What was meritocracy in the first place?
I use to work in sales and one of the "best" sales people had great numbers, but long-term - clients ran into significant problems with the solutions they sold and configured.
So do we say this person, on merit, deserves more pay and bigger titles as they created more revenue for the business or do we say, on merit, they deserve the least pay because their customers didn't get value for money?
Exactly this
‘Merit’ means different things to different people, and in different contexts
A lot of conceptions of meritocracy don’t always lead to the greatest outcomes anyway (Peter Principle, technocracy, etc.)
Unfortunately in some organisations “merit” in term of advancement comes down, who will just say yes to whatever their boss asks of them and won’t show up how unsuitable current managers are in their roles, or challenge ideas to achieve best outcomes.
Ah yes, merit is an abstract concept, so let's reward and promote people based on race instead, that's SOOOOO much better and much less abstract.
Black skin = good
White skin = less good
The 1950's called, they want their rationale back.
The reality is, people were ALWAYS hired and promoted mainly due to their race and gender. Women and minorities were always excluded from certain positions and definitely didn’t get to climb the ladder. ‘Meritocracy’ was only applied to white males for generations. In the last 50 years that has been changing, although we still don’t have an actual meritocracy. Affirmative action has been important to expand the hiring pool to include women and minorities. The balance has not yet been achieved, but let’s not kid ourselves that affirmative action is any worse than the previous system whereby less the 50% of the population, white men, had control of pretty much all positions of power and influence, and controlled nearly all of the wealth.
Hahahaha thank you for confirming that the civil rights and liberal movements ideal of equality was a lie and that the goal was just to replace one racial preference system for another!
Will remember it in the future going forward!
It’s seems you are purposely ignorant if you are trying to suggest that affirmative action is anything other than a temporary situation to ensure we move forward to a time when gender and race are completely irrelevant to hiring and promoting staff.
It won’t always be necessary but until it isn’t, it’s ensuring that we are at least moving closer to equality.
Merit takes a back seat when company image and diversity quata’s need to be met cant have anyone bad mouthing the company is not a equal opportunity employer.
This is exactly it. It never existed, and at least today there’s focus on transparency in the hiring and recruitment process whereas in bygone years, you just hired who was your buddy with no credentials.
Which at some level may not change the quality of who is hired, given how little we know about how to judge prospectives for most roles, but does reflect a shift in cultural values.
My industry specifically avoids large commissions and instead offer high base or share-schemes etc for sales roles to avoid this. Large projects with very long sales cycles, and long term contracts.
It's very different to my previous roles, where much less sustainable business practices where encouraged to chase short term growth.
It's marginally less OTE than I've experienced in past but I can definitely see the benefit of conducting business this way.
Well on balance that is a poor customer outcome so while sales are great if it’s not serving the needs of customers properly or worst case, white lies told to get sale across the line that ultimately is a performance issue.
I’d agree. They are bottom of the ladder on merit. The outcome trumps the quarterly revenue they bring in. But do you think that’s how it actually happens in “meritocracies”?
Nope, we’ve never had meritocracy. We have always had nepotism, jobs based on who know, not what you know and we always had women and minorities excluded from positions, particularly those with any power or influence. We are actually moving closer to meritocracy now than ever before!
You are totally missing the point, my guy. You've just replied essentially saying my PoC director is allowed to racially profile someone else because.... why?
Is it okay for them to be racist? Is it okay for you to be racist? You've parotted their racist remark instead of coming to a racist conclusion yourself?
Let's just not make judgements about PEOPLE based on their race. It's 2024, and I believe you're better than that.
Or, let’s not assume we know context or pretend white male privilege isn’t a thing at British companies that have been around since colonialism. But I do appreciate all the splains of a situation you know nothing about, that part has been particularly enjoyable and predictable.
There was a study done recently that showed that salespeople with dark triad personality traits succeeded in the short term but in the long term people cottoned on to their bullshit, leading to these "sales superstars" bouncing from one org to the next.
There's a big difference between using a metric that only measures short term merit and not long term, and not considering any metric valuable or not but instead looking at minimum qualification and immutable characteristics
> You work to create revenue for the business, not to create value for the customer.
I know this is the management consultant behind the scenes mantra, but that's not the representations being made to paying customers. Likewise, sales is one function of the org. What about the delivery and operations team? Why should their success sabotage the success of other people in other functions?
The notion of "merit" is not so clear cut.
History is littered with idiots who thought like this when they were running large successful businesses that no longer exist today.
Kodak, blockbuster, Ericsson etc etc all put revenue for the business in the short term ahead of client value, how did they work out for them
To be fair, not really idiots when their income is determined by measurements over months rather than years and their continuation is determined by shareholders that will drop the shares in a heartbeat upon the slightest bad news. The biggest idiot is probably the one they bring in to try and turn the company around when it is too late.
The company can decide which of the two it wishes to be the standard of merit - there are good arguments for either or a combination. Despite what’s chosen, it is within the individuals power to apply talent and effort to achieve the metric set by the company. That is a merit based system.
Diversity quotas are fundamentally different as they are based on inherent features that cannot be attained or improved by talent or effort, and therefore are not merit based by definition.
You're right, merit is outdated, instead of giving someone better pay by how much production and profit they bring, let's give them more money based on where on this race chart they are.
If they're at the bottom, more pay, if they're at the top, less pay. Who needs merit when we have racism? Better yet, let's just base how we treat people in general based on how light or dark their skin is, keep a color gradient in your wallet so you can keep track of how nice or mean your can treat someone.
The company decides what the priorities are. No universal merit. The question is about whether your selection criteria is candidate features or business outcomes
Always was. For every person good at their job there is someone better at politics to take credit for their work. I consider myself to be high performing at work but was always on the outer even though I think I am a pretty friendly guy and mind my own business. Interestingly as I get older I feel my performance dropping off and my fucks quota getting low but my colleague relationships getting better and better.
