Hillary, Trump, Human Resources & The Future of The World : The Most Epic Fight of Our Time

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. His hands can't hit what his eye's can't see.

Two notable events happened over the last 7 days in the United States : death of Mohamed Ali and nomination of Hillary Clinton to run for the office of President.

For the first time in the history of the United States a major political party nominated a woman to go up for vote for the highest governmental position. This has occurred nearly 100 years after women were granted their natural right to vote as equal citizens of this country and in coincidence it turns out this has happened following a similarly historic election to this office of an African American man by the same party. Recall that women were granted the right to vote in the US in 1920 and African American males were granted the right to vote in 1870 (at least on paper). The order of things may be coincidence but if not immediately stimulate a pause, should at least raise an eyebrow while you read the morning news feed. In additional historical significance, Hillary will face off against Donald Trump, a bombastic business character, who is not a politician by training but has seemingly magical abilities of persuasion and most known for divisive comments regarding minority groups (and women). Trump is running with a catchy political phrase, "Make America Great Again"... Again, discerning eyebrows may notice how this phrase is oriented in the past, not the future. 

The other big thing that happened is that Mohammed Ali, a US boxing legend and great striving spirit, passed away. Muhammad was known as much for his charisma, humor and audacious bravado as he was for his ability to fight.

Fighter was not an accurate description, he could be better described as a poet fighter. A great spirit. He fought as much out of the ring as he did in the ring. His victories in the ring just brought who he was home in a singular moment anybody in the world could understand even if they couldn't understand him fully. People of all race and creed could see who Mohammed Ali was and most people respected him for his art regardless if they agreed with him or not. He was a part of a tumultuous but important time that led to today, the future. Ali was one of many figures who changed our view of the capabilities: physical mental, and spiritual of African Americans as well as Muslims.

In honor of the second, I am going to address the first, which I believe is going to be THE EPIC FIGHT of this year. 

If we have 4 more months of this fight I wish that Hillary would be as fun as Ali. Perhaps this stage is different, as are the consequences. 

I'll talk about Hillary but to understand this in context let's talk about Gender and the Labor Force. 

Over the last 60 years there has been a dramatic shift in employment for women in the United States, with increasing female labor participation. In some roles, Sales for example, women have gone from less than 1% representation to over 50%. These changes have had dramatic consequences for how we view women, the role that women play in our lives and impact on the quality of life of women. Yet today (the future of the past) we still find major differences in income (women on average make less than men for the same work), and major differences in the rate at which women are promoted into leadership positions (the promotion rate of women is dwarfed by that of men). This is factual, supported by data and perpetuating today.

A few notable HR executives have come out recently against the mechanisms that have assisted the perpetuation of the sexism of the past until today. Here is great piece by Laszlo Bock, head of People at Google a 7 time #1 best company to work for award winner:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2016/04/29/how-the-whats-your-current-salary-question-hurts-the-gender-pay-gap/ Despite these efforts and others the number of female executives at companies like Google is still deplorable and this too will effect the overall wage disparity between men and women and the perpetuating culture of decision making that got us where we are today.

How did we get to where we are in history today? How do we make America great..., um, for everyone? There are a lot of views on this and a lot of talk. This could be a book, probably not a blog post. I'll do my best to be brief, which unfortunately will leave a lot to be said. In the interest of brevity, let's look at a single example.

Some time ago I worked for a Japanese company. A Japanese executive in a curious, well intentioned, yet somewhat cute way, asked the librarian to research the progression of the US labor force to better understand how they could change the culture of female exclusion in Japan to get more women to work in pharmaceutical sales like the U.S. In Japan, the executive had a hard time recruiting women for these positions. They had asked the librarian, and she asked me. That little project was the most fun I have ever had at work, and I'll share some of it with you now. This is all public data from the U.S. department of labor and/or US Census.

I'll spare you the awkward foreplay, it boiled down to : "Boys, the bottom line is that you and they just need to decide to do it. However, in the US there are two big reasons we started to see changes in the workforce (ironically two reason other than WWII, which I diplomatically dodged) : #1. A series of laws. #2 Our own profit motives."

Here is the visual I provided...

A spirit of conflict led to a series of forced changes that led to an awareness that women can indeed work, just like men can, and in some cases perform the work better. E.G. pharmaceutical rep. This is a high wage position, particularly relative to the old notion of "women's work". At first it was a major paradigm shift to get men and women to believe women could travel away from the home (I know this sounds absurd now). However, they tried it and had great success. At some point the pharmaceutical companies got hooked on it. Today, 60 years after the first female pharmaceutical representative, most pharmaceutical sales reps are women. Why? Women, on average, perform this type of sales work better than men. We may start with bias but subject to scrutiny, eventually rationality and profit motive will take over. Just like you can count, you can count on it. Like a vaccine, the laws prick a little at first, and sometimes on a case by case basis an individual can be detrimentally impacted, but in the long term these things are in our best interest as a society.

Here is the supporting information I shared:

A confluence of factors have contributed to the increase in female employment: 

1. The world's introduction to women doing "men's work" while the men were off at war during World War II
2. A large social movement for rights of both women and minorities
3. Legislation in response to political pressure raised by social movements
4. Changes in job requirements - removal of stereotypes and non-job or non-performance related selection criteria
5. Educational achievements of women. Supported by parents, scholarship programs, government grants, etc.
6. After women began to work, there was a gradual recognition that they could perform the job as well or better than men. Stereotypes began to diminish.
7. An economic reality that require a large percentage of American households to have two incomes to maintain a suitable standard of living.

