Why "rather than their ability"? Are you suggesting that hiring diverse candidates makes it impossible to hire skilled workers? Why would that be so?
When diversity is a qualification along with aptitude and experience, people are right to question.
A parallel discussion (and recent litigation) for college admissions is happening as well. Many black people admitted to top schools are only admitted because they are black. The stats show that black people admitted to some top schools need much lower SAT scores, while Asians need much higher (vs whites). This might not be the most polite way to phrase the situation, but it is absolutely true.
Are their grades lower? What about their post-graduation job outcomes? Do they cost the campus more money? How much money do they make the campus by playing on basketball and football teams for the university? What do the on-campus crime and harassment statistics look like if broken down by race and gender - do the diverse students cause more trouble or less?
If you're going to say something like 'they were only admitted because they are black' and then 'absolutely true' I hope you're prepared to back it up, otherwise you just sound racist - and I'm sure that's absolutely not true!
No, he's saying that they were selected over people who performed better in the interviews and other selection criteria because of the color of their skin/gender/religion/...
Now in some way that's equivalent, in the sense that they would not have been selected if not for their skin color (they would have been third or fifth on the list where the top spot gets hired), but in other ways it's not. It does not mean they don't have any ability at all, for instance. Just less than would be required if they were white males. And I'm sure if executive compensation is tied to this, that there will in fact be cases of no ability at all, but I doubt it will be the common case.
And we all know the methods executives will use to hit their targets while lying about this, for instance to make sure it looks fair, when it isn't. Going in and changing interview reports and scores after the fact to make sure they "didn't select based on skin color", except it'll be blatantly obvious for their colleagues that's exactly what happened. And in fact I bet those other team members will have to work more, harder and ... to compensate for the lower abilities.
Because that is literally what the article is about. Unless you're under the impression that they previously hired candidates based on something other than ability, I don't see how else you could read this. Companies typically try to hire the most skilled person they can afford for a position. MS is now incentivizing leaders to favor women and certain racial groups because their previous hiring methods didn't result in the desired number of them being hired.
> Are you suggesting that hiring diverse candidates makes it impossible to hire skilled workers? Why would that be so?
You're intentionally twisting words.
Availability for the position, quantity of experience, leadership skill, willingness to learn, familiarity with the problem space, quality of personal references, interpersonal skills... all that along with 'how good are you at writing code'. What is the huge negative impact of adding 'diversity' to that set of evaluation factors? Are you arguing that adding diversity would actually push the most qualified candidates to the bottom of the pile somehow? If all things are truly equal, adding diversity to the sort has no impact on the ability of qualified candidates to get hired.
All the factors you listed are equivalent to or surrogates of that fundamental requirement. Or, in the case of leadership skill, are excess to requirements unless the role involves leadership.
All races and sexes being equal on average does not mean that all candidates are equal on average. If they were, we wouldn't have interviews.
Almost always, one candidate will be better. Necessary, that candidate will be a member of one race or sex. If any of the other candidates is a member of another race or sex, and that race or sex is one which the hirer is incentivized to hire people for, a less-suitable candidate will be hired if the hirer follows his incentives.
So, if you have a quota (or a bonus) of diverse hires needed, you will either end up lowering your standards or spend a lot more money in order to fill the hiring needs.
Is the pool smaller because you primarily rely on referrals from your (already not especially diverse) workforce and applications from people off the street? Are you recruiting from universities that are predominantly white, as a result implicitly biasing your available pool of recent college graduates? Are you recruiting only from your local area, subjecting yourself to the local race balance?
If hiring diverse candidates costs more money, that can absolutely still be worth it if hiring diverse candidates provides measurable upsides. Of course, the cost matters - if it's 10x or 100x it's much harder to see a positive return. But dismissing it for being 'too hard' or 'too expensive' without actually doing an evaluation of the pros and cons is a little lazy, isn't it?
Fewer women in the Engineering workforce. Which stems from fewer women in College engineering programs. Which stems from (and I'm firmly in the "IMO" stage here) girls being encouraged to play with dolls and boys with legos.
Of course, engineering isn't the only occupation where there is an obvious gender bias, check out the book publishing industry. 90% white females, last I heard.
> Do you have data to support this?
The college numbers are broadly available, as are the employment records.
> citing any data here or personal experience working in HR or recruiting
Mostly from my attempts to hire someone for a number of positions - every time I get the candidate pool narrowed down to qualified individuals, they are all white males in their late 20's or early 30's. Is there an unconscious bias? Perhaps, but I'm narrowing based on their work experience, not their name, website or talking to them on the phone by this point.
> if hiring diverse candidates provides measurable upsides
It's very hard to quantify the benefit of a diverse work team. You know the benefits when you see them, but putting a dollar amount to it? "We made 20 fewer boneheaded decisions this year, resulting in a savings of $30,000." I'd love to see it, but I doubt I will.
Are there examples of business staffed by diverse staff that outperform boring white/asian male companies?