While doing business you know what the most important thing is to choose the right people.
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Now, imagine that someone tells you that you should employ people by someone else's choice, what would you say? I think something like "Get out of my office!"
And that's understandably so. But now a trend is here that you should employ a certain amount of women, a certain amount of minorities, and other people based on some quota.
While that looks noble at first, it is deeply wrong.
First we must say that people who pay women less for the same job as their male counterparts do are, to put it mildly, very primitive. There is maybe a more rude way to say it, but we'll stay at this. To pay women less for the same job is something that a sane mind can't understand.
And then came the wrong solution. Instead of punishing those companies in some way, somebody devised the solution "A company must employ a certain number of women."
In other words, we are closing our eyes to a real problem and open them at the wrong solution.
Let us see what the advantages of that approach are.
First, more women are employed.
And that's it. Instead of choosing the best people for the business, companies choose "good enough" candidates just to satisfy quotas.
That has several bad consequences. Those who are employed because of quotas are very well aware of that and they are insecure when communicating with other people in their positions. That in turn leads to worse performance and frustration.
Then other members of the company are not satisfied with someone who came just because of quotas and tend to underestimate them and in some cases clearly undermine their work. And this is understandable because they got their position through a painful hiring process and now have to deal with someone who came to the company "just because".
Of course, those candidates who came because of quotas may be good, but try to convince other employees that they are good. Good luck. It's just human nature.
It's also in the human nature to perceive that women who got their job based on skills and not quotas are better than "quotas women" and that leads to inequality even between women in the same company.
Aside from rejection, there are other facts about quotas. When firms employ or promote less experienced persons their corporate value falls, and research confirms that.
Some would say that young women will see a role model if a woman is employed in a high position and that they will pursue their path but those are rare cases. Everyone likes people who show their skills, so there is a large number of women who oppose quotas and say "Hire me because I'm good, not just because I'm a woman".
We were talking about women but everything we said stands true for any other minority or color skin. If you got a job just because of quotas, even if you are worse than other candidates, expect a hard time. And let's be honest: if someone told you "You are good, but because of company policy we will hire a candidate who's not as good", how would you feel? Happy for them? Yeah, right.
When we are talking about role models, we must mention one great misconception. People tend to say "I saw a [woman, gay, black, disabled, whatever] person just like me achieved something, and then I realized I can do it too."
This is one of the most, let's put it straight, primitive sentences in the world.
If you need a role model, it can be anybody. Oprah didn't wait for someone to become one the greatest TV hosts in the world to say "Oh, I can do it too!" No, she went and became one. Being black, she put aside all other hosts, there's no doubt about that.
Melba Roy didn't wait to see a woman of science in a high position, she graduated and became one of the best science people and NASA famous at a time when women were at home, cooking lunch. She didn't have a role model, she became one.
Django Reinhardt didn't say "I'm a gypsy and have just a few fingers, give me the job because of quotas". No, he went to learn and play and became one of the best guitarists in history.
Marie Curie didn't wait for someone to become great in science, she became one of the greatest on her own.
A role model can be anybody, not just someone of exactly our race and sex.
If you think about it, somebody has to be first. So, if we all waiting for somebody else to become first, nobody will be. And who cares if our role model is black, white, gay, disabled, pretty, ugly, whatever, anybody can be our role model.
People are looking for role models because they are taught so, and that's a bad practice. Instead, we should tell them "Go and do what you want." But, big companies that rule the world don't like educated people and it's in their interest to have uneducated consumers that will buy anything without thinking. But that's a story for another text.
If we can't find it, we can become role models. You can be a role model. I already am. Need a proof? You are reading it right now. That's my text and there is no single writer in my family or surroundings that I am aware of. And I didn't beg for a job based on anything else but on my skills.
Forget quotas and forget an easier way to get a job even if you can use it. It will bounce hard on your head. Learn and deserve it. Others will think good of you and most importantly you will think good about yourself. ■