Help me diversify my office.

May 13, 2018 11:05 PM

My team lead is quitting and I'm probably going to get promoted. I want to make it a condition of my promotion that my replacement will not be a white man. How do I make this work?

I work on a two person team in a 9 person department in a non profit in CA. The only woman is the office manager. There is only 1 non white man. I am a white man. I've brought up the lack of diversity and received the traditional white liberal push back about "we have to hire the most qualified candidate." I think if I get promoted my current position won't be filled till September because we're coming up on our slow season so I may be able to push pretty hard on finding a more diverse candidate. How bad an idea is it for me to put a hard condition of hiring a non white man as my replacement for me taking the promotion? If I don't get promoted it wouldn't break my heart. Are there legal issues I could run into with that condition? Is there a good way to talk about the need to diversify the department that may lead to less pushback?

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (21 answers total)

This isn't legal to do in any way that even smells of systematically enforced bias and defeats the spirit of diversity and inclusion efforts, which is that the best person for the job, regardless ( and this goes both ways) of race, creed, color, sexual orientation, disability etc gets it. It's not white liberal pushback. It's what's fair and real. I understand that the norms of our society are such that not many people follow in the spirit of the axiom. This is tragic. But thought processes like these do a disservice to those of us ( myself included) fighting for fair representation in the workplace. Please reconsider. You can make an effort to make any minority employment groups or organizations that you're connected to or that you come across aware of the position, but that should be the end of it.
posted by marsbar77 at 11:15 PM on May 13, 2018 [28 favorites]

you can't. don't even bring this up, it won't look good for you.
posted by alchemist at 11:22 PM on May 13, 2018 [36 favorites]

You probably can't dictate that your replacement has to be not be a white man (despite many positions either explicitly or implicitly excluding minorities), but you can probably stipulate that the 'shortlist' includes some percentage of minority candidates, and you can help recruit and coach applicants for the position.
posted by batter_my_heart at 11:25 PM on May 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

Making this demand will be bad in all the ways that previous posters have already iterated.

BUT, you can still get your way if you show some subtlety. I would recommend changing your demand to having approval (or at least veto) over the hiring of your replacement. Insist that you be involved in the recruiting, take the lead on it, and without ever telling anyone what you are doing, make sure that the candidate you want is the one that gets hired. Just don't loudly signal that the new hire "must not be a white man", but still quietly put yourself in the position to make sure that is indeed what happens. Again, the reality is that you will need to do a lot of extra work and maybe even put out some markers to make this happen.

Welcome (again, or welcome back) to the wonderful world of office politics. Do like I do, and comfort yourself with the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who said in a similar situation that there is no limit to the amount of good we can do in the world, as long as we don't care who gets the credit. Be the person that makes this happen behind the scenes, not the screechy guy who starts an office brawl. Good luck, and thank you for being the person who wants a better world, and is willing to work for it. I am rooting for you!
posted by seasparrow at 11:36 PM on May 13, 2018 [30 favorites]

Mod note: A couple deleted. Please just give your considered advice to the OP without arguing with, debating, or pulling in other posters / answers. Thanks.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:56 PM on May 13, 2018

Rather than stipulate that your replacement be not a white man, stipulate that the ad for your replacement must be advertised in diverse places. There's good evidence to suggest that, when you have one "underrepresented minority candidate" in a field of white male candidates, the underrepresented minority is almost never hired, so do everything you can to build a broad and diverse pool of interviewees.

I'm not sure where you would normally be finding candidates, but don't just hire from within your field's traditional networks. Reach out to alumni of minority serving institutions (I know there are primarily Hispanic colleges in California, for example). Reach out to relevant professional society and ask them to send the ad to the diversity list serv. If your field is at all science-y, advertise on SACNAS. Put ads in non-English publications. Really examine the educational requirements for the job and decide whether you need a college degree to successfully do your job, or if you can open it to people with a different educational background. Emphasize in the job ad that diverse or traditionally underrepresented candidates are encouraged to apply. If you are able to participate in the hiring process, come up with a few meaningful questions that might provide candidates with nontraditional background the opportunity to express their qualifications.

In the meantime, start working where you can to make changes to office culture so that - if you do hire someone who is not a white man - they're in a supportive and inclusive environment that sets all employees up for success. Think about why you feel it is important to have a more diverse office, and share them with your office. If you're being promoted and you're a white male, you're in a good position to start changing the office culture to be more inclusive. You can handle a little pushback.
posted by ChuraChura at 11:59 PM on May 13, 2018 [58 favorites]

OK. This request is totally illegal. But you should be in an environment where you're free to offer your opinion.

"Hey it's so cool that the CEO has pledged to increase diversity in the company. It'll be great to see that here on this team."

I hope you're participating in the interviews!
posted by bendy at 11:59 PM on May 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

Aside from what everyone else has said, can you make some strong arguments about why you think your organization would benefit from having a more diverse staff? There are studies about how diverse viewpoints and backgrounds lead to better results in a variety of work environments; possibly more diversity would help you engage better with clients/community/other organizations; etc. The idea here would be that you can probably find a number of people qualified for the job, but some of them can bring something extra to the table.
posted by trig at 12:52 AM on May 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Adding one more suggestion to the pot on how to do this without being totes illegal about it, alongside being involved in the process and advertising in diverse places, you can also suggest that all CVs are assessed by the recruiting decision makers only after the names and any gender signifiers have been removed or redacted, by someone who is not involved in the decision-making process.
posted by greenish at 1:49 AM on May 14, 2018 [32 favorites]

I would strongly second ChuraChura's comment to make sure that, if the person hired isn't a white dude, that your office is a decent working environment for them. Check in with them, and if there's something going wrong or someone's being cruddy to them, deal with it so they don't have to. Having a powerful white guy to go to bat for you when you're the only Other in your workplace makes things a lot more survivable.

