White Hot or When does doing DEI make your business more ugly

Hiring based on subjective beauty standards seems like a bit of "in your face" candidate selection criteria, doesn't it? Perhaps. But, how many of you have received an interview rejection feedback along the lines of "we did not feel you were a good *fit* for our team/company culture?" or "we felt that another candidate was a better *fit*", just to find out that the person hired over you looks and has a similar background to your interview panel?

Last weekend I watched the infamous White Hot on Netflix. While none of it shocked me (which I am not sure is a good thing), it did make me think of where I see similar practices every day. Here are some of my reflections.

DEI business case and reporting or How to shut down the conversation?

It seems to me that the goal of most Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) strategies and initiatives are to produce a report that year-on-year demonstrates increasing numbers of ‘non-white + non-male’ hires. This report is then seen as the organisation's response to the "what are you doing about DEI?" question. Yet, very rarely these reports answer this question beyond the obvious recruitment drive.

In the White Hot, after a number of public call-outs for discrimination and unjust working practices, Abercrombie & Finch (A&F) hired a Chief Diversity Officer and embarked on a mission to clear up the mess. One of the ways of showing that they had heard and were addressing their customers' concerns, was by releasing a PR piece supported by a DEI report presenting the considerable increase in non-white hires. Yet, the top suite and decision making spaces still remained 100% white and were working harder than ever on not being found out the next time rather than taking accountability for the harm they were creating.

The report in itself is not the problem. The problem is the intent. And, the intent is to shut down the DEI conversation for another year until the next D&I report is due.

Your annual DEI reports, internal audits and pulse surveys are what should be the conversation starters, not the closure.

What this does to the DEI conversation is make it a one-dimensional tally-up of different demographics hosted under the same roof rather than about what the organisation has done to address the aspects of their culture that create barriers for equity and inclusion. Maybe then your organisation would look a little less like this ??.

Any DEI report you produce should be helping you ask smarter and more nuanced questions about your environment: “As a New York based company, why do we struggle to hire and retain Black employees?”, “How does our employee base correlate with our struggle to capitalise on X consumer or entering Y market?”, "Why our most diverse teams are not outperforming our homogeneous teams?" and similar.

Instead, what we get is “we set a target of increasing our disabled employee base from 2% to 8%, but we only reached 3.5%. Oh well, we’ll do better next year.”

Accountability?or How to get away with some sketchy s#!t?

In the White Hot, when A&F was taken to the court by its ex employees on the basis of racial discrimination, the company settled the case and was “monitored” for further 6 years with ‘no real accountability measures’ attached to it.?

Shocking? Again, not really...

In general, businesses have very unhealthy relationship with accountability; it is especially loose the higher we move and the more elusive the topic. So, DEI is the perfect soil for that. We see the strategy, the public commitment, the Chief Diversity Officer hire, some petty-cash DEI budget, some basic training, maximum focus on diverse recruitment, and yet no accountability measures in place.

It is not the accountability that is being polished up every year. It is the performance.

Diverse recruitment or How to get a token hire to validate shortcomings and wrongdoings?

For A&F it was two Asian-Americans who “approved” the racist T-shirt designs, as ‘non-offensive’. If two Asians approve, it must be ok.

In the UK, we have Priti Patel on a mission to deport all the ‘immigrants’. If a daughter of an immigrant parents approves, it must be ok.

In the US, we have Scottie Nell Hughes advocating for abortion ban. If a woman approves, it must be ok.

While for some the internalised racism, sexism and xenophobia manifest into harmful policies, others simply do not feel psychologically safe enough to object. Same goes for your one-marginalised-person DEI band. Them “approving” your most basic DEI strategy for the year, does not give you a pass or send a message that you’re done.?

Either way, one marginalised person’s stamp on something that demonises, demeans or excludes whole communities, is not a valid stamp of approval.?

Equity or How to spot the “cool kids”?

In the A&F example, while the company was publicly hiring "more diverse people", their products still catered for the "cool kids", which is what many of their marginalised employees aspired to, but most couldn't afford.

It is okay to be specific about your "ideal client" or serve for a very specific niche. However, while capitalism reigns and dollar signs keep spinning, it is not responsible nor sustainable to build business and wealth while directly harming, demeaning and oppressing communities outside your target audience.

Who does your organisation cater for? Have a look around your boardroom. More likely than not it will be evident from the looks and the success stories of getting there.

To wrap up...

The documentary captured my attention, as before watching this I had not even heard of such brand as A&F ('cause I am Eastern European AF and in the 90s my parents bought me clothes by the kilo not in brand stores). However, while this example might seem as extreme and ‘in your face’, it is more common than you may think… Similar toxic practices, behaviours, language still live within the most senior spaces, we've simply become better at hiding behind good PR, useless DEI business cases, ‘colourful’ shop windows and culture that makes wrongdoings disappear rather than model accountability.?

What are your reflections and thoughts from watching the documentary or from reading my reflections? Let me know in the comments ??