Do Diversity Hires Really Make Us More Diverse?
The double-edged sword of “diversity hiring” might damage true equality in the long run.
Diversity. Inclusion. Equal-opportunity hiring. In the past decade, practically every industry has made a conscious effort to hire employees from more diverse backgrounds.
However, diversity hiring is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s great. It gets people — who in the past would have never been given a second glance — in the door. But it also puts individuals in a place that they feel like they’re fighting heaven and earth for it to not slam right back into their face.
As a girl in software engineering, a girl who is a varsity athlete, a girl…. period, I am constantly surrounded by people who — to some extent — believe that I have succeeded not because of my skills, but instead because I am a girl.
Just as some people believe that extra funding for helping people of color is unfair — or even ‘racist’ — towards white people, some apply the same ideology to women in the workplace. They look at any example of incompetence or weakness as proof that these women only received their job because they filled a certain quota.
The worst part is that most of the time, people don’t even say this out of malice. This is not just the words of overtly misogynistic people. It’s the words of friends, families, coworkers, who don’t even recognize that they are saying anything wrong.
Perception: the brick wall between diversity and success
The (negative) power of perception for women in leadership
Women make up 24% of computing roles. They comprise less than 30% of senior management roles in Canada. Only 6.6% of Fortune 500 companies are run by women. These statistics are even worse for women of color. Despite the consistent upwards trend, it’s still a far cry from what it should be. Especially since men are not innately more talented or able than women.
The only difference is perception — a perception that makes us unconsciously think of CEOs as white-men-in-suits and programmers as guys-with-glasses. Since hiring is a bizarre process essentially dependent upon intuition and first-impressions (what else can you get out of a single piece of paper and a couple of hours with HR), when perception is not on your side, it is extremely difficult to get a job.
It’s a neverending cycle. We do not see women in power, so we cannot imagine women in power, thus we do not hire them for positions of power.
Turning oppression into opportunity
Diversity hiring tries to stop that cycle. In theory, it’s perfect — by explicitly seeking out individuals from oppressed demographics, it turns oppression into an opportunity for minorities. It forces companies to pay attention to women, instead of shutting the door in their faces before they even get a chance to speak.
Nowadays almost every company has its own Diversity and Inclusion team. Unfortunately, sometimes these practices are a PR move, rather than an attempt to shift company culture.
This distinction makes all the difference in the world. Because when it’s the latter, “diversity hiring” becomes a weapon of oppression that doesn’t bring us much closer to long-term equality.
The dangers of diversity hiring to just fill quotas
The double-edged sword of diversity
Diversity hiring is great… until it isn’t. When diversity hiring is done with the wrong intentions in mind, suddenly the double-edged sword is in play. And this time, the sword is attacking diversity itself.
When we hire women just to fill quotas, when we hire minorities just to make our company seem more diverse, it does more harm than good. When we put individuals in positions they are not prepared or qualified for, they are destined to fail — or at the very least, feel like a failure.
While filling diversity quotas is important — after all, how else would we increase the number of female role models or create more diverse work environments — it is critical that we are smart in doing so.
Adding a “diversity hire” to a team is a great way to normalize minorities and build an inclusive company culture. However, if the new hire is not prepared for the role at hand, instead of instilling positivity towards diversity hires, the new hire may prompt resentment. “Diversity hiring” is great in theory. In practice, there is frequently a (conscious or unconscious) belief that diversity hires were hired due to their demographic rather than their skills or abilities.
When we add “diversity hires” to fill quotas, rather than making sure that all candidates are fit for the role, we run the risk of hiring less capable individuals. Thus, the idea that diversity hiring yields lesser candidates who received preferential treatment is further reinforced.
Unrealistic pressure on diversity hires
When our white-male coworker is incompetent or lazy, we do not extrapolate those characteristics to the entire demographic. However, with minorities, bad impressions seem to translate to the entire demographic.
As a woman in tech myself, I am constantly scared about making a mistake or not understanding something, as I know that any show of incompetence will be projected to women as a whole. The sad reality is that every mistake I make is very likely going further to support previous perceptions that “women cannot code” or “women cannot hold leadership roles.”
It’s not fair. It really isn’t. But it is another hurdle that we must try to overcome if we want a more equitable and diverse future.
Diversity hiring: NOT a solution
Don’t just acknowledge the problem…
We have a huge problem: Our workplace leaders are not representative of our society’s diversity. The good news is that the first step to solving any problem is admitting you have one.
Diversity hiring is the acknowledgment of the problem. Diversity hiring practices recognize that minorities are at a large disadvantage in the workplace.
However, diversity hiring is not a solution. True equality is not measured by the number of women on your board of directors or the percentage of POC in your staff. While employee demographics are important (no company can say they are a truly diverse workplace if their payroll is all white men), superficial changes will only dilute the true goal of diversity hiring — giving women opportunities that societal constructs have denied them in the past.
Hiring just to fill diversity quotas will only reinforce the idea that a woman’s (or any other oppressed demographic’s) marketability lie not in her abilities, but instead her ability to fill a quota, you’re just adding to the oppression, It is our responsibility to make sure these new employees — and their coworkers — know that they are valued their abilities, not just their ability to fill a quota.
…Solve it
Diversity hiring is like giving an apple to a starving family when equality would mean sharing the apple trees in your orchard.
In other words, we should be fostering a world where hiring, promotions, and career paths aren’t weighed down by the heavy baggage of unconscious bias against minorities.
At the end of the day, the ultimate goal is to create an environment where future generations no longer need diversity hiring.
Building a culture that embraces diversity
What hiring practices should we implement to achieve diversity?
Trick question — it’s not a hiring practice we should be worrying about. While diversity starts with giving minorities the chance to show their abilities and prove their worth, it does not end there.
No one wants to be the token black girl. No one wants to be a poster child for diversity at their company. These labels are simply polite ways of saying “you were hired for your gender/sexual orientation/race, instead of your talent.” Whether that was your company’s intention or not, it doesn’t really matter because your employee will believe it and their coworkers will think it. Thus you are inadvertently feeding the cycle of belief that minorities are not talented enough on their own.
Yes, we all want to celebrate our culture, our background, our differences. But we don’t want the measure of our success to be the fact that we come from an underprivileged background.
While you may hire individuals with diversity in mind, once they are a part of your team, please treat them like they belong. After all, remember it’s about both diversity AND inclusion.
Making diversity the norm, not a challenge
Inclusion does not mean eliminating social organizations or endeavors dedicated to empowering minorities. (If you disagree please look up the definition of social equity). In fact, it means the opposite. These opportunities are critical to breaking the perceptions and building the mentorship programs that are critical to long-term success within minority demographics.
Fostering community diversity is so important to long-term equality. When your role model is right before your eyes, when they are a neighbor, teacher, or parent you can relate to, one gets inspired in a way that no celebrity or historical figure can emulate.
Little girls shouldn’t think they have to be Marie Curie to pursue a career in science or tech. People of color shouldn’t have to be Barak Obama to break down walls for a leadership position.
They shouldn’t have to trailblaze a path to do what white men do on a regular basis. There should be a path there, and no one should blink an eye when they walk in the room.
Diversity has no shortcuts. Let’s build a culture where everyone feels like they belong, not despite or in spite of their gender, race, or equality, but because they earned it. Let’s build a world where we don’t need diversity hiring.
