Renton diversity plan may actually cause less diversity

The City of Renton aims to be more inclusive with its workforce.

Extremist Seattle activists proven wrong yet again

The city is aiming to hire more workers who reflect the diversity of the area. Somewhat ironically, they’re instituting a plan that may likely lead to a less diverse workforce.

Renton officials, according to the Renton Reporter, are implementing a process that allows for, at least initially, anonymous applications that remove names, addresses, and any other identifiable information that could lead the hiring manager to make decisions informed by their implicit bias. Meaning, if one of their hiring managers holds a bias that makes them less likely to hire women, we’re letting them judge applications without knowing the gender.

Perhaps we shouldn’t let sexists hire anyone?

City officials believe this will help workplace diversity. It likely won’t.

In 2017, the Behavioral Economics Team of the Australian Government conducted a blind recruitment study that implemented similar rules in the application process to what Renton is doing. Surprise, the results showed a less diverse workforce, with fewer women and minority candidates being hired. In fact, the bias in hiring when they had access to personally identifiable information, indicates it favored women and minority groups.

As is usually the case, you can find a study that claims virtually anything on any particular study and many of you may point to a 2003 study indicating resumes with “white” sounding names did better during the application process than “black” sounding names.

Fair enough, but consider this. We’re considerably more “woke” in 2018 than 2003.

The entire goal of Renton officials is more diversity, right? Presumably, this position is informed by the knowledge that there are many qualified diverse workers and they’re not, for whatever reason, being hired. That means they’re going into the process wanting to hire a certain demographic.

Then, perhaps, you should pay closer attention to the diverse candidates who apply; spend extra time on them to make sure you’re not discriminating. And if, even after you give them extra attention, you have a white, male workforce, there are two things to consider: 1) those groups happen to be the best candidates, at the time, that are applying and you should focus more on outreach to get qualified, diverse workers and/or 2) your hiring managers are sexist and/or racist and perhaps they should be replaced.

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