It's Time to Talk about Race at Work

CHAPTER 5The Excuses People Use to Avoid Doing Anything about Diversity

In the last chapter, I listed reasons why diversity is good for business. You would think that every CEO and president of every company and every leader within an organization would be scrambling to make their business as diverse as possible. It's a no-brainer, right? And yet excuses are made for not being diverse. Here are some of the most common ones and why they don't hold up in defending an organization's lack of diversity.

“There are no women/people of color in this field.” or “We can't find any qualified candidates.” This is probably the top reason companies and leaders give for not creating a more diverse workforce. It's true that if your company is all-White or mostly White, it can be difficult to get diverse candidates to even apply. But that means you must modify your approach and find new and creative ways to recruit. This includes widening the talent pools you tap into and marketing open positions via different avenues. Studies show that even existing job descriptions can weed out diverse candidates before they apply. Chapter 13 offers some tips on how to recruit great candidates from a more diverse talent pool.

Another reason this is a weak excuse is because there are often obvious channels that can create a pipeline of qualified candidates. For example, let's say you're a media outlet and you want to hire a Black journalist to ensure that you can offer readers a Black perspective on the articles ...