Let’s All Hold Hands and Sing Kumbaya

August 12, 2008 · Filed Under Learning and Living 

My first exposure to any sort of serious form of diversity training started at the university I went to. I was on a university diversity committee, somehow suckered into the role by my boss at the time. I walked into the room and, not surprisingly, nobody looked like me. I remembered how miserable I was because it obviously lacked effectiveness and it took up quite a bit of time. Imagine going to a two hour meeting and feeling like you went in the opposite direction of where you should have gone every time? That was every one of these meetings.

In these meetings, we talked about fostering understanding, creating an environment free of hate or celebrating our different cultures. We talked about getting speakers, free concerts, movie nights, or [insert any event where we offered free food to poor students]. Everybody patted each other on the back at the end and said great job so I didn’t have the heart (or the guts) to tell everyone that we didn’t accomplish much.

It was one of those moments where I promised myself “Never again.” It was also a moment where I saw HR could be a big factor in actually fixing some of the things that hurt diversity. And I wasn’t going to do it through holding worthless meetings.

Fostering understanding, creating an environment free of hate or celebrating our different cultures is important. It is also a band-aid, an oversimplified solution for a serious problem and completely ineffective. Imagine if female employees were angry about differences in pay. So you go on a retreat, talk about people’s feeling and end the camp by everyone holding hands and singing kumbaya. Great retreat, right?

Wrong. Failure. Utter failure.

You go back to work Monday morning and female employees are still being paid differently. Nothing has been resolved. People may understand the issues but they don’t fix it.

Having an understanding about different cultures and promoting a hate-free environment may feel good but it doesn’t fix anything. Actions fix things. Actions are more important (but more difficult).

So while you are patting yourselves on the back in your diversity committee meetings this month, ask yourself what have you done lately? Have your actions resulted in less of a need for a diversity committee? The main goal of diversity committees should be eliminating the need for a diversity committee right? Really great employers have relieved many of the institutional barriers that hold back people from succeeding.

How far along are you in eliminating your diversity committee?

Check out HRM Today for the latest in the HR blogosphere.

Comments

8 Responses to “Let’s All Hold Hands and Sing Kumbaya”

  1. HR Minion on August 12th, 2008 9:28 am

    Thankfully, this is one committee I’m not on!Yet.

    [Reply]

  2. Bekki on August 12th, 2008 2:23 pm

    Well, have you tried taping different races to your foreheads yet? Or a clever acronym like HERO?

    [Reply]

  3. Lance Haun on August 13th, 2008 11:02 am

    Bekki -

    I have not tried that. Maybe our next exercise will include more of that.

    [Reply]

  4. Leslie on August 13th, 2008 12:49 pm

    That all sounds great, but what kind of action would you suggest?

    [Reply]

  5. Lance Haun on August 13th, 2008 1:02 pm

    That really depends on what you need to fix, right? If it is a compensation issue, take action to fix it. If there seems to be a lack of diversity, broaden your recruiting focus. If there is a lack of acceptance of diversity, train your managers to properly deal with it.

    [Reply]

  6. J Murphy on August 13th, 2008 1:28 pm

    Penn & Teller have a great show on SHOWTIME network called Bullsh*t. Season 6/Episode 7 called “Sensitivity Training” digs into this issue in great depth and exposes the reality…corporations, schools, even sports teams offer these inane “trainings” just to cover there “assets” in this litigious society we live in. It’s cheaper for their bottom line to offer these courses and protects corporate interests when a million dollar harrassment lawsuit crops up in the workplace.

    [Reply]

  7. Jay on August 13th, 2008 1:43 pm

    You seem to be confusing diversity with discrimination. Diversity in your work place is a legitimate objective (as long as you don’t discriminate in trying to achieve it). Discrimination on the other hand is never morally acceptable. In your example, if the female employee is being discriminated against on pay issues, it is a matter for your HR and legal people and should be dealt with aggressively. The fact that she is there at all suggests you already have “diversity” at least with regard to gender. Too often the term “Diversity” has become a code word for “it’s OK to discriminate in order to achieve this business objective”.

    [Reply]

  8. Lance Haun on August 13th, 2008 1:51 pm

    @ Murphy - You’re right. That’s what is sad about this whole thing. Meeting the legal requirements is more important than doing something that is meaningful.

