Diversity & Exclusion: A Realistic Look at

the Question of Progress in HR and

Recruiting.
Jan 18, 2016Matt Charney1 Comment

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As a white male, there are few

conversation topics more taboo than talking about (much less writing about) the issue of race. Its
one of those things, like politics, sex or religion, thats just not considered apropos for the
workplace.
This is why we only speak of race in terms of diversity and inclusion.
While these precepts are predicated on overt prejudice, frankly, for some reason the not so subtle
institutionalized quota system that equal opportunity employment and affirmative action
represent have become firmly entrenched as a dedicated HR discipline.

Loving Your Enemies.

This has become another egregious example of HR hypocrisy; a recent survey by executive
search firm Witt/Kiefer found that 84% of active Chief Diversity Officers at enterprise employers
were themselves visible minorities (with African American males predominating within this
professional demographic).
This, of course, mirrors the larger trend that HR has become, in fact, a little too effective at
diversity within its own function; according to Forbes, 69% of all HR professionals and fully
74% of HR Managers are female, which, in fact, is the very same type of disproportionate
representation that diversity initiatives were designed explicitly to address (by comparison, about
55% of the US workforce, according to the Department of Labor, was female).
HR is essentially the home economics of professional functions, demographically speaking;
statistically, preschool and elementary education is the only other category where women are
more prevalent than men, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Additionally, the same
organization suggests around 52% of practicing HR professionals are visible minorities, which
far surpasses the 37% rate of the overall US workforce.
That HR maintains such an overrepresentation of women and minorities should mean,
theoretically, that inclusion efforts within the function should shift towards targeting white males,
at least according to the stated purposes of corporate diversity efforts. Of course, thats not the
case.
In fact, HR professionals with less than 3 years of experience, according to SHRM, were
somehow more predominantly female or persons of color than their more experienced
counterparts, meaning the growing gender and diversity divide in the profession will only
continue to grow.
This mirrors the larger trend within the US workforce, where minority representation is expected
to rise to 57% by 2060, with the US Department of Commerce projecting nonwhite ethnic groups
will represent fully 85% of U.S. employee population growth through 2050.
Such demographic changes will inevitably transform the workplace; how they will transform
diversity hiring initiatives, of course, remains to be seen.

Rediscovering Lost Values.

One fact, however, is becoming

crystal clear: in order to prepare for the workforce of tomorrow, we need to rethink our approach
to diversity and inclusion furthermore, that change needs to start in HR if HR will continue to
be the primary arbiter of diversity and inclusion programs, initiatives and organizational
compliance.
Because these efforts today are not only completely extraneous (as evidenced above), but largely
ineffective,
In fact, a recent longitudinal study of over 700 companies demonstrated that implementing
formalized diversity programs has little positive effect in addressing underrepresentation, and
may in fact decrease participation of women of color.
This is only one of a litany of studies producing data to suggest that diversity programs actually
exacerbate the same problems they purport to address.
A recent Harvard Business Review articles title really says it all when it comes to our current
approach to diversity: Diversity Programs Dont Help Women or Minorities, and They
Make White Men Feel Threatened.
This central thesis was reinforced by an experiment conducted to measure white male attitudes
towards workplace diversity conducted by the authors of the aforementioned article. In this
experiment, college aged white men were subjected to a hiring simulation for an entry-level job
at a startup technology company.
For half these young, white and male applicants, the recruitment marketing materials and
company culture collateral for this fictional firm incorporated references to their pro-diversity
values; for the other half, diversity was not mentioned during the application process. Besides
this slight difference in positioning, the company career copy was identical.

