| > What happened to hiring people who are not like us, because that's where the challenge lies and life is better when we are forced to evaluate our own misgivings? I think for many situations that comes down to three things: a. People who don't agree that hiring for diversity is good. While every manager knows that diversity is important (as demonstrated by their responses to HR and while on a training course) I don't believe it's as internalised as people say. Most people subconsciously have strong beliefs of how "people like us" will work together. b. Risk aversion amongst hiring managers Commonly teams have more work to be done than people available: ever known a hiring manager not in a hurry to get a new person in? Taking a perceived risk to hire someone different - whatever that difference is from skillset, gender or background - may not be rewarded when higher management want specific objectives achieved. While in principle it might be nice, pragmatism often dictates that managers go with what they know. c. Inability to measure hiring outcomes How do you measure whether more diverse teams, or occasions when you took a risk worked out? If an individual is successful is that down to good hiring, or is it just random as that particular team happens to be doing well at that moment. It's very difficult to be evidence based in hiring. Consequently, everyone has heuristics for what they think is useful, but there's not much backing it up except gut feel. For example, what evidence is there that people having a "passion" outside work and doing side-projects is inherently better ... none that I know of ... but something that lots of developers and technical managers ask about and a key reason candidates build-up profiles on Github. |
I don't think demographic diversity is a value (1), and I don't think many people treat it as a value to itself. The fact that people have to explain why it's valuable is telling. I think most of what you wrote supports the sentiment that diversity is a (purported) means to an end and not an end to itself.
For example, in many cultures, integration of diverse types of people (vaguely defined) is not valued at all. Are we interested in making sure we have proportional leadership positions for these sorts of people? Seems like we're being ethnocentric even by valuing diversity.
1) There is a lot of explanation I could go through there that would detract from my point. Please assume I'm not a bigot to save me the typing and you the reading. Though I could write it all out if people care that much.