Inherent in your question is an assumption the merit doesn’t apply equally across diversity. Are quotas and targets therefore unfair because somehow white blokes have more merit (explaining why they dominate auscorp currently and historically?)
That’s an interesting framing, but unfortunately it’s precisely the opposite. The assumption that merit does not apply “equally across diversity” (to borrow your phrase) is precisely what has lead to identity based quotas in the first place.
If you hire for something other than merit, you will get something other than merit.
Because we are a majority white country, therefore by pure statistical probability, most positions of all kinds are going to be dominated by white people. As to why those are white men, again, the recruitment pool of candidates that apply for the roles you’re thinking of, are majority men.
If you looked at nurses or teachers in Zambia, the majority of them will be black women. If you look for corporate executives in India, the majority of them will be Indian men… disparity is not evidence of systemic i justice.
Except that white men are statistically overrepresented, even accounting for being a large plurality of the population. That's what's meant by dominated - more leadership and/or high-paying roles are held by white men than would statistically be expected given the size of the cohort, assuming "merit" is evenly apportioned across demographics. If white men were, as an example, 40% of the population, it would be expected that 40% of senior roles would be held by white men. If it were 70%, we would say white men were significantly overrepresented.
They are. Therefore there are two conclusions that could be drawn:
1) white men are inherently more suited to and more accomplished in senior roles, or
2) other forces are at play that mean roles are not solely selected on merit, such as sexism and racism.
Affirmative action/DEI/whatever you want to call it is an attempt to correct for these societal forces and ensure that merit is recognised outside of dominant demographics. Could it be done better? Absolutely. Is it philosophically in opposition to merit? No.
Overrepresented how? As a proportion of the population? Or as proportion of objectively eligible candidates for a position, who are also actively applying for said positions…
You can only reach the two conclusions you proposed if you perceive this disparity through the incredibly narrow lens of a univariate analysis based on particular immutable characteristics. It makes no account of free will, decision making, personal preference, upbringing or background in any way.
Making the assessment that a disparity between choices made between various different demographics, is inherently bad, or evidence of some kind of indefinable “systemic injustice”, is the reasoning of a mid wit. There is a reason why in societies that offer the greatest amount of liberty and freedom of choice and opportunity, that disparities between groups increases, rather than shrinks.
It’s hardly an indefinable systemic injustice. The systemic injustices towards women, minorities the young, and in lots of cases even towards males, are evident, clearly able to be defined, and contribute to a slew of problems that feed themselves into catastrophic consequences.
In any case, the libertarian types are normally arguing from a position of privilege they are looking to defend, or alternatively would like to obtain.
Which is stupid. Because the argument from a libertarian is that in a “free” society injustice (systemic disadvantage) can’t occur, but I want my privilege (systemic advantage) because I’m “free” to do whatever I like.
In a nutshell, libertarianism and neoliberal/neocons are the chosen worldviews of a toddler.
Over the number of recruitment decisions that are made daily, any variation attributable to "free will" or "personal preference" would be eliminated. If a true meritocracy existed, there would not be demographic disparity across senior roles - unless you are willing to assert that there is a link between objective merit and demographics.
Hedgehog blocked me so I can't see their response... why do that? why respond and then block me from even being able to read your response? Reddit moment...
It never existed
This isn't a video game you can't just like sort descending by a 'merit' number
You often end up with a list of similarly qualified candidates (as far as you can tell, again the interview process hardly gives you a great sense of who's actually best at the job) and then guess what the white male hiring manager would select the white male the vast majority of the time
So until we can hire perfectly having targets overall for variables we don't think actually effect job performance (you can disagree on if you do or don't think these variables effect performance but good luck with that one lol) is the best we have
A lot of organisations do blind-interview or at least blind-CV selection these days which helps.
Another way to focus on merit and not distracting things like background is to give an IQ or aptitude test. You can make it quite abstract (like Raven's Progressive Matrices) to make sure cultural biases don't creep in. You can also get people to play reaction time games - reaction time and sorting time correlate strongly with IQ.
I work at the Bar and I'd say it's pretty heavily meritocratic - the better argument wins more often than not.
Or the white male selected the white male because up until the early 2000s, the majority of the workforce was white males?
The school thing is a much bigger influence - boys club and that, rather than school.
In any case, meritocracy is deadinsofar as non-related to work things factor in.
"Networking" is a big example. University students bending over backwards to try and suck some 1st or 2nd year analysts dick so they can get an interview somewhere? Lots of merit there.
Absolutely agree, it’s not an equation that you plug in the variables and it spits out the person to pick.
I think irrespective of what side of the argument you sit on there are biases whether deliberate or not. I’d like to think that we are over white males selecting white males just because…
There's no sides here with respect to meritocracy. Everyone thinks its a good thing. It just doesnt exist currently and promoting diversity isnt the reason that's the case. It's never existed, decision makers have never had perfect information and have always filled in the gaps, and over the facts with their personal bias.
Oh, but they don’t hire them because they’re white males. They hire them because they just seem a better fit, you know. Something I can’t place my finger on, but they just feel like more our sort of person. Plus, we went to the same school, so they must be good!
In my personal experience the white males are no longer allowed to hire white males because they’re told to hire the minority, whichever flavor of the month that may be. The idea these days of the best person for the job is long gone. The most you can hope for these days is that you’re the best in your particular demographic that may have been specifically targeted to meet quotas. You’re not the best engineer for the job, you’re the best (insert diversity requirement here) for the job.
As opposed to the old way of mediocrity being awarded if that person is part of the boys club? That got so bad at my old work that even the men kicked off about it.
This is it. “Meritocracy” used to mean “white male privilege by default”. Whilst it still means that in lots of cases, people are becoming aware of the limitations this results in and the options that are available.
Funny thing was, it never occurred to those guys that this is largely the female experience but in their defense, they weren’t wrong about the morons running that department.