This might include:
- Following up on racist microaggressions, even if they don't seem like a big deal to you.
- Advocating for the person to be able to (e.g.) work flexible hours if they're a parent.

Otherwise, you might be bringing the new hire into an office culture that totally sucks for them, and making them do all the work to improve your office culture for you.
posted by ITheCosmos at 4:27 AM on May 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Really examine the educational requirements for the job and decide whether you need a college degree to successfully do your job, or if you can open it to people with a different educational background. Emphasize in the job ad that diverse or traditionally underrepresented candidates are encouraged to apply.

Relatedly, I believe there's some research suggesting that (straight, cis) white men are more likely to apply for jobs where they do not perfectly fit the description than other people. In addition to ensuring your requirements really are non-negotiable requirements, inserting language about "really, the nice-to-haves are nice-to-haves, apply if this position is of interest to you" or converting "nice-to-haves" into "things the person with this job does" (which is often what they really are--"it'd be nice if you already had experience doing X, because that's what the job is").
posted by hoyland at 4:31 AM on May 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Is there a good way to talk about the need to diversify the department that may lead to less pushback?

You could refuse the promotion on the grounds that you believe someone who isn't a white man should have it.
posted by Right On Red at 4:54 AM on May 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

As has been noted, you can't stipulate the race, ethnicity, gender, etc., of employees except in very narrow circumstances. You *can* recruit in a way that encourages diversity, as churachura says. There are legal issues, IANAL, but that is the avenue I would pursue.

In an office of 10 or 12 people, you have 1 woman in an administrative job, 1 non-white staff member. It's time to start hiring interns from diversity programs that train women and people of color. Make sure your jobs are paid fairly, including the office manager. Hiring minority candidates is good, but not in a poorly paid position. Slow season? Good time to do training or mentoring of minorities, either at work or as a volunteer.
posted by theora55 at 5:01 AM on May 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

Mostly wanted to say that this is how white allies should be acting. Thanks for trying to leverage your privilege.

To avoid the limitations of color blind hiring laws, you could stipulate you will only take the promotion if you play a central role in the hiring of your replacement. That way, you can make sure that candidates of color have the best chance to get hired.
posted by RajahKing at 8:38 AM on May 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

As mentioned upthread being explicit about this is super illegal but!

If you have any say you can do some of the things that are already used as subtle tools for bias in hiring. There are tons of research articles on this type of thing but some ideas to get your Google-fu going:

- Where would the job ad be posted? On job boards that would be relevant for POC, women, queer folks, or people with disabilities? Even if you have no say in hiring you can probably post the job ad to message boards and listservs that will help give a wider, more diverse group of applicants an opportunity to apply.

- Language used in the ad. Tons of cool research on this! Putting language like “equal opportunity employer” higher up in the ad is one super easy thing that (I think?) that has been shown to increase the diversity of applicants.

- If you have any say in the screening process ask that any potentially biasing information (names for example can indicate gender, country of origin et cet) be stripped from resumes before the review process (there’s lots of resources for this online).

- If you get a day in the interview process, TONS of research shows structured interviews (where each candidate is asked the same questions with little room for chit chat) can help reduce hiring bias.
posted by forkisbetter at 9:10 AM on May 14, 2018

Loads of great advice above. There's also been quite a lot of research done on how to write gender-neutral job adverts.
posted by KateViolet at 9:19 AM on May 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

I would expect that as the leader of the team, you would manage the hiring process for your backfill. That gives you a lot of power in this process. If that's not a fait accompli in this org, the next best thing is to do all the sourcing. If you actively fill the top of the funnel with diverse candidates, you're setting the menu for what future hiring decisions can be. Just don't source white men and you will have a huge impact.

Agree with all the other advice about gender-neutral job adverts, being on the hiring committee, etc. Those all can make a job more obviously welcoming to prospective candidates. But I think you'll be more impactful through sourcing than through those methods. You can say explicitly: "we are actively working on diversity in our workplace and I want you to know personally that I think you'd be a great fit for this role." That also positions you to answer any questions they have about the role or the team and explain the process as its happening and help unblock any confusion on either side about expectations that need translating.
posted by heresiarch at 10:16 AM on May 14, 2018

There is much you can do even with the hiring process. My employer has been trialing identity-blind screening to decide who goes forward to interview stages. Someone goes through and deletes gender and racial identity information from resumes prior to them being passed on to the screening team. This includes names, of course, but also references to single-gender education institutes etc..., noting only that educational requirements are met.

It's worked pretty well in our case. I can give more details by private message, if you want them.

We also use scripted and structured interviews. They're a bit of a pain, but I'm happier with them than not. We've gotten some really excellent people that way.
posted by bonehead at 11:03 AM on May 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Many government agencies and probably some private corporations can legally give preference to military veterans. This may help you in selecting the candidate you want.
posted by Justin Case at 11:45 AM on May 14, 2018

The one I've seen missing from this thread: stipulate that the salary range for the position must be made public. That will get you a long way toward a more diverse candidate pool.
posted by capricorn at 11:58 AM on May 14, 2018

My office would like to increase its diversity, so the entire HR team is working on how we can do that.

Our approach is to combine:
- eliminating unconscious bias, like names on Resumes that might indicate age or gender or race
- attracting more diverse candidates by selling our company from a diversity perspective
- building personal relationships with diversity organizations around the country
- filling our candidate pools with more diverse people


each of these takes time. Each of these has a cost. None of these is something you can just "do."

My advice is, either go work someplace that already does this well, or start a conversation with your company about it - invite in diverse speakers, invite coworkers to jazz night, celebrate MLK day, etc.
posted by rebent at 1:09 PM on May 14, 2018