Category Archives: Diversity

Do your employees get paid more for referring Diverse Candidates?

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I know a ton of HR Pros right now who have been charged by their organizations to go out and “Diversify” there workforce.  By “Diversify”, I’m not talking about diversity of thought, but to recruit a more diverse workforce in terms of ethnic, gender and racial diversity.  Clearly by bringing in more individuals from under represented groups in your workforce, you’ll expand the “thought diversification” – but for those HR Pros in the trenches and sitting in conference rooms with executives behind closed doors – diversification of thought isn’t the issue being discussed.

So, I have some assumptions I want to lay out before I go any further:

1. Referred employees make the best hires. (workforce studies frequently list employee referrals as the highest quality hires across all industries and positions)

2. ERPs (Employee Referral Programs) are the major tool used to get employee referrals by HR Pros.

3. A diverse workforce will perform better in most circumstances, then I homogeneous workforce will.

4. Diversity departments, is you’re lucky enough, or big enough, to have one in your organization, traditionally tend to do a weak job at “recruiting” diversity candidates (there more concerned about getting the Cinco De Mayo Taco Bar scheduled, etc.)

Now, keeping in mind the above assumptions, what do you think is the best way to recruit diversity candidates to your organization?

I’ve yet to find a company willing to go as far as to “Pay More” for a black engineer referral vs. a white engineer referral – Can you imagine how that would play out in your organization!?  But behind the scenes in HR Department across the world, this exact thing is happening in a number of ways.  First, what is your cost of hire for diverse candidates versus non-diverse candidates? Do you even measure that? Why not  I’ll tell you why, is very hard to justify why you are paying two, three and even four times more for a diversity candidate, with the same skill sets, versus a non-diverse candidate in most technical and medical recruiting environments.  Second, how many diversity recruitment events do you go to versus non-specific diversity recruitment events?  In organizations who are really pushing diversification of workforce, I find that this figure is usually 2 to 1.

So, you will easily spend more resources of your organization to become more diversified, but you won’t reward your employees for helping you get reach your goals?  I find this somewhat ironic – you will pay Joe, one of your best engineers, $2000 for any referral, but you are unwilling to pay him $4000 for referring his black engineer friends from his former company.  Yet, you’ll go out and spend $50,000 attending diversity recruiting job fairs and events all over the country trying to get the same person – when you know the best investment of your resources would be to put up a poster in your hallways saying “Wanted Black Engineers $4000 Reward!”.

Here’s why you don’t do this.  Most organizations do a terrible job at communicating the importance of having a diverse workforce, and that to get to an ideal state, sometimes it means the organization might have to hire a female, or an Asian, or an African American, or an Hispanic – over a similarly qualified white male – to ensure the organization is reaching their highest potential.   Work group performance by diversity is easily measured and reported to employees, to demonstrate diversity successes, but we rarely do it, to help us explain why we do what we are doing in talent selection.  What do we need to do? Stop treating our employees like they won’t get it, start educating them beyond the politically correct version of Diversity – and start educating them on the performance increases we get with diversity.  Then it might not seem so unheard of to pay more to an employee for referring a diverse candidate!

 

 

Is HR really Female?

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The Godfather of HR John Sumser put up a post over at HRXaminer – HR is Female – from a report by HRxAnalysts that shows 75% of those in HR are female, white, etc.  (I know you’re shocked – good thing someone funded that survey!) 

My question is – who cares? (besides John – who it thinks everyone in the HR community is more influential than me, so let’s face it, he can suck eggs)

Now the guys at HRxAnalysts (John and another guy with a very impressive resume that includes StarrTincup) will say that those who sell to HR care – by having this data you can better prepare your sales presentation and tact to potentially close more buyers, etc.  But that isn’t really my question…

Who cares – in terms of – is it really that important?  I mean really.

HR is the one part of every organization that it isn’t suppose to matter if your female or male, white or black, straight or gay, cat or dog.  One problem with surveys like the one above is they perpetuate a notion – a notion that “HR is Female” – I know they are just stating facts – but in the end, they are also making a conclusion – “HR is Female”.   What is HR wanted to by “Flamboyantly Gay Male” – nope – can’t do it  – “HR is Female”.

What if Female wanted to be “Operations is Female” – nope – can’t do it – “Operations is…” –oh wait, you don’t know what Operations is do you?  Because no one did some stupid survey about it and make it official, did they?  Operations might be Female, or Male, of Single-Black-Female-with-1-kid – but you don’t know that – so now when you look at Operations – you don’t see Female – you see “Possibilities”.

I love data, but sometimes we measure just to measure, with no real purpose in why we are measuring.  Then when the measurement is done, we have to publish something – even if it really has no real baring on anything.  Yep – HR is Female, and she’s smart and she’s mostly white and she mostly likes dogs – but HR is also Male, and she is also black, and she also likes cats.

 My advice to HR vendors trying to sell to HR – get to know HR for who she/he is, build the relationship, find out if your product/service helps solve a need they have and go from there (tip: it takes more than one phone call and visit – and not all HR Pros like donuts, some like bagels).

