Quotas : Where Utopia meets Reality

When I talk in public, to employers and others about diversity hiring and diversity in the workplace I often say that companies shouldn't be "holding" jobs for diverse persons. Instead I state that

"You should only hire the best candidate. But make sure you are looking at everyone."

I believe that this is true and that in most cases by simply making sure you are actually speaking to everyone, you will have a diverse talent source, and you will then be hiring diverse candidates. I think that this is a better approach than a "quota" style system for many reasons, not the least of which is that quota systems have negative connotations like promoting inferior candidates and being patronizing to the groups they are supposed to be helping.

I think it would be great if every company looked at every candidate and I know that diversity would be more represented at every level of the workforce. However, I also recognize that this is a future, utopian vision. There is a reality built into hiring practices across organizations, even progressive ones, that simply don't value diverse candidates as much as they should. It means that even when you have diverse candidates in your talent sourcing stream you may well not hire them even when their skills are equal to or better than that of other candidates.

Why is this?

The reality is that the hiring process is much more subjective than we'd all sometimes like to admit, and certainly more subjective than the utopian ideal. The result of this subjectivity is that candidates get filtered based on feelings of comfort and familiarity that one person has for unseen candidates. It's not an unnatural process but in fact a very human one, people are just going to feel more comfortable in feeling they *know* someone if they have a familiar name, work history and education but when that feeling dictates who is being offered work it no longer becomes "looking at everyone" despite best intentions.

This isn't a real big "secret" either, I find it interesting into talking with representatives from many diverse groups, for example aboriginal Canadians, just how many of these groups are very interested in jobs and opportunities that companies have identified as ideal for that group. I initially found such attitudes surprising because most of the time members of diverse groups want to be accepted as part of the "mainstream" but it has become clear to me that the reason groups actually want to be placed into silos, at least for employment purposes, is based on experience. These groups have felt and experienced the inherent biases of in existing hiring models, they know that their members often just don't get a "fair" opportunity in competing for jobs against non-diverse candidates.

So what's the answer? Should we just give up and use "quotas" as the only pragmatic solution to a real problem or should we strive for utopia? I think the answer is probably both.

Using quotas, or some sort of comparable type solution will cause more diversity integration into the workplace and in the long run will probably help. But we shouldn't ever lose sight of the utopian vision of a workplace that is diverse simply because we really are looking at and evaluating every candidate on an equal basis. I suggest that in practical terms "not losing sight of the vision" means that when you use quotas you should at least recognize that this is not the ideal. Recognize that quotas are a solution to a systemic problem in the way you are evaluating and hiring candidates and that's the real problem that you need to solve.

And if you do solve it please do let us all know. Turning the hiring process from a subjective one to an objective one is a common goal and not just one limited to diversity. I do know that it's hard but I think in the end it's achievable and more importantly the only realistic long terms solution to the problems of Canada's shrinking labour force.