbers, and the following is an illustration of the âfinding the uncut gemâ comes here in the form of an anecdote.
A friend of mine used to work at a big company as an IT manager. At one point, he needed a new IT guy for some specific task. In the interview process, there was one person who sailed to the top regarding qualifications and experience. Then suddenly, another person came sailing into the equation from the sidelines due to a personal tip from my friendâs circle of acquaintances - a person who had the formal qualifications and some previous experience (but not as extensive as the top candidate). This person was in a wheelchair due to an accident, and had been out of work for several years despite umpteen hundred applications and work interviews. This was, according to my friend, a very difficult decision to make.
In the end, the person in the wheelchair was hired, for the following reasons: They feared that the top candidate would only use this position as a springboard, leaving ship after a relatively short time, while the wheelchair person was deemed to be more motivated to stay, and more motivated to learn the job properly, and thus be a more stable and reliable employee. Yes, there would be some expenses connected with making the premises wheelchair accessible, but those expenses would in the end be negligible compared to having to go through a new interview process + on-the-job training.
Where am I getting with this? Well, sometimes you do find the âuncut gemâ among the âdiversity crowdâ. In this case, the company in question hired someone that did not apply for the job in the first place and that came to the companyâs attention through unofficial side channels well after the application deadline(*). Although the new person was formally qualified, there were others considered for the job that had better qualifications. But in the end, the company opted for âwill the person stay or use us as a springboard?â as the most important qualification.
(*) had it been in the public sector, other rules would apply, and hiring someone from outside the formal application pipeline would be illegal.
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Agree. I would have loved it if the lady would have been able to deal with the client population. It would have been a big win for everyone.
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