DEI’s toxic ideology excludes qualified talent
So-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies are social engineering cloaked in the American principle of “opportunity for all.”
But, their policies exclude qualified individuals from promotion, training, and recognition.
Consider a recent announcement circulated by Paychex. Under the banner of DEI, Paychex teamed up with McKinsey & Co to launch a leadership training program for employees with the goals of “improving talent pipelines” and “investing in future leaders.”
But then the announcement stipulated this offer is “first come, first served for Asian, Black, and Hispanic/Latino employees."
What if you had high-performing employees who would benefit your company by taking this training but they weren’t the stipulated ethnicity? They’re excluded.
What does that do to employee morale? Team bonding? Respect for co-workers?
But, that’s the story of DEI – benefits and promotions handed out not for one’s work ethic, reliability, skills growth, or outcomes, but rather only based on one’s skin color or gender.
Nothing could be more debilitating to the workplace. And it shows.
Cost to the American Economy
Worker productivity in the United States has taken a nose-dive. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US is experiencing its lowest drop in hourly output in the last fifty years.
Why is worker productivity plummeting? Because production is no longer valued. Instead one's ethnicity and/or gender determines who advances.
With these incentives in place, it's not surprising that one in every three workers is disengaged from the American workplace, or that 44% of employees are searching for new jobs, even after “the Great Resignation.”
In a recent survey, 91% of workers reported attending diversity training compared to only 67% who attended skills training. Companies that prioritize diversity training over skills training are sending their workers a clear message: ideology matters to us more than your job performance.
And workers tune out, or move on to greener pastures.
With inflation, a labor shortage, and increased costs of living, the economy doesn’t need exclusionary discrimination added to the mix.
Repaying Evil with Evil?
As Americans, we believe that men and women are created equal and that blatant racial and gender discrimination in the workplace is opposed to the principles on which our nation was founded.
And, according to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it’s illegal to discriminate against people because of characteristics like race or sex.
But, DEI’s brand of excluding people because of their ethnicity or gender seems to have an unwritten exemption.
For instance, a reporter for Forbes discussed with several DEI executives the stories she’d been hearing such as, “a white male leader lamenting that he got passed up for promotion eight times because a woman or person of color was selected over him,” or “an engineer being told that he could only promote diverse talent, even though there was a white man on the team who had more knowledge and skill for the role.”
True to form, the DEI execs dismissed these stories as people “being afraid of change,” or simply “having short term thinking.”
Thompson Reuters even published a guide entitled, “How to address DEI concerns of white men who feel they’re being disadvantaged.”
Rather than address the exclusion of certain people due to race or gender, they recommend a bunch of ways that DEI heads can console aggrieved workers: "What do you care about more: your own professional development, or creating an inclusive workplace environment?" "Remember, diversity is good for business!" "How can you be so selfish and think about your own career right now, when these DEI policies are contributing to the greater good?"
And it's not just white men who are getting excluded. There are famous cases where schools have excluded Asian American students because too many of them were at the top of the recruiting class. Why are we excluding our best and brightest from top schools? This was supposed to be about diversity, right?
DEI mandates are not about helping disadvantaged groups. They are about repaying evil for evil. In the woke narrative, America was built on oppression, and whoever has benefitted from it needs to be punished.
But, maybe instead of punishing people for their privilege we could consider reforms that actually help people.
There Is a Better Way
Businesses thrive when workers are all on the same team and are given equal opportunity to pursue excellence. That's what makes businesses win in the marketplace.
Better solutions to improving ethnic and gender representation include reforming under-performing schools, encouraging healthy family structures, and building a strong economy which can lift people out of poverty.
Imagine if the $8 billion spent on DEI in the US were put into skills training. Then, groups that are under-represented in the workplace could have a valuable skill set that they can use in any job that advances their career.
These diversity initiatives are not about helping minorities get ahead. Even the liberal media is beginning to admit that Diversity Trainings Don’t Work. That’s because they’re about virtue-signaling and punishing people for their privilege.
Excluding people based on their ethnicity or gender is not the answer to the current representation problems in the workplace. Excluding workers from advancement based on race or gender is a recipe for a toxic, divided workplace that breeds discontent and distrust.
People want something better. And that’s why RedBalloon.work is America’s fastest-growing job board in the freedom economy. Employers that sign up with RedBalloon pledge to treat all their employees equally, and to not discriminate based on arbitrary characteristics like race or sex.
As Americans, we should judge people for the quality of their work, not for what group they fit in. If you’re looking for values-aligned talent without all the woke nonsense, then post your jobs on RedBalloon today.
This is the second in a series on DEI. Read our first piece “D stands for Divisive” here.