Thu, Aug 03, 2023 page9

• The best diversity programs will survive Republican attacks

  • By Sarah Green Carmichael / Bloomberg Opinion
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  After the US Supreme Court banned affirmative action in college admissions, anti-diversity activists put employers on notice that their next target was diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.

  In Texas and Florida, Republican governors have barred public colleges from undertaking DEI initiatives. A group of Republican attorneys general, hailing from 13 states, threatened Fortune 100 companies with “serious legal consequences” and equated DEI programs with illegal quotas and race discrimination. It is quite a stretch — as civil rights attorney Alphonso David wrote in Fortune magazine, racial quotas have been illegal for almost 50 years, as corporate lawyers well know.

  The Republican activists are playing into the public perception that corporate talent programs operate like college admissions and that DEI programs give an unfair tailwind to women and people of color. In fact, at most companies, talent management policies operate very differently from university admissions, and the most effective DEI programs try to ensure that employees do not face unfair headwinds. The best initiatives create a more level playing field, bringing organizations closer to the goal of being true meritocracies. None of them should be affected by the recent court decision.

  The challenge is too few companies have paid close attention to what really works. That is one reason progress on diversity has been glacially slow in the private sector. I do not go around looking for silver linings in the grim polarization and backlash gripping our country.

  However, if the court’s ruling shines a spotlight on the evidence-based DEI programs that truly reduce bias, that is an outcome I would welcome.

  There are basically two approaches to create a more diverse team, explains Joan Williams, a legal academic and author of Bias Interrupted: Creating Inclusion for Real and for Good. The less effective one is to leave your core talent processes — recruiting, hiring, access to opportunities, performance evaluations — essentially as they are, and try to take race or gender into account at the last minute (quick, let us interview some diverse candidates before we hire this white guy). The more effective approach is to overhaul every talent-management policy and process to combat bias and try to create fairer competition.

  Too many companies choose the last-minute method, which Williams says is likely to now come under some additional legal scrutiny.

  However, it is important to remember that it has not resulted in a meaningfully more diverse workforce. Multiple studies have shown that policies which mandate interviewing a single woman or person of color for a role do not result in hiring meaningfully more women or people of color. Even when such candidates are hired, turnover among women and people of color tends to be higher in companies that treat them as tokens.

  Sometimes, that approach also includes mandatory bias training, which researchers have found typically does not work very well when it is not accompanied by more fundamental changes. In fact, some bias trainings can harden negative attitudes against women and minorities. Even a great bias training can not overcome a flawed system.

  Changing talent-management systems takes more upfront work, but it is much more effective — and results in a playing field that is much more level. The results are closer to a true meritocracy. It is also less likely to produce a backlash because people do not feel like they are being asked to change how they think.

  Let us start at the beginning, with evaluating resumes. The standard approach is to have applications screened by software, then human resources, and finally hiring managers.

  However, decades of research have found that screeners unconsciously penalize candidates with black-sounding names, gay people, women and mothers.

  Such biases can hurt white men, too. In one example, researchers sent identical resumes for white men to real companies; the only differences were minor tweaks that indicated a candidate’s socioeconomic status. For example, one applicant listed as his personal interests sailing, polo and classical music; the other mentioned track, soccer and country music. The polo player’s application resulted in an interview invitation 16 percent of the time; the country music fan’s only 1 percent of the time, even though they had identical academic credentials and professional histories.

  One solution: Take the personal details, including names, off the resumes. Heretical? Maybe in some quarters. Effective? Yes.

  Here is a real-world example. For years, NASA struggled to figure out how to bring more gender balance to a scarce resource: time on the Hubble Space Telescope. Year after year, more male scientists were approved to use it, but when applications hid candidates’ names and other identifying details, the gender gap disappeared. There is nothing illegal about blinding resumes.

  Then there is interviewing candidates. Structured interviews, in which interviewers coordinate on the questions and job criteria, result in more diversity among hires — and more qualified hires — than the freewheeling “do we vibe?” interviews most companies use. A recent meta-analysis — a study of studies — found that structured interviews are also a better predictor of on-the-job performance. Nothing illegal about a more-rigorous interview process.

  Similarly, we know that automatically opting employees into leadership development programs — rather than requiring them to apply — results in those learning opportunities being distributed to a more diverse group, says University of Colorado professor Stefanie K. Johnson, author of Inclusify, who worked with NASA on the attempts to debias the Hubble application process. Nothing is illegal about giving everyone a chance to shine.

  There might be one practice that goes out the window following the Supreme Court’s ruling: Setting numeric goals for diversity efforts.

  However, Williams said many companies already avoided using such targets — it sounds too much like an illegal quota. What they should do instead, she says, is to measure the impact of talent management policies on different groups. In fact, collecting that data is one of the best ways to ensure you are not accidentally (and illegally) discriminating.

  Moreover, there are company policies that have little to do with anti-bias initiatives — like offering flex-time — that have been shown to meaningfully increase the percentage of management roles held by women and people of color. Sometimes these policies are even more effective at increasing diversity than formal DEI initiatives.

  Blinding resumes, using structured interviews, offering flex-time — none of these practices amount to illegal discrimination. It is quite the opposite. Managing with this level of rigor and respect is not “wokeism” — it is good business. The most successful companies are going to keep on doing it.

  Sarah Green Carmichael is a Bloomberg Opinion editor. Previously, she was managing editor of ideas and commentary at Barron’s and an executive editor at Harvard Business Review, where she hosted HBR IdeaCast. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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