Why would a business choose NOT to have a diversity based group to assist in recruiting and retention while opening communication lines between the community and management??? It seems that it would be in the best interests of every party involved to want additional communication so that misunderstandings and mis-communication could be minimized....
I owned my own business for a lot of years and I had an understanding, if you keep your employees happy, they will keep the customers happy, and it is the customers who really pay the paychecks. If an employee can to me with an idea, like a diversity group, it made sense to listen, especially if there was a good business case to employ the ideas.
I now work for a company that I have been trying for about a year now to start one of these groups. I have approached HR, but they will not let me talk to the decision makers above them who have declined the idea. Here is the business justification. We are a call center that competes with two other major call centers in our city for employees. The other two employers are active in the LGBT community here and are pulling highly (ok, over) qualified help in left and right, and because of the way these groups work, they have a much higher employee retention rate, which minimizes the costs associated with new hire employment and training. The response from our HR manager is that the idea was sent up the ladder and they said no. When I asked why, I was told that he didn't know, just that they said no. When I asked to speak to them to present the idea and show the significant cost savings to the company, I was told that I am not allowed to speak to them at all.
I guess I am not smart enough to understand the reasons behind this... Could someone please explain????
Comment by Victoria Smith on January 15, 2012 at 5:19pm Some business know how to make money without adding new programs. They have a defined business model that is working and delivering the profit they expect. In that case they don't want to change up a bunch of things and take risk. Or they could just be that they are bad listeners and could be missing a good opportunity.
Comment by Allison Elizabeth on January 15, 2012 at 5:43pm Also...Never underestimate the power of prejudice and ignorance.
Comment by Roxanne Croft-Barreto on January 15, 2012 at 10:38pm Victoria.... 1 thing I learned from business is that it is never staying the same.... it is either growing or contracting, profiting or losing money, moving forward or losing ground....
Comment by Sarah Anne Vestal on January 15, 2012 at 11:40pm Management is telling you that they are neither progressive nor interested in the future. Jump ship to a competitor!
Comment by Victoria Smith on January 16, 2012 at 11:00am True nothing is ever perfectly static. But some business owners have a remarkable ability to generate profit for themselves for their entire career while appearing to be close minded to everyone around them. It's just the reality of having a product or service people want and being able to provide it. And of course many of them fail too. You were just asking WHY and I gave my best estimate of why. Of course, I have no idea in this particular case what any of the actual merits are.
Comment by Victoria Smith on January 16, 2012 at 11:24am Yes it does float sometimes :) Some people are just good at making money just like some are good at fishing and nothing else. It is often the most annoying and apparently most closed minded people who make the most money. They do it because they stay focused on profit and minimize all other distractions. Many of them fail but shocking numbers of them succeed because they stay focused and keep attuned to what is happening closest to their businesses. This is particularly true in services business that don't appear very complicated but tend to generate a lot of competition. There is a lot to know about how to structure deals, compensation, etc and it takes years of experience in that particular business to have a holistic handle on all of it. Hence some success begets more success because you build a body of specific knowledge that that takes time for new competition to overcome.
Comment by Nicole Aime on January 16, 2012 at 8:24pm As Groucho said, "Whatever it is - I disagree!"
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