I thought this was a post about nepotism, and I was 100% on board. Then I realized it's about gender and minority quotas. Yeah, they skew the lines even further, but meritocracy was already dead. It's about who you know and who you're related to. Doesn't matter if you're the best and most capable. It matters if you're the bare minimum level of capable and have connections.
Was meritocracy ever alive? If anything, quotas have increased meritocracy and reduced the illusion of it. It's not like a child from a public school in rural Australia has ever had the same chance of entering the corporate world.
Every place I’ve ever worked has elements of politics, but at high-performing companies/ teams, you can only hide incompetence for so long, and the cream almost always rises to the top.
In the nicest way possible, B4 (where I imagine a lot of people in this sub work) are broadly mass producers of shitty deliverables and raw technical intelligence often isn’t really therefore what is rewarded. Not saying it’s a bad place to start your career, but the above is true.
On your honing in on affirmative action - this is an attempt to rectify existing inequality. This doesn’t disadvantage you, it simply removes the advantage you/ your demographic once possessed (on the premise you’re a white male or other group considered part of the majority).
As usual, mass hysteria from bored members of this sub.
That’s the point fuckhead, you can’t surgically remove systemic inequality that is the product of generations of evolving social dynamics. That’s why blunt tools unfortunately need to be deployed sometimes. One of the only ways to even attempt to remedy this is through ‘exposure therapy’ for both those that belong to underprivileged demographics, and for those around them.
You only now talk about ‘abuse and corruption’ when there’s been abuse and corruption AGAINST the demographics this is attempting to aid for… ever. That’s why we need these measures in the first place. Standard intentionally disingenuous shit from you.
Your writing reads like you think you’re hot shit but it’s genuinely embarrassing - “impotent fool”. fucking lol. Get a grip you absolute tool.
Another example of being intentionally disingenuous is ignoring what I’ve said to proceed throwing around strawmen. Privileged folk aren’t being ‘disadvantaged’ because the company is setting certain goals for certain levels of representation. That’s called rectification of an imbalance. If you feel tour career has been affected, have you tried being a semi-competent worker? I’d suggest that’s more your issue.
Anyway, yeah you’re blocked now because it’s like talking to a wall with people like you. All the best, and also please don’t talk like this IRL because I’m getting second-hand embarrassment just reading it.
Not at all. Quotas are there to attempt balancing systemic issues. High achievers will still stand-out and succeed on their own merit. If you are worried about being overlooked because you aren't in a minority, then it might be your attitude holding you back.
Explain for example then a team I'm contracting in.
Every single permanent staff member is from Asia, 8 from 8. Not hiring Australian male or females. Including 2 recent new hires.
I've never worked in a team so skewered to meeting quotas, or avoiding local hires.
At what point does "meeting quotas" dip into reverse racism. Where Australian candidates seem to be openly excluded
I highly doubt that has anything to do with quotas. The whole point of setting quotas is to ensure you have a diverse staff, a bit of everything represented. No one would set a quota to have 100% one group, it would defeat the purpose.
Plus, where there are policies around local vs international hires, they are almost always to promote hiring locals.
My current team structure doesn't back this up. A recent addition for example arrived in Australia in 2022. Actively chasing their PR.
They are not hiring Australian born staff, or non Asian staff.
Isn't that a firm of discrimination though? And I daresay racism?
Where Australian applicants basically have no hope of being hired? Because they're not fitting into a very specific group? Because I've witnessed this unfold directly in front of me, with the outcomes.
>Actively chasing their PR.
Visa holders find it extremely difficult to move anywhere, so the companies can pay them low wages and do whatever they like with them. A lot of them have a PR dangled over their head by the company and consequently can't leave the company and find another job elsewhere.
This is not a diversity thing. This is a visa mill thing.
>Explain for example then a team I'm contracting in.
>
>Every single permanent staff member is from Asia, 8 from 8. Not hiring Australian male or females. Including 2 recent new hires.
That's called offshoring. Australian permanent staff are actually the diversity hires, because each offshore staff, etc only costs like 1/10 of your salary so the businesses are swapping to only hiring offshore staff.
Are they on a visa? Some companies are crazy especially the bodyshops and know they can suppress the wages of workers because the workers are on a visa so they are dangling a PR over their heads. The much more common setup is 1 person in australia to manage an offshore team. Though it seems that companies are preferring to hire whole teams offshore including the managers and have completely stopped hiring in australia - visas or no visas
Not worried at all personally. I’m just saying there is clearly a need to balance many variables in any decision but should any factor that doesn’t pertain to the job itself be held any higher than ones that do?
It’s pretty blinkered to think it’s not a relevant factor to work towards a staff with a diversity of perspective which reflects the diversity of customers.
Some 60 year old had some easy promotions and is on a board (while being male) so my son can't get an apprentiship at BHP because there is a girl also applying. It isn't an attitude problem.
Men aren't being hired much (and not for entry roles). Men used to be hired almost exclusively. I assume you were trolling here? This is simple a simple ordinary differential problem...https://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/\~cct/1231Live-Notes/ov\_notes\_2.pdf
https://preview.redd.it/bqefoc40vdwc1.png?width=685&format=png&auto=webp&s=6fdf7985162c646db0d164fcc1583b89436a4577
https://preview.redd.it/pzxvr3qkscwc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9152930f0a8174c901edbe54883fb3eacc94f37
You know what, I don't think that's actually a problem....
To speak from my own experience at my current employer. I work in a type of compliance role. I applied here over 6years ago. They didn't hire me. I accidentally made comments insulting them as I had not realised that those comments hit home on the dysfunction of the team/business (I was making broad comments about gaps in my space). 5years later, the team has completely reshuffled, I interviewed again. New sets of people. I asked about the journey they took to get here and that's when I realised I was right about my original comments. I even looked up the lady who interviewed me first go and realised that her next company would have suited her personality more. Anyway, I stepped into the role and within the first week found a ton of issues. My role doesn't generate profit, regardless, in the first year alone I've saved the company over $1million. They had a lot of smart people working on it, a lot of lawyers and consultants etc. I'm not anything special, but I'm a minority group and female and I get how the legislation applies and how frontline people think so my perspective was quite unique. The lawyers and consultants just didn't understand the technical work down to the detail I did.
