I attended public school in New York City (P.S. 162). When I was in 2nd grade, the first wave of voluntary busing was on the horizon. My third grade class was going to have kids from a predominantly African American neighborhood just outside the zone for our local school. Evidently we needed to be prepared. Mrs. Lee, our second grade teacher was tasked with providing a 2nd grade version of an inclusion and diversity seminar.
The “seminar” was probably made much easier by the fact that we had some diversity already – plenty of white kids, a few Asians (including my best friend), one girl from India, and I think one or two black kids. Mrs. Lee talked to us about the fact that people had different colored skin, but really, we were all the same. The result of my training – I had some incredibly exciting news. Evidently, I was bursting with the news of the day, that couldn’t wait:
“Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom . . . guess what I found out today!
Mrs. Lee is black.”
Of course, for my mother, the news was no real news at all. My mother was President of the PTA, involved in school activities, had teachers come to the house (much to my embarrassment), and had met Mrs. Lee on numerous occasions . . . . she knew that Mrs. Lee was black. Even without my Mom’s inside information, my news had to be funny since Mrs. Lee was about as dark-skinned as an African American could be. The fact that I thought it was news is probably more telling of how I viewed differences in people.
The concept of inclusion and diversity has changed significantly over the past 40 years. The corporate response to anti-discrimination laws has shifted drastically from one of compliance, to affirmative action, to what is now a need for us to reset our mindset. We have seen the situation for women and minorities improve dramatically as more companies (and people) have confronted their own biases. I just wonder if we will ever be able to return to a time where we will not care about factors that are not relevant for the job.
Should we conduct interviews by chatting on line with nondescript user IDs so that the candidate’s gender, race and age will not be a consideration?
Should we disregard the recruiting requirement to meet candidates “in person” before making a hiring decision?
Should we formally ask candidates not to reveal anything of a personal nature (marital status, kids, etc.) so that we can make objective hiring decisions?
No. The solution is something that I see as much simpler for the HR community – press the issues of “fit” and on anything else, simply declare that “we do not care.”
I find it somewhat ironic that virtually every other business decision requires detailed analysis, but we still endorse the concept of “it just didn’t feel right” in making hiring decisions. I am not saying that these gut feelings are completely without foundation, but we should be able to articulate a reason for not hiring if criteria are valid. As HR professionals, we should force the articulation. Part of the way to end unintentional discrimination is to force people to look at their decision-making. It sends a strong message throughout any organization if everyone is pushed to make fact-based hiring decisions.
As far as it related to anything else, HR professionals need to declare the topics off limits.
“With young kids at home all this travel will be a problem for her.”
WE DO NOT CARE
“We are looking at working in a new way – I don’t think she will be able to adapt?”
WE DO NOT CARE
“At his age, I’m not sure he can handle the physical requirements.”
WE DO NOT CARE
We need to get to a point where we all can return to the openness we had as kids – where we do not judge people on race, gender, age, marital status or sexual orientation, but rather on the things that really matter – performance (good grades), teamwork (behavior) and of course, having cool crayons and magic markers.