I read a study a while back, which I can't find right now, that concluded that these sessions do more harm than good in the workplace.
One study I could find, which might be of relevant interest, is that diverse workplaces are far less likely to come together and organize in terms of unions or worker rights[0], which might go some way to back up the suspicion this whole shitshow we've been submerged into is merely a big-money attempt to turn normal people against one another by provoking racial tensions to prevent them from becoming class conscious and instigating a movement like Occupy Wall Street again.
>How exactly does this help?
It doesn't. The entire purpose of it is ritual humiliation.
[0]https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0019793915602253
You miss the biggest goal: for departments of diversity, inclusion, etc to gain more power and hires.
But I've also seen some people do some pretty oblivious things in my time - like ordering company tee-shirts for their mixed-gender team, but only getting male sizes. Or evaluating every interview candidate's communication skills and cultural fit based on a conversation about rock climbing and craft beer.
And other stuff managers might need to get good at aren't taught at home or in college. If you get performance complaints about an otherwise-good employee who is fasting during Ramadan, what's the right way to address that while respecting privacy and being fair to the complainant, complainee and the company?
I can understand why an employer might want their employees to have a bit of extra training, above and beyond what college and life experience have already taught them. At least for the employees destined for promotion to senior positions.
* An affirmation that we stand with the black community.
* A list of political organizations we should donate to in support of the black community.
* TED talks on how news, policing, etc. are sometimes implicitly racist. (We as a company aren't involved in news or policing.)
* A reimbursement offer for up to $1,000 per person on anti-racism materials.
* Recommended articles, books, etc.
There's a lot of other stuff in tabs and menus and such. But if I didn't know how to handle an employee with poor performance during the Ramadan fast, none of the information I see would help me figure it out, and it's my understanding that this is typical.
> Or evaluating every interview candidate's communication skills and cultural fit based on a conversation about rock climbing and craft beer.
I feel like any cultural fit test is going to be inherently sexist/racist/classist. Better to just throw them out. Also why waste time talking about anything not relevant to the job to judge communication skills when you could be having job related discussions.
> If you get performance complaints about an otherwise-good employee who is fasting during Ramadan, what's the right way to address that while respecting privacy and being fair to the complainant, complainee and the company?
Is the complaint this person isn't doing their job? Then it should be treated like every other complaint. Is the complaint is "They aren't eating lunch" then it should be treated very differently.
Sure, but how is that? Different performance problems call for different solutions.
Do you treat it like the newly hired dyslexic person? Like the person who's going through a difficult divorce? Like the person who likes to party and sometimes comes in tired or hung over? Like the person with gaps in their education and training? Like the parent who sometimes gets called for child-related emergencies? Like the person who disagrees with the policies, but can be convinced with better explanation? Like the person who finds the work too boring to be able to concentrate on? Like the person who doesn't like the job, but hasn't found another yet?
A competent manager will have half a dozen different tools in their toolbox - and it takes some forethought to be able to reach for the correct one first time on receipt of a complaint.
I'd say no for the most part.
It's mostly hypocrisy and everyone knows is theater, which creates boredom at best, and bad blood at worst.
Diversity is built organically, not through sessions.
It's like those bogus "we're a big family" pep sessions -- and then the company screws you over.
So, benefit there. ;)
There is research that shows that companies with diverse leadership and staff financially outperform the average. See for example:
https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inc...
The problem is, no one knows for sure how to take an existing corporate culture with low diversity, and transform it to one with higher diversity and higher performance. Cultures can be extremely resistant to change.
DEI trainings are just the latest attempt to find something that works. It will take a few years to see if they do.
One it would it be impossible to publish research that came to the opposite conclusion. Imagine seeing a headline that said "replacing female and black executive leadership with old white dudes increases profit" by McKinsey.
Second the magnitude of the impact seems insane. This seems larger than the difference most studies find between good leadership and average leadership. And while I wouldn't be surprised if diverse leadership is marginally better than non-diverse leadership I would be surprised if it's larger than the difference between average and good.
Three they're pulling from many different countries which could potentially create huge confounds.
In general "research" that comes out of a place like McKinsey and Bane is pretty suspect but something like this is even more.
Even if none of the other problems are real they still don't establish causation. It could easily be the case that diverse candidates are harder to find, so more competitive/better firms are able to better attract them.
I think diversity is great and there are lots of great reasons to increase it but I doubt the impact on profitability would be anything beyond marginal.
On a related note successful Empires become more diverse over time - one of the few virtues of Imperialism and they need the edge to expand further while the most xenophobic ones tend to be shorter lived or more limited in their success. One insulting but true observation about national flags flown by white supremacists is that they are all flags of losers (Nazi Germany, Confederacy, Rhodesia).
White men are like 35% of the U.S. population in total. So on the back of the envelope, a corporate culture that inclines toward hiring white men, also inclines against hiring from 65% of the population. That's a lot of talent available for your competitors to hire.
And the numbers get even more dramatic the younger you look. Non-hispanic white U.S. residents under 16 made up less than 50% of the population at that age as of last year. And the trend direction is obvious. Source:
https://www.brookings.edu/research/new-census-data-shows-the...
The left-hand side of this chart is what the future of the American workforce will look like. The right-hand side is what it used to look like:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/30/most-common...
If a company does not figure out how to hire, retain, and promote people who are not white men, they are going to see a shrinking talent pool for decades to come. The data is obvious to corporate leaders, which is why so many companies are treating diversity as an issue for management of the business.
Both an average and a good leader will drown the same army if they lead them into a swamp because they've never seen a swamp before.
Ah, that looks like a nice bit of marketing from McKinsey. Huge companies that work on global markets with clearly recognizable brands are naturally more diverse (sourcing people from all over the world) and also care about their public image enough to increase their diversity in management positions.
Of course this doesn't mean at all that by increasing diversity your performance will improve, the causal arrow goes in the opposite direction.