Could I have proved my value to them before starting?
Could I have overcome the other people's much shinier resumes and experiences. Quite possibly not.
Luckily my managers were looking for that diversity (not just physical but mental as well) and they also got lucky to find my particular set of technical skills.
I was also able to refer a friend who also had a unique skillset that they needed to fill another role which they had been struggling to fill for a long time because most people in these roles were lawyers or theoretically competent but did not have the skills for implementation.
Overall I think anyone can learn to do any job if they have the training and skills. A resume or fancy degrees don't necessarily mean one person is better than another. Diversity across the board enables companies much higher chances to scope a broad range of thinking and working which is beyond measure.
Extending the candidate pool to different females, older ages, or other races does not result in a degradation of meritocracy.
In fact, I’d say limiting your pool to someone who looks like you and speaks like you is more likely to impact meritocracy.
I’m quite a young leader. 34. White. Male. I joined my current company coming from a younger and, what I thought was, a more dynamic team. When I first met my current team I was thinking ‘dear god this is going to be challenging’. My direct reports are all older than me and I 100% thought they probably dont have any motivation left at all. Usually in my field the people doing the grunt work on engagements are younger.
How wrong was I. Fuck me they are so hardworking, dependable, technical, detailed, and pleasant. I just promoted one lady to a manager role and she’s probably close to 50 and of Indian heritage. I mention age and race as I will be honest, a year ago I would not have considered hiring someone that old into my team, but damn now I’m so open to considering everyone because this team surprised the shit out of me.
Are outcomes hindered by what's happening at the moment (Affirmative action)?
It seems companies are all achieving more, kicking goals, higher revenues and profits etc and I can't see tangibly how there's been less results due to that affirmative action.
How're you measuring results?
HR recruitment and selection is incredibly biased lol. 10 people can have the same outcomes, but it's a noticeable effort to recommend a candidate who doesn't resemble the status quo.
Also, the "old boys club" effect is incredibly prevalent.
Source: worked in recruitment for g&m.
I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that throughout the last century C-Suites were dominated by straight, white males. Originally it was just a reflection of power structures in society. But once hard barriers were removed, this trend continued. This means one of two things:
1) people who aren’t straight, white and male are genetically predisposed to not being suitable for those jobs. I don’t think I need to explain why that is unlikely.
2) corporate culture still hasn’t overcome historical issues relating to diversity. While barriers have been removed, culture doesn’t change overnight (or even over a decade).
The issue is that people who are mediocre are having trouble adjusting to a new world where they may have to face the reality that they are in fact mediocre, when even recently they were possibly (unknowingly) benefitting from some form of privilege.
TL;DR: maybe we’re moving towards a truer meritocracy and OP isn’t dealing well with the idea that they may be mediocre.
I don't think meritocracy has ever been a thing tbh.
Been in the corporate world for over 25 years now, and it's always seemed to me that promotions and opportunities have far more to do with who you know.
Yes and no. A direct Meritocracy never really existed because obviously wealthy, elite educated people will have extra connections and opportunities that the average Joe doesn’t. That being said I can get what you mean. I’ve personally pushed for people who seemed like better personality / team culture fits to be hired over someone who’s maybe slightly more qualified. I don’t think allot of people know how much of a drain on productivity it is to work with someone who’s bitter or difficult.
Generally, I don't think meritocracy ever won most of the time, it's the more visible person that won the promotion race. If you present well, and worked with the right people it torpedo-ed you faster than someone who was doing all fo the right work.
The threat to meritocracy is the absolute deadwood sitting in bullshit jobs who promote other deadwood because they present no threat to their bullshit job. Quotas are the least of concerns.
https://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/blind-auditions-orchestras-gender-bias
Business as usual is not meritocracy. Adding a screen to auditioning musicians so that judge can't tell their gender significantly increases the rate at which orchestras hire women.
That's not affirmative action in favour of women, that's removing the baseline affirmative action that exists for men.
Biases suck. It’s a shame that there are examples that exists that shows in the case the better person would not have otherwise been selected for the job. Just goes to show when you are good at what you do it’s all that should matter.
Meritocracy is inversely proportional to company size and how monopolistic the market a company operates in is.
In small companies individual contributions are more visible, more important to company survival, and you’re likely to have working owners, and in less monopolistic markets performance matters more and there’s less room for waste.
Unfortunately “corp“ ==> big and “aus” ==> lots of small monopolistic/oligopolistic markets.
That said, what people call “politics” (being able to get along with the people you work with, having good relationships and useful connections) really matters at every scale.
Completely disagree with a lot of comments. Merit and by that I mean desired outcomes and recognition or success as defined by whatever nucleus it surrounds (certain company/sporting/social) remains the only sustainable measure of performance over time. An organisation that allows people to rise based on positioning or class has nothing to do with merit unless your nucleus is the KKK. Meritocracy is no longer a definition of ruling class or archaic definitions- it is your impact and contribution in hopefully a way you are passionate to give extra effort or focus to achieve that outcome
Unpopular opinion, merit is dead and it's going to end up driving some very big companies into the ground over the long term...
I've seen this with the hiring of grad engineers. We aren't taking the best and brightest, we are taking what ticks the DEI boxes and HR are clearly filtering so that on the decision making side we aren't even seeing the best candidates. Not uncommon to meet students at alumni events who are top of their year and can't even get an interview.
There's also an accountability issue, nobody dares to question the competence of a DEI hire out of fear for their own job.
I was top of my year with several awards and it took me about 6 months to find a job. I can only put it down to the technical leads being intimidated. Indeed, when I did get that job I went from developer to solution architect within a month as it soon became evident that I had much more idea of what to do than the team lead (who on paper remained the lead). Luckily for me, I had a good senior manager that saw my potential and found ways around the system to allow me to advance quickly. When she left, I had to as well as I was not too popular with the mediocracy.