There are several reasons why pharmaceutical companies have embraced female participation in the sales force:          

1. Pharmaceutical companies no longer wanting to be associated with the traditional image of the "traveling salesman".
2. Most doctors are male - initially there may be a novelty advantage that provide women with greater access to doctors.
3. Women may be better at relational selling - women are generally perceived to be less aggressive and more relationship oriented.
4. Many doctor's are thought to be sensitive to perceived threats to their authority - women may be less threatening to these doctors.
5. Because of their historical exclusion, women may be more motivated to prove themselves than a man is.
6. Preparation and appearance.
7. Women may be naturally better communicators.

What else remains to be said, done?      

Unfortunately, while women have taken a representative share of the overall labor force, women have had consistent difficulty rising into the ranks of executive level positions, which has been slow to change. 

These graphs combine manager level positions with executive positions. If you were to view executive level only, the differences are stark. In fact, at each increasing level of authority you see a decreasing representation of women.

There are several barriers that have limited female employment and advancement into management:        

1. Direct discrimination
2. Indirect discrimination through work expectations or practices
3. Social norms, expectations, and stereotypes
4. The time required to bear children (if they chose) may set women back in their careers. Several prime years of employment can be lost.
5. Lack of safe, high quality, and affordable access to childcare. Women historically have been required to take on more of the burden of child rearing.
6. Isolation. Exclusion from activities or social circles important for being noticed to gain employment or advance in one's career.
7. Stagnation. Lack of movement up or out among the management ranks limits rapid and successful promotion of more recent entrants to the labor market.

All this brings us back to the Hillary Cliton to run for the highest political office. Indeed, while she has no where near the charisma of Muhammad Ali, and does not have the bombastic qualities of Donald Trump, she in some ways has the audacity of Muhammad Ali. People who sound and act in ways that are different than we would expect (a woman "acting like a man" for example) it can be a bit startling and it can even be off putting. However, if you can look past that you might see the heart of a champion. Someone that is willing to do what they have to do, despite the difficulty, to achieve the dreams they have set for themselves, and to stand up for what they believe. This can be disturbing, our view of these things change over time. You can make up your own mind regarding Hillary and Trump. I, for one, take great care to try to see what the events of today mean in the scale of history and try to never stand on the wrong side, the side that is collapsing under the future. To me this is what data is all about.

To this point... I know I am widely read by HR Analytics professionals - some of you may take keen interest in some of the Analytical positions for the Hillary team or know of someone who would. Here : https://jobs.lever.co/hillaryclinton : Look under Analytics. To be fair, I would consider posting any similar jobs for Trump, although he has publically stated he won't have any. Maybe he will, maybe he won't, I'm not looking.

Besides leaving your job to go join the Hillary campaign, if any of you would have interest in forming a "Data Science After Dark" society to offer analytical assistance to the Hillary campaign let me know - I'm curious if we could put a late night crew together to lend a hand : send note to [email protected].

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A Summary of U.S. Gender and Diversity Legislation Referenced in Graph Above  

 

Civil Rights Act of 1866       

• Prohibits discrimination based on race or ethnicity in formation or enforcement of contracts.    
• Allows for punitive and compensatory damages in cases of intentional racial discrimination.     

14th Amendment to the United States Constitution (1868)      

• “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.”    

Equal Pay Act (1963)          

• Prohibits discrimination based on sex in the payment of compensation for jobs that are similar in terms of skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. 

Civil Rights Act of 1964 – Title VII 

• Prohibits discrimination on the basis of any of the following protected classes: Race, Color, Religion, Sex (Gender), National Origin, Age, Disability
• Created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in the Dept. of Labor to administer and enforce the provisions of the act.
• Imposed certain record-keeping and reporting requirements on employers. 
• The act expressly prohibits retaliation against individuals exercising their rights under the act.   

Executive Orders 11246 (1965), 11375 (1967), and 11478 (1969) 

• Applies enforcement of previous legislation to government agencies as well as federal contractors with contracts in excess of $10,000; and to take positive steps to eliminate employment barriers for women and minorities. 
• Federal agencies, as well as contractors with contracts of more than $50,000, must develop a written affirmative action plan to increase the participation of protected classes in the workforce.          

Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978)       

• Amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964- prohibits employment discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.      

Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection (1978)    

• Set of administrative regulations published in the Code of Federal Regulations. The document provides guidance as to how employers should manage their various employment systems (recruitment, testing, selection, promotion, discipline, and so forth) to comply with federal employment law prohibiting discrimination.    
• Defines two requirements for proving that illegal discrimination has not occurred through a particular employment practice: 
• Employer can prove there was no disparate impact on protected classes.    
• Employer can prove the practice is job related/a business necessity. Tests/Procedures must have to do with the job and be valid predictors of performance on the job.   

Civil Rights Act of 1991      

• In case of a court case the burden of proof is on the employer to prove they did not discriminate. 
• Allowed for jury trials and compensatory and punitive damages.     

Family Medical Leave Act    

• The FMLA provides an entitlement of up to 12 weeks of job-protected, unpaid leave for birth of a child or a serious health condition of the employee or family members.    

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