    @ Jay - I disagree that I am confused about the issue. I didn’t say that it was a certainty that discrimination was happening. I am just using the example that these sorts of issues (whether it be pay, employee relations, morale, etc…) are often tackled through diversity trainings and other useless tactics that do nothing to help the diversity nor the discrimination issues.

    [Reply]

Leave a Reply




  • About

    Your HR Guy is a Human Resources Generalist practicing in the field. But don't let that fool you, this isn't a boring blog. I seek relevance and humor in a place we will spend much of our lives. Everything from workplace issues, job seeking and terrible bosses. Read more...

    View Lance Haun [lancehaun@gmail.com]'s profile on LinkedIn



    Featured on:




    Rate this Blog at Blogged

    Alltop, confirmation that I kick ass

  • RSS HRM Today

    • Magic Johnson Reinvents His Brand From Basketball to Business
      Branding Magic Johnson When I think of Magic Johnson, the following words come to mind: Lakers - He took the Lakers NBA team to many championships. Basketball - He played basketball for most of his life. HIV - While playing basketball he was diagnosed with HIV. Philanthropy - He founded the The Magic Johnson Foundation. How would you brand Magic Johnson? Magic [...]
      Dan Schawbel
    • SHRM, Kennedy, & Blowing Up Human Resources
      When you believe in destroying the traditional model of Human Resources — much like I do — you run into major obstacles. The biggest obstacle in my life is also the biggest elephant in the room: it’s The Society for Human Resources Management. SHRM is the most influential Human Resouces association in America. It’s staffed with [...]
      Laurie Ruettimann
    • Stand up for Tolerance: 10th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance
      Today is the 10th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, dedicated to all those transgender folks who died as a result of anti-transgender violence. Thankfully, I have never lost a loved one to such an act of violence; but, I would never forgive myself if I had not spoken up and taken a stand on [...]
      Totally Consumed
    • The Best Piece of Advice
      I’m a bit reflective today because I’m formulating my Zig Ziglar inspired Wall of Gratitude (to be blogged later this weekend…stay tuned).  It has me thinking about all of the pivotal moments and life-changing people I’ve experienced in my short professional career. I presented the topic of MBTI preferences and Team Building to a group of [...]
      speakingofmbti
    • 10 Solutions To Our Ailing Economy
      Yes, I am going to nag about the economy again.  My economist friend in Oregon agreed with my posting yesterday.  He told me that there is only one Fortune 500 company left in Oregon (Nike); the rest put on their Nike’s and ran as fast they could away from this unfriendly-to-business state.  The same happened to Silicon [...]
      rulrici
    • Develop Your Strengths or Fix Your Weaknesses?
      Gary Vaynerchuk, blogger and creator of Wine Library TV, had a fantastic (and short) video on his personal blog yesterday titled “I suck!” Gary spends the first 60 seconds rattling off a list of things he’s horrible at, and then begins to explain how instead of dwelling on what he’s bad at, he’s instead chosen to [...]
      Chris Ferdinandi
    • Tip of the Week – Test Candidate Matching
      It’s Friday afternoon, and you just posted a position with your applicant tracking system (ATS). The position has been placed on your website, job boards and the other usual sources. When you come to work on Monday, you realize that you have had over 200 candidates apply for the position. Sound familiar? Well it doesn’t necessary [...]
      Jake Stupak
    • Fiddling While Rome Burns
      “Rome” is burning.  The “Rome” I am talking about is the private sector of the U.S. economy.  Last month, the only job sector that grew was government jobs.  I get this feeling that we are pulling a “Nero” watching this thing happen and are hopelessly standing by not doing anything about it.  I read HR Blogs, including [...]
      rulrici
    • Building Community in a Face-to-Faceless World
      Note from Lance: I asked my former employer to do a guest post about some of the cool things they are doing with some of the interesting challenges they face. Today’s author is Kristen Leal who manages QualitySmith’s PR and Talent Strategy. Thanks! I was filling up my water bottle one day at work when I [...]
      Lance Haun
    • Can HR REALLY be a Profit Center?
      In recent discussions I have heard two schools of thought regarding how HR can be viewed as a profit center: 1) By reducing costs such as absenteeism, turnover, and bad hires, HR can add more to the bottom line 2) HR can add value to the organization by increasing revenue I believe we are getting pretty good at [...]
      Cathy Martin

  • RSS Background Check News