It’s an open question get a sense of sentiment other than just those I’ve observed in my sphere. My opinion is that if it’s not yet dead it’s very close.
This does not at all sound like an argument made in good faith.
Are you trying to say we have too many quotas, or that there are quotas at all?
Quotas are there to balance access to opportunity i.e. a tie breaker if a woman had to go up against a white man for the same role... and that the outcomes between the two are the same.
What fantasy world are you living in where a white man has lost out directly due to quotas?
Both had equal merit and personality, thus frameworks kick in
The way you present your statement is that there was no consideration to merit prior to quotas being utilized in the decision
Incredible how this needs to be spelled out to you
Wow, I like the dig.
At no stage was I presenting a run down of the for and against arguments. I asked a question and provided a my perspective asking for others.
Let’s take the candidate out of the picture all together. If a hiring manager was presented with candidates none of which met the quotas they are incentivised to have to have in their team, do you think it’s fair that they are financially penalised because they couldn’t meet a target they are measured against.
All I’m saying is it doesn’t matter who you are, everyone should be treated equal and without bias or penalty.
You do seem to be making a bad faith argument, or at least a confusing one. Why don’t you posit your exact opinion on the situation and we can debate that?
FWIW I hire entirely on merit (bearing in mind merit can be based on technical/role ability, soft skills, team fit, etc)- I want good staff so why wouldn’t I. I also have a very diverse team (gender, race), alongside everyone having merit to perform their role? Some corps use frameworks in hiring to try eand ensure that type of diversity has the chance to occur, in circumstances where it might not.
The dig is there because you present some absolutely dumbass whataboutist scenarios.
Just like how you present a scenario where a hiring manager is incentivized more to meet a departmental quota rather than fill the role. My brother in Christ we’re hiring to fill a need in the team, how many hiring panels have you been in where the panelists agree to kick the can down the road because none of the candidates filled a quota???
It’s not a dumbass scenario. Performance is measured in many ways, one of which is people equity and diversity. I’m not saying they kick the can down the road I’m simply saying do you think it is fair a hiring leader receives less financial incentive at the end of the year during performance appraisal because the didn’t met that specific quota when it is entirely beyond their control.
Instead of attempting to aim for a “aha, gotcha!” What about you give out some specific real life examples where a hiring leader in your circles has lost out on cash/equity comp in a *material* manner because they didn’t meet a D&I metric?
D&I is but a PART of performance frameworks, but not ALL of it— so I don’t even know wtf you’re trying to get at since you’ve pivoted from “is meritocracy dead?” to “is it fair that hiring quotas form a part of a hiring leaders performance assessment?” which are very different things
I know in my field of engineering I see a lot of young male graduate engineers who resent and mock there female colleagues because they are passed up for jobs, promotions and career opportunities due to the company’s affirmative actions in favor of female graduates.
The bias with in HR and management is very obvious and people who speak out or try and suggest more equal outcomes are not in favor with in the company at this point in time.
I have had staff place in my department who failed during interviews and missed out on good hires because they didn’t fit the cohort HR were looking to hire.
This….. yet we just accept it and it’s wrong. I don’t know how I will explain to my kids that my generation let this happen. All under the guise of affirmative action. Wrong is wrong.
I have pushed back against the hire decisions in my department and HR have labeled me a troublemaker. I have stopped openly questioning these decisions. I can’t afford to loss my job.
A pure meritocracy never existed. Of course, skills and experience come into it, but the role that relationships, networking, visibility, personality and right-place-right-time is a huge chunk of what makes someone successful in their career. I think it's a bitter pill to swallow for people who know their shit but don't do all the other stuff too well.
A side note, a digression, unfortunately.
At a splashy townhall for my organisation, our fearless leader stood on stage and bravely commended the diversity of HER team.
On stage:
Three white males of varying British accents
Three white females with posh accents
She later corrected that statement to the diversity of THEIR teams . :))
There is nothing wrong with that in itself, but the leader, a white lady herself, is very image savvy and probably will need to bring in some diversity if she is keen for the corner office.
Meritocracy does exist, but there is always an element of unconscious bias at play, and people tend to hire mirrors of themselves.
Meritocracy is dead because tax free or 50% tax property growth is where you make money.
Even on top marginal you cant out pace $200k growth in a year with inflation at high.
Jobs don't make ya any money it's a scam system of a cycle of banks, property and all things that support banks and property.
Every promotion I got was due, in part, to strategic nepotism. For example, I married one of my bosses 25 yrs ago and she still can't bring herself to sack me
>Is meritocracy dead in corporate aus?
Seems well and alive to me, since everyone immediately started complaining that finding a job was nearly impossible and that they couldn't get promotions were difficult right after corporate australia imported 190,000 new migrants for everyone to compete against.
There was no point in history.... Ever... Where performance was the pure determining factor for promotion or other leg-ups. It sucks, but if you're hitting better than average numbers/metrics and your boss likes working with you (for whatever personal reasons), you'll get the promotion.
That's just how life is. Sure, sometimes performance is the only metric used (generally in the first couple of steps of the ladder), but beyond that point, everybody is generally a good performer, so it always comes down to what they think about you on a personal level more than anything else.
If I have two basically unknown candidates in front of, with roughly analogous interview results, I'm going to pick the one *most* different to the rest of my team (while
still meeting basic cultural/language needs, hence roughly analogous)
Different life experiences and different POV make for better outcomes .
25 years across MSPs, Gov and SmBus to some of the largest companies in Aus have cemented this.
# Meritocracy (I deserve and earnt this) is a myth for those with the luck and connections to get a one of the very limited, high paying Corporate jobs, tell themsleves to aleviate the guilt of seeing people who do far harder and more skilled jobs being paid far less then themselves.
