Post-Diversity & Missing the Diversity Dividend
Sunday, March 13th, 2016
In these days of ultra-right-wing politics and the proud bigotry of a rebranded National Front it shouldn’t be surprising to find business jargon like post-diversity in serious conversation. Post-diversity is the idea that we’re past diversity; that we are beyond paying attention to equality of pay, conditions and opportunity for groups perceived as disadvantaged.
What post-diversity means is that an organisation with post-diversity values will employ people who are a cultural fit. People with the same values, who look and speak the same language.
By a cultural fit they often mean – white, entitled and probably young. What cultural fit means is educated like us and thinks like us and comes from where we arose.
In everyday application, this post-diversity recruitment landscape dictates that non-normative prospective employees (ethnic, indigenous, female, or other group outside the cultural fit), with the same qualifications or greater, will be intentionally passed aside for a normative prospective employee who fits a predetermined cultural image that matches existing employee profiles.
Here’s the hard truth about post-diversity. OK, there may be a small benefit to having everyone in an organisation belong to a certain cultural fit. These employees like the same things and share common fundamental values. They go to the same church; or not. And they are cultural clones of each other. However, any small benefit of hiring to a cultural fit is so infinitesimally small that it’s hardly worth mentioning. Let’s say, at best, it’s not a direct negative if all the employees get along.
