Transcript

Board of Directors

Gentlemen, I think we all know that diversity is a big topic right now. Over 90% of our employees are white, and 80% of the people working in tech and dev here are men. And our wage-gap numbers aren't great. That looks bad on us.

Fortunately, Sara here has some experience in this area and has agreed to help us brainstorm this issue.

It's best to tackle this from a few directions, since these issues tend to be complex. Many companies start by creating groups that are populated by and represent the interests of minority employees.

Mhm...mhm...that makes sense.

These groups can review and advise on things like hiring practices, code of conduct and harassment policies, training and workshops, in-office facilities, and awareness raising.

Right, yes....well, that certainly sounds like a positive first step!

Great - so all you have to do is make sure you're setting aside hours for those people to do this work...

Oh! We thought that this could be more of a... volunteer thing. Like our baseball league!

Volunteer? But these people will be spending time and energy on initiatives that will improve your business.

Yes, but, well, they're also going to benefit too, right?

Look, our diversity budget barely covers the float we put in the Pride Parade each year. It's simply not feasible to throw more money at this right now.

Anyways, thank you Sara, we'll put our a call for volunteers on our Diversity Committee right away!

Gentlemen, I feel really good about this.

Oh, and make sure we create a media release about this once it gets going. Let them know that we're really committed to change. Now, next on the agenda....

Committee

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Robot Hugs
New comic!
This is really common and it makes me want to scream.
Dear way too many companies: You don't get a cookie for publicly noting that your industry or sector has problems with hiring and retaining PoC, women, and/or LGBQ and trans folk, and then expect them to volunteer to fix it. Put your damn money where your mouth is.
You want people to spend their own time, away from family, friends, and home, to develop initiatives that will bring better talent into your company, improve employee retention and loyalty, and be great for social perception, and then you want them to be thankful for the opportunity to do so for free? Fuck that. Look, a lot of us do free activism work. And yes, some of us do free private sector activism work. But at its root the resistance to appropriately compensate diversity activists within companies is the message that diversity is, itself, worthless.
So if you want people to help bring value to your company, you need to value the people who are doing so. Make it part of their jobs. Bake it into the structure of your organization.
I see so many places that are willing to spend money on big, visible 'awareness' events, conferences, speakers, ads... and stop at the line of paying the people that organize this work. The message is clear: the value to the company for diversity is advertising.
Now, I'm not accusing these places of being totally evil, like this is some giant, conscious plan. I don't even think they often know that they're doing this. Social awareness on both an individual and institutional level tends to default towards the visible rather than the introspective - for example, many white folks (of which I am one, of course) are very concerned with not being seen as racist, rather than working on internal racism (hence the tendency towards weird defensive anger when one of us gets called-in on something).
So I'm totally willing to believe that most companies, when they start these kinds of initiatives, are really truly believing they're addressing the problem. But the work most be addressed on multiple scales, both the social and visible (events) and the individual (compensation). If you say you value your marginalized and minority employees, then for fuck' s sake, actually value them.