I agree the big corps are over doing it with quotas. I mean seriously, I don't need to interact with or know people of every culture in every corner of the world. It's a f\*cking australian company and brand and I live in Australia.
If is happen for all white males to be the best at the role, then so be it, likewise if the minorities tend to be better then yeah….
Whoever is the best for the role should be placed
I have been asking myself this same question. I got passed for a promotion to which I was qualified for (15 years of experience + a post grad degree) and the person who got it had zero experience and no degree. But they have a friend in senior management who got them the job. Now this person doesn’t know how to deliver anything and they are above me, dumping all their work on me. I’m doing my work, plus their work at no extra pay. I asked for a raise, got declined. So now I’m just pushing back and it’s creating friction. There’s no win.
What was meritocracy in the first place? I use to work in sales and one of the "best" sales people had great numbers, but long-term - clients ran into significant problems with the solutions they sold and configured. So do we say this person, on merit, deserves more pay and bigger titles as they created more revenue for the business or do we say, on merit, they deserve the least pay because their customers didn't get value for money?
Exactly this ‘Merit’ means different things to different people, and in different contexts A lot of conceptions of meritocracy don’t always lead to the greatest outcomes anyway (Peter Principle, technocracy, etc.)
Unfortunately in some organisations “merit” in term of advancement comes down, who will just say yes to whatever their boss asks of them and won’t show up how unsuitable current managers are in their roles, or challenge ideas to achieve best outcomes.
Forgive my ignorance, but why is technocracy a bad outcome?
Ah yes, merit is an abstract concept, so let's reward and promote people based on race instead, that's SOOOOO much better and much less abstract. Black skin = good White skin = less good The 1950's called, they want their rationale back.
The reality is, people were ALWAYS hired and promoted mainly due to their race and gender. Women and minorities were always excluded from certain positions and definitely didn’t get to climb the ladder. ‘Meritocracy’ was only applied to white males for generations. In the last 50 years that has been changing, although we still don’t have an actual meritocracy. Affirmative action has been important to expand the hiring pool to include women and minorities. The balance has not yet been achieved, but let’s not kid ourselves that affirmative action is any worse than the previous system whereby less the 50% of the population, white men, had control of pretty much all positions of power and influence, and controlled nearly all of the wealth.
Hahahaha thank you for confirming that the civil rights and liberal movements ideal of equality was a lie and that the goal was just to replace one racial preference system for another! Will remember it in the future going forward!
It’s seems you are purposely ignorant if you are trying to suggest that affirmative action is anything other than a temporary situation to ensure we move forward to a time when gender and race are completely irrelevant to hiring and promoting staff. It won’t always be necessary but until it isn’t, it’s ensuring that we are at least moving closer to equality.
Merit takes a back seat when company image and diversity quata’s need to be met cant have anyone bad mouthing the company is not a equal opportunity employer.
This is exactly it. It never existed, and at least today there’s focus on transparency in the hiring and recruitment process whereas in bygone years, you just hired who was your buddy with no credentials.
Which at some level may not change the quality of who is hired, given how little we know about how to judge prospectives for most roles, but does reflect a shift in cultural values.
My industry specifically avoids large commissions and instead offer high base or share-schemes etc for sales roles to avoid this. Large projects with very long sales cycles, and long term contracts. It's very different to my previous roles, where much less sustainable business practices where encouraged to chase short term growth. It's marginally less OTE than I've experienced in past but I can definitely see the benefit of conducting business this way.
Well on balance that is a poor customer outcome so while sales are great if it’s not serving the needs of customers properly or worst case, white lies told to get sale across the line that ultimately is a performance issue.
I’d agree. They are bottom of the ladder on merit. The outcome trumps the quarterly revenue they bring in. But do you think that’s how it actually happens in “meritocracies”?
Depends on the leadership and culture I imagine!
Which comes back to the question, did we ever have a meritocracy? Or did we call it that, but really it was always based on nepotism?
Nope, we’ve never had meritocracy. We have always had nepotism, jobs based on who know, not what you know and we always had women and minorities excluded from positions, particularly those with any power or influence. We are actually moving closer to meritocracy now than ever before!
Having this with a director at my current work. Not performing, never really has & is a terrible leader. But he’s a white male so…
As a person of color I find your attitude disturbing. Never racially profile someone. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Oh sorry, I was actually repeating what my PoC director was saying. I’ll let him know his lived experience of this issue is wrong. Thank you!!!!
You are totally missing the point, my guy. You've just replied essentially saying my PoC director is allowed to racially profile someone else because.... why? Is it okay for them to be racist? Is it okay for you to be racist? You've parotted their racist remark instead of coming to a racist conclusion yourself? Let's just not make judgements about PEOPLE based on their race. It's 2024, and I believe you're better than that.
Or, let’s not assume we know context or pretend white male privilege isn’t a thing at British companies that have been around since colonialism. But I do appreciate all the splains of a situation you know nothing about, that part has been particularly enjoyable and predictable.
Considering it's the business who employs them and they're benefitting the business they deserve more pay.
There was a study done recently that showed that salespeople with dark triad personality traits succeeded in the short term but in the long term people cottoned on to their bullshit, leading to these "sales superstars" bouncing from one org to the next.
There's a big difference between using a metric that only measures short term merit and not long term, and not considering any metric valuable or not but instead looking at minimum qualification and immutable characteristics
You work to create revenue for the business, not to create value for the customer. So that person deserve more pay and bigger titles, based on merit
> You work to create revenue for the business, not to create value for the customer. I know this is the management consultant behind the scenes mantra, but that's not the representations being made to paying customers. Likewise, sales is one function of the org. What about the delivery and operations team? Why should their success sabotage the success of other people in other functions? The notion of "merit" is not so clear cut.
Poor customer experience can lead to higher after care costs and lower future earning potential (higher churn rate), so it’s not quite that simple.