Each applicant was then subjected to a simulated, standardized interview to gauge their
attitudes towards their fit at each firm. During these simulated interviews, each participant also
had their cardiovascular activity monitored to determine stressors.
The study found that compared to the control group, to which diversity was never mentioned, the
group of white men interviewing at the company who explicitly highlighted diversity was much
more likely to enter the interview with expectations that such a firm would evidence more unfair
treatment and reverse discrimination towards them than their counterparts.
Additionally, the applicants for the pro-diversity employer performed much more poorly in
the standardized job interview, during which their cardiovascular responses evidenced far more
stress than the control group. These stressors spiked when topics related to diversity and
inclusion were mentioned far more than any subject tested.
According to the studys authors:
Pro-diversity messages signaled to these white men that they might be undervalued and
discriminated against. These concerns interfered with their interview performance and
caused their bodies to respond as if they were under threat.
Importantly, diversity messages led to these effects regardless of these mens political
ideology, attitudes toward minority groups, beliefs about the prevalence of discrimination
against whites, or beliefs about the fairness of the world.
This suggests just how widespread negative responses to diversity may be among white
men: the responses exist even among those who endorse the tenets of diversity and
inclusion.
Yeah, diversity kind of sucks at least from where Im sitting.

How Long? Not Long!

I am, personally, part of

this aforementioned group of white guys who actually believe in the principals behind diversity
and inclusion, and applaud organizations committed to making these efforts.
The fact of the matter is, though, I do believe that the existence of diversity and inclusion
initiatives have more or less led to diminishing returns.
Its time we address the fact that such efforts fail whats largely becoming a minority group
overall, but even more so, within the same HR profession tasked with diversity and inclusion in
the first place.
In addition to threatening white men, as the study suggests, diversity initiatives also seem to do
little to convince minorities that companies will treat them more fairly. After doing the same
experiment with visible minorities, it turns out that even the company who aggressively
advertised their pro-diversity position and initiative was seen as no more inclusive, no better to
work for, and no less likely to discriminate against minorities than a company without a prodiversity stance.
The studys authors, reviewing their results, suggested that the only success corporate diversity
initiatives really have achieved is in compliance with diversity and EOE/AA/OFCCP legislation.
In conclusion, however, they caution that when people feel threatened, they may resist efforts to
make the workplace more inclusive.
Extending this logic, then, the realization becomes readily apparent that the only true way to
achieve diversity and inclusion, and have these efforts pay off, is through eliminating or at least
completely changing the context of current diversity and inclusion efforts.
The same study showed over 80% of white males agreed with the fact that race and gender
shouldnt inhibit employment or advancement opportunities, meaning that white men are
actually more active advocates of diversity (at the moment) than racial minorities (at around

65%), and about equal to women across all races (81% of whom agreed, in theory, with diversity
recruiting).

I See the Promised Land.

While Im unsure
what the future of diversity hiring looks like, one thing is clear: if it continues to mirror present
practices, its not only going to threaten the very same historical gains these programs have
made, but are likely going to increase discriminatory hiring practices, decrease employee
perceptions of inclusion and make race, that elephant in the conference room, as it were, a
point of contention instead of consensus.
I know even writing a post questioning the conventional wisdom behind diversity, as a white guy,
is pretty much asking for controversy, or else suggestions of complicit racism or explicit
discrimination, but in fact, the exact opposite is true.
Im just sick and tired of reading about the importance of diversity while being marginalized
and knowing as much as I agree with conventional wisdom (like the fact McKinsey found
organizations in the top quartile of racial diversity performed 35% better in terms of financial
returns), the fact is that these programs dont work as intended.
Of course, Im just following the advice of Dr. Kira Hudson-Banks, who studies hiring bias and
diversity programs at Saint Louis University, who writes that the most important way to address
this issue is by bringing it up in the open. She writes:
Be prepared for some harsh truths. Racial discrimination, tokenism, and the sense of
isolation are common concerns. But if you dont hear, acknowledge, and understand
them, you cant do anything about them.
Which more or less seems to be the direction diversity initiatives seem headed unless we change
the course and conversation around inclusion. Because no matter what terrible societal and

historical problems white dudes were responsible for in the past, the fact of the matter is, that we
are the diversity candidates of the future and the exclusion has to stop.
Or at least, on MLK Day, a guy can dream, right?
company culture diversity diversity recruiting HR inclusion Job Market matt charney Recruiting
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