Lock Up Your Daughters

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An interesting thing is happening right now in the world – according to the United Nations there are far more Men than Women on the planet.  We know from our 8th grade social studies classes that this gender gap is especially prononouced in Asia, where there are roughly 100 Million more boys than girls.  Yeah – that’s 100 Million – about 1/3 the population of the United States – in just more Men.  Here in the United States, in fact in most western countries, we don’t really see or feel this because we actually have more females than males – primarily because the mortality rate for men is higher than women.  Newsweek has a good article on this subject: Men Without Women – The Ominous Rise of Asia’s Bachelor Generation, from the article:

In China today, according to American Enterprise Institute demographer Nicholas Eberstadt, there are about 123 male children for every 100 females up to the age of 4, a far higher imbalance than 50 years ago, when the figure was 106. In Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hainan, and Anhui provinces, baby boys outnumber baby girls by 30 percent or more. This means that by the time today’s Chinese newborns reach adulthood, there will be a chronic shortage of potential spouses. According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, one in five young men will be brideless. Within the age group 20 to 39, there will be 22 million more men than women. Imagine 10 cities the size of Houston populated exclusively by young males.

The question left open by economists is what the consequences will be of such a large surplus of young men. History offers a disquieting answer. According to the German scholar Gunnar Heinsohn, European imperial expansion after 1500 was the result of a male “youth bulge.” Japan’s imperial expansion after 1914 was the result of a similar youth bulge, Heinsohn argues. During the Cold War, it was youth-bulge countries—Algeria, El Salvador, and Lebanon—that saw the worst civil wars and revolutions. Heinsohn has also linked the recent rise of Islamist extremism in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan to an Islamic youth bulge. Political scientists Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer warn that China and India could be the next countries to overdose on testosterone.

From a western perspective, clearly some concern to pause and see if we have learned from our past.  China is a raging economic power, and growing daily – and oh by the way, it seems like they’ve filled their pipeline with young male workers for the next two decades at minimum to fuel this growth.  I won’t even get into the productivity issue of not having women in their life to take their minds of work…(oh, can’t wait for the Girls of HR to get all worked up over that comment!) 

Here is my question:  What are the HR implications to this demographic shift?

Here’s what I think HR doesn’t need:

  •  Gender Sensitivity Training.  (Don’t act like you didn’t think of that first off – but stop it – we aren’t talking about a couple of sophmoric boys doing dumb stuff.  We are talking about 100s of Millions of males over females in the workforce.  Cats and dogs living together – mass hysteria – Ghost Buster kind of stuff – sensitivity training is what your organization is looking for!)
  • More focus on Diversity. (What!?  Listen: We need focus on Diversity, but it has to be more than just color – Gender needs to become a major focus of your diversity program – yesterday!)
  • More turning a Blind-eye to lack of Female Leadership. (Yes you do.  Your organization is 60% female, and your top two level of leadership are 30% Female – and you are keeping it that way.  Specific gender based leadership succession plans need to be a part of your strategy.)

Here’s what I think HR needs:

  • A helmet – Holy crap – in an economy that isn’t stopping from going completely global, this will impact every company in the US and much of our policy making over the next 20-30 years.  Get involved and understand what is being proposed “on your behalf” from a government standpoint.
  • I think US companies can show our Asian counterparts – that we value the contributions of our female workforce and leaders, and we expect the same.  I want to honor each others cultures – but “Gendercide” isn’t one we should stand by and be willing to let happen. 
  • Prepare our leadership for this – they aren’t concerned about this – they have Ops issues, and shrinking margins, etc.  This will impact your business, and HR can help make sure your organizaiton is prepared.

Life Lessons and Riding the School Bus

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I read a very funny quote today from a comedian, Jenny Johnson, which she said

“If you rode the school bus as a kid, your parents hated you.”

It made me laugh out loud, for two reasons: 1. I rode the bus or walked or had to arrive at school an hour early because that was when my Dad was leaving and if I wanted a ride that was going to be it.  Nothing like sitting at school talking to the janitor because he was the only other person to arrive an hour before school started.  Luckily for me, he was nice enough to open the doors and not make me stand outside in the cold.  Lucky for my parents he wasn’t a pedophile! 2. My kids now make my wife and I feel like we must be the worst parents in the world in those rare occasions that they have to ride the bus.  I know I’m doing a disservice to my sons by giving them this ride – but I can’t stop it, it’s some American ideal that gets stuck in my head about making my kids life better than my life, and somehow I’ve justified that by giving them a ride to school their life is better than mine!

When I look back it, riding the bus did suck – you usually had to deal with those kids who parents truly did hate them.  Every bully in the world rode the bus – let’s face it their parents weren’t giving them a ride, so you had to deal with that (me being small and red-headed probably had to deal with it more than most).  You also got to learn most of life lessons on the bus – you found out about Santa before everyone else, you found out how babies got made before everyone else, you found out about that innocent kid stuff that makes kids, kids before you probably should have.  But let’s face it, the bus kids were tough – you had to get up earlier, stand out in the cold, get home later and take a beating after the ride home, just so you had something to look forward to the next day!

You know as HR Pros we tend also not to let our employees “ride the bus”.   We always look for an easier way for them to do their work, to balance their work and home, to do as little as possible to get the job done.  In a way, too many of us, are turning our organizations and our employees into the kids who had their Mom’s pick them up from school.  I’m not saying go be hard on your employees – but as a profession we might be better off to be a little less concerned with how comfortable everyone is, and a little more concerned with how well everybody is performing.

Too many HR Pros (and HR shops for that matter) tend to act as “parents” to the employees, not letting them learn from their mistakes, but trying to preempt every mistake before it’s made – either through extensive processes or overly done performance management systems.  We justify this by saying we are just “protecting” our organizations – but in the end we aren’t really making our employees or organizations “tougher” or preparing them to handle the hard times we all must face professionally.  It’ll be alright – they might not like it 100%, but in the end they’ll be better for it.