Race-based DEI hiring programs aren’t at their best in the C-suite. They aren’t at their best in your managerial ranks, either.
However, race-based DEI hiring programs do belong somewhere.
That somewhere is in early career development. Here’s why.
When businesses provide diverse candidates with robust entry-level opportunities that include both skill and character development, they cultivate talent that will successfully compete for more advanced opportunities on merit. We can replace the current DEI framework, which often lowers performance standards to meet metrics such as in the case of Washington state offering alternative pathways to attorney licensure that didn’t require passing the bar exam, with this more viable and sustainable approach to provide better outcomes for diverse candidates.
I have seen this firsthand as the founder of a Chicago-based social enterprise, Southside Blooms. We lift disadvantaged youth out of poverty by providing them jobs on urban flower farms and a flower shop in Englewood, one of America’s most notoriously poor and dangerous neighborhoods. According to Census data, about 40% of Englewood’s residents live in poverty. Englewood’s crime rate is more than double the national average.
We don’t develop tiered standards. This is the practice of adjusting expectations based on an applicant or employee’s background. An example would be if someone is hired for a management role to fill a diversity quota even though other applicants might be more qualified based on merit to make sure everyone has an opportunity.
Instead, we cultivate the young people’s skills and talents so that they rise to meet our high expectations. They develop everything from basic workplace skills, like managing time and interpersonal communication, to high-end floral design. This prepares them for a future in which they earn jobs based on merit.
Companies including Walmart, Boeing, Lowe’s, Ford, Toyota, etc. have rolled back DEI efforts as part of a larger DEI backlash. (Now, some are facing backlash to the rollbacks). One reason is a perception that people didn’t earn their place, which led to resentment and discontentment. Another is that they simply aren’t effective.
The merit-based approach demonstrates that people who face barriers can still achieve great things. We shouldn’t sell people short based on their race, and that’s what checkbox-based DEI does. It tells people that they are not enough and they lack capability simply because of their skin color.
This isn’t unprecedented. Historically, diverse candidates who lacked access and opportunity have revolutionized entire industries. Jackie Robinson, for example, had an outsized impact on professional baseball. In 1947, Major League Baseball didn’t allow African Americans to play. Branch Rickey, then general manager of the former Brooklyn Dodgers, believed segregation was wrong and he wanted a new competitive edge by developing an untapped talent pool. He tapped Robinson who had a great season and his hall-of-fame career helped to lay a foundation for baseball to become a global phenomenon—all of which helped turn MLB into the multibillion-dollar sports behemoth it is today.
Fast-forward to the present day on the Southside of Chicago. This same ground-up approach that cultivates entry-level talent works with a very unlikely population in an unexpected industry. Every day I see how mentorship and training at-risk youth from some of America’s roughest neighborhoods can disrupt the floral industry. It happens through a community-based platform for young employees to compete with Chicago’s best florists in the marketplace all on merit. It’s impressive to see how teenagers and young adults with no prior background in floristry develop skills and creativity and are hired for those skills rather than a box-checking exercise.
The Declaration of Independence emphasizes that all people are created equal and have a God-given right to pursue happiness. Having the right to pursue happiness is not the same as having happiness guaranteed. This principle applies in the workplace. A job is an opportunity for someone to pursue their career happiness.
Diverse candidates often face unique barriers and lack the necessary tools such as time management, professional communication, appropriate work gear, etc. in their career-building pursuits. However, it is misguided and does a grave disservice to these candidates’ abilities to lower job standards to check off a DEI quota box. We must not lower standards to force corporate DEI outcomes that assume diverse candidates can’t succeed without these adjustments.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said in his “I Have A Dream” speech that he hoped for a nation where his children would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” The ultimate goal should be to elevate all people to the point that they can compete on character and merit without denying their unique racial/ethnic identity.
This demonstrates how you can look at DEI hiring as a flower garden: When you want more flowers, you can’t just jam cut stems into the soil and hope for the best. They’ll soon wither because they don’t have any roots. The best way to grow more flowers is to plant seeds and cultivate them. That’s what we do at Southside Blooms and what we need to do to help all applicants regardless of background pursue their happiness.
