An Open Letter to Hiring Leaders That Hinder Increasing Diversity
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Dear Hiring Leader,
This letter is for you...the one who impedes an organization’s ability to increase diversity.
Your company remains underrepresented with women, individuals who identify as LGBTQ+, people of color, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups. You have been misguided.
You are the one who believes that to increase diversity means taking away from people who look like you.
You believe that increasing diversity is reverse discrimination for those in your network.
You believe that to increase diversity is to create an advantage for some—at the exclusion of people just like you.
You believe that diversity of thought is enough even if everyone on your team homogenously identifies.
You are a quiet obstacle in the workplace. You have almost been overlooked, though employees feel the outcome of your decisions. No one holds you accountable.
The problem is especially urgent because you hold a leadership role. Your role affords you influence, access and power over so many critical milestones that underrepresented groups must pass through on the journey to the top of their professions.
You have influence, access, and power over who gets hired.
You have influence, access, and power over who gets promoted.
You have influence, access, and power over how performance ratings are decided.
You have influence, access, and power over who gets visibility on top projects.
You have influence, access, and power over who gets to network in your circle.
People are unable to advance in their career because of decisions you are making within job descriptions, during the interview and selection process, and even with who you decide to mentor and sponsor. Somehow, those who progress seem to identify similarly to you.
It is dangerous to have this level of influence, access, and power and be misguided, especially if you have justified your silent resistance based on miseducation.
Here are three truths that I want you, the quite obstacle and silent resistor, to know about diversity and the hiring process. Here is where I want to set some facts straight:
(#1) The hiring process is not broken. It was created for the success of only a few—namely white men. It is part of a system that is doing exactly as it was created to do centuries ago which is to keep white men in power. Keeping white men in power was at the expense of disenfranchising and excluding women, individuals who identify as LGBTQ+, people of color, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups.
If you do not believe me, then audit for impact. Look at your hiring data so that you can identify where the hiring process is creating barriers within your organization? I bet you will notice that it most frequently happens at milestones most frequently associated to decisions made by you.
(#2) To create equity in the hiring process does not mean that these groups need handouts. They do not need special treatment. They do not even need you to bend the rules in their favor. They do not need you to give them the same advantage white men have had for centuries. Creating equity in the hiring process means removing the landmines and roadblocks that are creating a disadvantage for them. It means repairing the outcomes of historical racism, not creating obstacles for those who have most benefited.
Here’s a tip. Once your hiring process audit is complete, do more than acknowledge the hurdle that’s creating a barrier to increased diversity. Acknowledge the biases that lead to each hurdle that candidates face. Do not just solve for the barrier. Solve for the bias. Otherwise, this same bias may eventually lead to a hurdle elsewhere in the hiring process.
(#3) Diversity includes everyone—yes, even white men. This means that increasing diversity means to look at where your organization is overrepresented and underrepresented. Acknowledge it. Then, increase representation so that populations within your workplace more closely match the availability of the same populations in the workforce.
Here’s one more tip for you. If you cannot see yourself as a part of diversity it will continue to feel like an us versus them. Diversity and diverse mean different and is in context to others, not just to one person. I alone can’t be diverse. We are diverse.
As a leader with the influence, access, and power that you have, there comes great responsibility. Get educated. Get clearer. Get help. But if you do not feel like you can step up to the critical responsibility of increasing diversity, then it is time for you to get out. If you do not want to help to increase diversity, at minimum, stop being a barrier to it.
Regards -
Jenn Tardy
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Join us in the comments section: What is one top tip that you would give to organization’s wanting to build a more inclusive and equitable hiring process?
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