let's say you want to promote equal opportunity and diversity and you definitely want to avoid discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, marital status, religion, etc... you know the usual list.

Supposed you hire a person from country X (just a hypothetical example). This person recommends another person from the same country, and so on, and soon the percentage of people from country X is 40% in your company, whereas in the US they represent say 5%. So next time you hire, and you get a resume from X. what do you do? do you continue to hire people from X, or you put the resume aside and keep looking hoping to get a good applicant from Y or Z in order to restore some diversity? what if someone finds out that you rejected an applicant from X, can you be accused of discrimination?

Thanks

Ultimately the legality depends on your business and the laws under which you work. Your HR organization should be able to guide you, but get everything in writing. Theoretically, to avoid discrimination, the selection process should REMOVE all reference to the person's background and focus entirely on their ability to do the job. In reality, that's impossible.

As per the work dynamic in the company, if a workforce becomes tribal (via language, national origin, religion, politics, or even Star Trek fannishness) the interpersonal dynamic can be detrimental to efficiency and retention.

Good luck !

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space-time
... do you continue to hire people from X ...

Dunno, are they the best candidate?

It would be unusual/impossible for candidates from one country/ethnicity/whatever to be disproportionally better qualified, absent some artificial assistance such as an environment that better fostered their education or other support structures.

So again the question always is, are they the best candidate?

can you be accused of discrimination?

That's not usually a practical "problem" for hiring managers.

I suggest that you were looking at the wrong place in the chain. The discrimination is occurring when the first person from country X hired someone else from country X. My presumption there is that there are many other equally or better qualified people from other backgrounds, yet the person from country X only heard from country X.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2018 12:14PM by anonymouse1.

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anonymouse1
I suggest that you were looking at the wrong place in the chain. The discrimination is occurring when the first person from country X hired someone else from country X. My presumption there is that there are many other equally or better qualified people from other backgrounds, yet the person from country X only heard from country X.

IS the person making the hiring decision(s) also from country X?

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DeusxMac

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anonymouse1
I suggest that you were looking at the wrong place in the chain. The discrimination is occurring when the first person from country X hired someone else from country X. My presumption there is that there are many other equally or better qualified people from other backgrounds, yet the person from country X only heard from country X.

IS the person making the hiring decision(s) also from country X?

good question. In my original question, no, the persona making the decision was not from X: Supposed you hire a person from country X (just a hypothetical example). This person recommends another person from the same country, and so on, ... but you (neutral) end up hiring people from X because you get a lot of applicants from X.


Now what is the person making the decision was from X? would this person, if they rejected other applicants from X, because the personally feel they have already enough colleagues from X, can this person be accused of discrimination against people from X? That is an interesting question.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2018 01:22PM by space-time.

So again the question always is, are they the best candidate?

That's not always the question, except in the minds of people who were better qualified.

The questions always is, are they qualified enough to add to diversity?

It can be argued that 'best qualified' should be the priority, but there are probably few jobs where that's the always the case.

Unless a hiring is based on a spin of a wheel, neutrality and impartiality will always be suspect by somebody, unfounded or not.

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DeusxMac
IS the person making the hiring decision(s) also from country X?

Irrelevant.

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space-time
40% in your company, whereas in the US they represent say 5%.

Unless your hiring pool is the whole USA, generally your hiring pool is the local area and its demographics.
I would consider the local hiring pool as that to which the distance equals your longest distance commuter(s).

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RAMd®d
So again the question always is, are they the best candidate?

That's not always the question, except in the minds of people who were better qualified.

The questions always is, are they qualified enough to add to diversity?

It can be argued that 'best qualified' should be the priority, but there are probably few jobs where that's the always the case.

Unless a hiring is based on a spin of a wheel, neutrality and impartiality will always be suspect by somebody, unfounded or not.

Best qualified is a mix of resumé and crap that the resumé can't show: personality for example. Call it natural selection, call it unfair to ugly people, or to people of color, whatever.

But I disagree that the other candidates are to judge who's the best among them. And mostly I disagree that qualifying-to-add-diversity is the path to getting either true diversity or quality.

gah wrong thread



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2018 02:55PM by deckeda.

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billb

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space-time
40% in your company, whereas in the US they represent say 5%.

Unless your hiring pool is the whole USA, generally your hiring pool is the local area and its demographics.
I would consider the local hiring pool as that to which the distance equals your longest distance commuter(s).

A company I once worked for expanded the work search 150 miles in an attempt to draw some diversity into the trade. What a waste. This guy commuted over 2 hours for about 5 months then quit.
A company I once worked for!

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deckeda

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DeusxMac
IS the person making the hiring decision(s) also from country X?

Irrelevant.

Not necessarily. If:
1. hiring company is located in country Y
2. has employees from countries Y, Z and X at its location
3. person assigned to make hires is from country X
4. that person hires exclusively, or clearly disproportionate numbers from country X

Questions could be legitimately raised about unfair biases in selection process.

You can bet that somebody will believe they're being discriminated against.

And mostly I disagree that qualifying-to-add-diversity is the path to getting either true diversity or quality.

As do I.

But that makes us dinosaurs or some kind of supremacist in many modern circles.

---

I am that Masked Man.

All you can do, is all you can do.

There’s trouble — it's time to play the sound of my people.

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

I've been to the edge of the map, and there be monsters.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.

I would strive VERY diligently to create a short test that would show qualities the worker must/should possess for the job to be performed. This will not be easy to do, but gives you a starting point for further consideration.

Pre-employment testing

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I loathe striving for just any kind of diversity. I am actually looking for diversity of thought and professional experience. And fit with the culture of the organization. Formal qualifications come below that. And everything else is relatively irrelevant, except if someone comes from my country of origin, I would be tougher in interviewing in order to be doubly sure they are suitable for position so I would not be suspected of bias.

.....if you look at the finance world.....it is done all the time.....the top candidates are white males.....and regardless of the 'best qualified', they get hired most of the time and the have the best opportunities.......even though it is done, it is difficult to claim that others are being 'discriminated' against because it can be hard to prove.......

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