Big Business Setting Quotas For Women - Right Or Wrong?

3rd February 2014

Surely the best person, regardless of sex, sexual orientation, colour or religion should be hired?

Please discuss.


Lloyds Banking Group is to break new ground in the debate about gender diversity in British business by pledging that 40% of its top 5,000 jobs will be occupied by women within six years.

Sky News can reveal this weekend that the taxpayer-backed lender will become the first FTSE-100 company to establish a formal gender target for its most senior management positions.

The pledge, to be outlined by Antonio Horta-Osorio, Lloyds' chief executive, in a speech next week, will come at a time of unprecedented scrutiny of boardroom diversity and governance.

Mr Horta-Osorio is expected to set the target as part of a broader set of objectives aimed at demonstrating Lloyds' awareness of its wider societal role as the UK's biggest high street lender.


http://news.sky.com/story/1204659/lloyds-sets-target-for-women-executives

I think it is a clearly a sexist case, who ever is the best qualified to do the job should get it, if women were being turned away as more men were needed there would be an uproar.

Often what some people consider "the best candidate" will be influenced by personal prejudices; there's no truly objective way to gauge how a person will perform in a particular job until they have that job.

There's a school of thought that a theoretical all-white, all-male board is just going to be more blind on issues that affect women or minorities, and that having a more diverse board will make it less blind to those issues and thus more competitive.

Ben_Reilly wrote:Often what some people consider "the best candidate" will be influenced by personal prejudices; there's no truly objective way to gauge how a person will perform in a particular job until they have that job.

There's a school of thought that a theoretical all-white, all-male board is just going to be more blind on issues that affect women or minorities, and that having a more diverse board will make it less blind to those issues and thus more competitive.

If equality is the way it should be then the best candidate should get the job..it is that simple.

Again, you have to define "best" in the context of the position. For example, let's take a news reporter in a racially diverse city.

A white reporter might have a better network of sources, but be less attuned to news stories taking place in minority communities, while a minority reporter might be the opposite -- have less of a network of sources, but more of an ear to the ground in minority communities.

Ultimately the hiring decision has to be based on the needs of the organization. The white reporter in this example might be passed over if the organization already has a reporter with great sources. The minority reporter might be passed over if the organization already has a good reporter in that area.

Ben_Reilly wrote:Again, you have to define "best" in the context of the position. For example, let's take a news reporter in a racially diverse city.

A white reporter might have a better network of sources, but be less attuned to news stories taking place in minority communities, while a minority reporter might be the opposite -- have less of a network of sources, but more of an ear to the ground in minority communities.

Ultimately the hiring decision has to be based on the needs of the organization. The white reporter in this example might be passed over if the organization already has a reporter with great sources. The minority reporter might be passed over if the organization already has a good reporter in that area.

that's fine in essence but it opens the door to all kinds of questions of racism, sexism, companies open themselves to being sued surely, again if a business decided it wanted to increase its workforce by 40% with white males under 50, there would be a an out cry even if they were the ideal candidate for the job at hand.

 

IF Lloyds were still a private concern, than they could hire whoever they liked...

HOWEVER, they haven't been a private firm for many years now..

SO they should be answerable to a few more discrimination and fairness standards and rules, compared to those "good ol' days" ?   

Yes, but they must dress in a sexy and provocative way, ideally with as much cleavage as possible.

That will be Lloyds down the pan then.

Are these quota's, and open days for ethnic minorities only, and swimming days for women only....


...HATE CRIMES?

My wife has a very senior role in HR which she has gained without special considerations.

Isnt deliberately skewing the selection process going to be unfair to those white men who may indeed be best qualified and experienced.

Really good women command respect because of what they do they dont need patronising lefties telling them they cant acheive it on their own.

Having ambitions to balance boards and deliberately acheiving quotas by biased methods is inherently doomed to failure. Rather than enhance the stature of women it will undermine them. How can they say "I got here on merit" when clearly they didn't.

If these quotas are set - when a woman gets near the top, if she is rubbish, she'll know she got there because of the quota.

If she's good she'll be wondering whether she got there on merit or because of the quota.

It's just another reason for white British men to be angry.

And some wonder why the BNP and UKIP had a resurgence.

I'll say it again - [color=#33cc33]don't blame the likes of Hitler and the EDL - blame those who paved the way for them.color]

it is plain and simple sexism, they are looking to employ women, that breaks equality laws.

Ben_Reilly wrote:Again, you have to define "best" in the context of the position. For example, let's take a news reporter in a racially diverse city.

A white reporter might have a better network of sources, but be less attuned to news stories taking place in minority communities, while a minority reporter might be the opposite -- have less of a network of sources, but more of an ear to the ground in minority communities.

Ultimately the hiring decision has to be based on the needs of the organization. The white reporter in this example might be passed over if the organization already has a reporter with great sources. The minority reporter might be passed over if the organization already has a good reporter in that area.

A good newspaper reporter should be "attuned" to news stories wherever they take place.

It would be a big part of the job of a white reporter in a minority community to develop an effective contact list and working relationships within the population among which he worked - and vice versa.

The best reporter I ever hired was a chap originally from Ghana who regularly came up with cracking stories, features and photo ideas from an area which was overwhelmingly white and middle class.

His contact list, within a very short time, was awesome.

He even got himself invited to Burns Night celebrations and turned up in full regalia - kilt, sporran and skin dhu (apologies in advance to Irn Bru and Joy Division if I've cocked up there!), not only reporting the news but making it.

He was a helluva fine writer too, and that's another essential ingredient of the trade.

Simples


Wrong and I for the record am female.