Is Unconscious Positive Discrimination Harming Your Board?
In the quest to create and sustain a more diverse workforce, organisations have to look at their business with a bird's-eye view and assess where they can make the most impact. For a lot of organisations, this starts at the board level, as a bottom-up approach to diversity can create retention issues if there are no senior role models for juniors to aspire to.
A top-down approach enables organisations to impact retention but also ensures that they aren’t making blind guesses. Instead, they can make informed decisions as they’ll have the right representatives at the board level!
Understanding what positive discrimination is defined as is crucial if you’re looking to hire more diversely for your organisation, as it can seriously impact your hiring strategy and in turn, your brand representation in the market.
“ Positive discrimination is when an organisation gives preferential treatment to people because they have a protected characteristic rather than based on their suitability. Many employers want to do as much as they can to create more representative workplaces by recruiting or promoting more diverse staff and, of course, they want to do it within the legislative framework.” - EW Group
In essence, positively discriminating against someone during the interview process would mean that you’re hiring them to “tick a box” rather than hiring someone who can truly add value to your organisation. At the board level, this can be even more harmful - as you need the brightest brains and best thinkers to work together for a shared goal. If you’ve made token hires, you’re going to create a disconnect. However, it can be argued that without positive discrimination no change can be made quickly, as the hiring pool for marginalised groups is already limited.
The goal is to educate
The first step in understanding positive discrimination is ensuring that you know it inside and out. Just like unconscious bias - unconscious positive discrimination falls into the same bracket.
Although your intentions may be good, positive discrimination is illegal and you must ensure that you have a conscious (and in-depth) understanding of why it’s harmful. You can still hire diversely without engaging in positive discrimination, you just need to educate yourself on what is best for your business.
The effects of positive discrimination in the workplace can have a detrimental impact on morale. “Existing employees could become dissatisfied if they feel hiring and promotion decisions are unfairly based on protected characteristics rather than skills and experience. There’s also the risk that unsuccessful job applicants could lodge a claim for discrimination at an employment tribunal.” - Peninsula Group
For example, if you decide to hire a woman at the board level simply because she is a woman (not because she is qualified enough) that is positive discrimination. The negative implications of this affect the candidate, as it may reinforce biases that others at the board level may have already had. Also, it negatively impacts the rest of the team as it shows that you don’t have strong hiring criteria for a senior position.
However, something you could do to create a more diverse hiring process is review all of your job descriptions to remove gender-coded language. This makes it more inclusive and will encourage more women to apply.
Another option is to also consult your internal or external talent partner and task them with finding an equal number of interested women to men who have the correct skills for the job. This creates a level playing field without discriminating against men for the role. The issue with minority groups is in the name - they’re already a minority so finding them is going to be difficult.
They’re also going to be less likely to apply for your role if they go on your company website and everybody looks acts and thinks the same. You need to actively approach - for example - women for your organisation if you want to impact gender diversity; and, you need to do it in a way that still creates a fair process for all genders applying for the job.
Particularly at the board level, if you can master this - you then create a much better environment for hiring diversely within other layers of your business. If those at the board level are bought into your hiring process and search methods (with proven success), then implementing this for mid-level and junior hires will be easier as a by-product.
Think of it as positive action
“Positive action in recruitment: What if two prospective employees are found to be equally qualified for a post? In that case, employers may choose the individual who represents a protected characteristic provided that the protected characteristic is under-represented in their organisation.” - EW Group
Taking positive action means that you’re able to uplift and encourage underrepresented groups without engaging in positive discrimination.
Some examples of this are as follows:
If you have a gender imbalance at the leadership level - encourage women within your organisation to undergo leadership training so they can internally apply.
If you want younger talent to join and grow with your company, do you offer apprenticeships or paid internships to accommodate this?
If you want to offer equal opportunities to those with different socioeconomic backgrounds, do you have courses that you’re able to send them on to upskill?
Ensure that you communicate this effectively across your organisation and that it’s in line with your values and culture. This makes it easier for individuals to understand whilst also reinforcing the positive outcome that you wish to see from it.