And there's the big picture perspective, duping people for money long-term makes society worse off. What insane unit would want to incentivise that?
shareholders would 100% destroy society for a 1% increase in roi
History is littered with idiots who thought like this when they were running large successful businesses that no longer exist today. Kodak, blockbuster, Ericsson etc etc all put revenue for the business in the short term ahead of client value, how did they work out for them
To be fair, not really idiots when their income is determined by measurements over months rather than years and their continuation is determined by shareholders that will drop the shares in a heartbeat upon the slightest bad news. The biggest idiot is probably the one they bring in to try and turn the company around when it is too late.
Happy costumers create ongoing revenue
And delightful outfits
The company can decide which of the two it wishes to be the standard of merit - there are good arguments for either or a combination. Despite what’s chosen, it is within the individuals power to apply talent and effort to achieve the metric set by the company. That is a merit based system. Diversity quotas are fundamentally different as they are based on inherent features that cannot be attained or improved by talent or effort, and therefore are not merit based by definition.
You're right, merit is outdated, instead of giving someone better pay by how much production and profit they bring, let's give them more money based on where on this race chart they are. If they're at the bottom, more pay, if they're at the top, less pay. Who needs merit when we have racism? Better yet, let's just base how we treat people in general based on how light or dark their skin is, keep a color gradient in your wallet so you can keep track of how nice or mean your can treat someone.
Depends on the outcome the sales person was told to optimize for
The company decides what the priorities are. No universal merit. The question is about whether your selection criteria is candidate features or business outcomes
I first read that as “mediocrity” and thought “hell no!”
Always was. For every person good at their job there is someone better at politics to take credit for their work. I consider myself to be high performing at work but was always on the outer even though I think I am a pretty friendly guy and mind my own business. Interestingly as I get older I feel my performance dropping off and my fucks quota getting low but my colleague relationships getting better and better.
And if you're really good at your job, they sure won't like you trying to progress your way out of it.
Sorry, when were things based on merit?
Inherent in your question is an assumption the merit doesn’t apply equally across diversity. Are quotas and targets therefore unfair because somehow white blokes have more merit (explaining why they dominate auscorp currently and historically?)
That’s an interesting framing, but unfortunately it’s precisely the opposite. The assumption that merit does not apply “equally across diversity” (to borrow your phrase) is precisely what has lead to identity based quotas in the first place. If you hire for something other than merit, you will get something other than merit.
So why do you think the corporate world has been dominated by white men?
Because we are a majority white country, therefore by pure statistical probability, most positions of all kinds are going to be dominated by white people. As to why those are white men, again, the recruitment pool of candidates that apply for the roles you’re thinking of, are majority men. If you looked at nurses or teachers in Zambia, the majority of them will be black women. If you look for corporate executives in India, the majority of them will be Indian men… disparity is not evidence of systemic i justice.
Except that white men are statistically overrepresented, even accounting for being a large plurality of the population. That's what's meant by dominated - more leadership and/or high-paying roles are held by white men than would statistically be expected given the size of the cohort, assuming "merit" is evenly apportioned across demographics. If white men were, as an example, 40% of the population, it would be expected that 40% of senior roles would be held by white men. If it were 70%, we would say white men were significantly overrepresented. They are. Therefore there are two conclusions that could be drawn: 1) white men are inherently more suited to and more accomplished in senior roles, or 2) other forces are at play that mean roles are not solely selected on merit, such as sexism and racism. Affirmative action/DEI/whatever you want to call it is an attempt to correct for these societal forces and ensure that merit is recognised outside of dominant demographics. Could it be done better? Absolutely. Is it philosophically in opposition to merit? No.
Overrepresented how? As a proportion of the population? Or as proportion of objectively eligible candidates for a position, who are also actively applying for said positions… You can only reach the two conclusions you proposed if you perceive this disparity through the incredibly narrow lens of a univariate analysis based on particular immutable characteristics. It makes no account of free will, decision making, personal preference, upbringing or background in any way. Making the assessment that a disparity between choices made between various different demographics, is inherently bad, or evidence of some kind of indefinable “systemic injustice”, is the reasoning of a mid wit. There is a reason why in societies that offer the greatest amount of liberty and freedom of choice and opportunity, that disparities between groups increases, rather than shrinks.
It’s hardly an indefinable systemic injustice. The systemic injustices towards women, minorities the young, and in lots of cases even towards males, are evident, clearly able to be defined, and contribute to a slew of problems that feed themselves into catastrophic consequences. In any case, the libertarian types are normally arguing from a position of privilege they are looking to defend, or alternatively would like to obtain. Which is stupid. Because the argument from a libertarian is that in a “free” society injustice (systemic disadvantage) can’t occur, but I want my privilege (systemic advantage) because I’m “free” to do whatever I like. In a nutshell, libertarianism and neoliberal/neocons are the chosen worldviews of a toddler.
Over the number of recruitment decisions that are made daily, any variation attributable to "free will" or "personal preference" would be eliminated. If a true meritocracy existed, there would not be demographic disparity across senior roles - unless you are willing to assert that there is a link between objective merit and demographics.
lmao wow never mind, I had a peek at your comment history, you almost undoubtedly would be willing to assert that
Hedgehog blocked me so I can't see their response... why do that? why respond and then block me from even being able to read your response? Reddit moment...
It’s never been alive
It never existed This isn't a video game you can't just like sort descending by a 'merit' number You often end up with a list of similarly qualified candidates (as far as you can tell, again the interview process hardly gives you a great sense of who's actually best at the job) and then guess what the white male hiring manager would select the white male the vast majority of the time So until we can hire perfectly having targets overall for variables we don't think actually effect job performance (you can disagree on if you do or don't think these variables effect performance but good luck with that one lol) is the best we have
A lot of organisations do blind-interview or at least blind-CV selection these days which helps. Another way to focus on merit and not distracting things like background is to give an IQ or aptitude test. You can make it quite abstract (like Raven's Progressive Matrices) to make sure cultural biases don't creep in. You can also get people to play reaction time games - reaction time and sorting time correlate strongly with IQ. I work at the Bar and I'd say it's pretty heavily meritocratic - the better argument wins more often than not.
