EWJ FEB 59 2025 web - Flipbook - Page 17
Diversity (DEI) Maths
There is nothing more divisive than DEI in business. If you doubt this, listen to Donald Trump
or Robbie Starbuck in the US – or read the comments to Juliet Samuel’s interview with Peter
Whittle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJz7aBFlygc .
However, it is likely that companies with over 250 staff
will be required to augment their gender pay gap disclosure with a similar analysis of ethnicity. The FCA
and PRA have promised too much in their proposals
in CP23/20. Firms such as Aviva have annual anti
racism courses, which all employees must attend. This
will exacerbate grandiloquent claims and aims.
For example, some of the UK’s most coveted jobs,
from firms shown (not named) are below.
Diversity Maths is a mechanism for rationalising
diversity understanding and goals.
It started when I noticed that a large accountancy firm
boasted that their recruitment for a recent year included 46% BAME recruits (and, presumably, 54%
White ones).
I had also just read about the Furlong v Cheshire Police
Employment Tribunal hearing, where Matthew Furlong had been discriminated against, due to being
White, Heterosexual and Male (“WHaM”). The
Deputy Chief Constable left soon after.
The 24% comes from an analysis of First and Upper
Second recent degrees. You will see that anything
below 10 and above 40 is ridiculously unlikely. If you
have been rejected from such a firm, and fall into the
WHaM category, it might be worth talking to an
employment lawyer…
Second, we can look at the degree to which a category
is preferred. If we looked at 1,000 candidates for 100
jobs, we might expect, given an even distribution of
merit by race, 1 in 4 successful candidates would be
BAME. Assume they are each ranked by scores of between 1 and 1,000. An exact, though in practice unlikely, BAME distribution might be BAME people in
positions 1,5,9,13,…,93,97. As expected,1 in 4 would
deliver 25 successful BAME candidates.
The paperwork needed for this case – reviewing
hundreds of application forms and details of their
treatment - looked horrendous. I wondered if a quick
process could be developed to shortcut this, while, not
replacing the close examination of each successful candidates applications and their treatment, would be a
guide as to whether such an examination would be
likely to bear fruit.
Thus the “Curve of DEIth” was born.
This rather fanciful definition relates to the probability
that, given no further information, a certain proportion with a characteristic will be recruited in a selection
of, say, 100 offered a job, from a large population with
an agreed proportion with that characteristic.
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
Now, let’s assume we give each BAME candidate a
covert points credit, so they move up the ranking.
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