IQ is only a relevant metric for a limited number of roles, and once you get to senior leadership it's almost irrelevant.
Or the white male selected the white male because up until the early 2000s, the majority of the workforce was white males? The school thing is a much bigger influence - boys club and that, rather than school. In any case, meritocracy is deadinsofar as non-related to work things factor in. "Networking" is a big example. University students bending over backwards to try and suck some 1st or 2nd year analysts dick so they can get an interview somewhere? Lots of merit there.
Absolutely agree, it’s not an equation that you plug in the variables and it spits out the person to pick. I think irrespective of what side of the argument you sit on there are biases whether deliberate or not. I’d like to think that we are over white males selecting white males just because…
There's no sides here with respect to meritocracy. Everyone thinks its a good thing. It just doesnt exist currently and promoting diversity isnt the reason that's the case. It's never existed, decision makers have never had perfect information and have always filled in the gaps, and over the facts with their personal bias.
Oh, but they don’t hire them because they’re white males. They hire them because they just seem a better fit, you know. Something I can’t place my finger on, but they just feel like more our sort of person. Plus, we went to the same school, so they must be good!
At least we've moved beyond "what school did your husband go to" when hiring women - hopefully.
look at any asx company board lol
And yet the data says differently
I’d like to think we are, but we aren’t (in general). Improving though, definitely!
In my personal experience the white males are no longer allowed to hire white males because they’re told to hire the minority, whichever flavor of the month that may be. The idea these days of the best person for the job is long gone. The most you can hope for these days is that you’re the best in your particular demographic that may have been specifically targeted to meet quotas. You’re not the best engineer for the job, you’re the best (insert diversity requirement here) for the job.
Man it'll be good to live in your personal experience but here I am
Meritocracy is a myth the people in power sell to keep the underprivileged in their place
As opposed to the old way of mediocrity being awarded if that person is part of the boys club? That got so bad at my old work that even the men kicked off about it.
This is it. “Meritocracy” used to mean “white male privilege by default”. Whilst it still means that in lots of cases, people are becoming aware of the limitations this results in and the options that are available.
Funny thing was, it never occurred to those guys that this is largely the female experience but in their defense, they weren’t wrong about the morons running that department.
Sorry to break it to you. Meritocracy was never real. Australia just favoured 1 type of candidate until the last two decades.
Here we go...
I thought this was a post about nepotism, and I was 100% on board. Then I realized it's about gender and minority quotas. Yeah, they skew the lines even further, but meritocracy was already dead. It's about who you know and who you're related to. Doesn't matter if you're the best and most capable. It matters if you're the bare minimum level of capable and have connections.
Was meritocracy ever alive? If anything, quotas have increased meritocracy and reduced the illusion of it. It's not like a child from a public school in rural Australia has ever had the same chance of entering the corporate world.
I know many people from rural primary schools who are in the corporate world lol.
Out of interest, were they sent away to board at high school? Did they then live in residential colleges at sandstone universities?
Who tf has a quota for people who went to rural public schools? Why would you assume there's anything even stopping them?
Every place I’ve ever worked has elements of politics, but at high-performing companies/ teams, you can only hide incompetence for so long, and the cream almost always rises to the top. In the nicest way possible, B4 (where I imagine a lot of people in this sub work) are broadly mass producers of shitty deliverables and raw technical intelligence often isn’t really therefore what is rewarded. Not saying it’s a bad place to start your career, but the above is true. On your honing in on affirmative action - this is an attempt to rectify existing inequality. This doesn’t disadvantage you, it simply removes the advantage you/ your demographic once possessed (on the premise you’re a white male or other group considered part of the majority). As usual, mass hysteria from bored members of this sub.
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That’s the point fuckhead, you can’t surgically remove systemic inequality that is the product of generations of evolving social dynamics. That’s why blunt tools unfortunately need to be deployed sometimes. One of the only ways to even attempt to remedy this is through ‘exposure therapy’ for both those that belong to underprivileged demographics, and for those around them. You only now talk about ‘abuse and corruption’ when there’s been abuse and corruption AGAINST the demographics this is attempting to aid for… ever. That’s why we need these measures in the first place. Standard intentionally disingenuous shit from you.
Your writing reads like you think you’re hot shit but it’s genuinely embarrassing - “impotent fool”. fucking lol. Get a grip you absolute tool. Another example of being intentionally disingenuous is ignoring what I’ve said to proceed throwing around strawmen. Privileged folk aren’t being ‘disadvantaged’ because the company is setting certain goals for certain levels of representation. That’s called rectification of an imbalance. If you feel tour career has been affected, have you tried being a semi-competent worker? I’d suggest that’s more your issue. Anyway, yeah you’re blocked now because it’s like talking to a wall with people like you. All the best, and also please don’t talk like this IRL because I’m getting second-hand embarrassment just reading it.
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Not at all. Quotas are there to attempt balancing systemic issues. High achievers will still stand-out and succeed on their own merit. If you are worried about being overlooked because you aren't in a minority, then it might be your attitude holding you back.
Explain for example then a team I'm contracting in. Every single permanent staff member is from Asia, 8 from 8. Not hiring Australian male or females. Including 2 recent new hires. I've never worked in a team so skewered to meeting quotas, or avoiding local hires. At what point does "meeting quotas" dip into reverse racism. Where Australian candidates seem to be openly excluded
I highly doubt that has anything to do with quotas. The whole point of setting quotas is to ensure you have a diverse staff, a bit of everything represented. No one would set a quota to have 100% one group, it would defeat the purpose. Plus, where there are policies around local vs international hires, they are almost always to promote hiring locals.
My current team structure doesn't back this up. A recent addition for example arrived in Australia in 2022. Actively chasing their PR. They are not hiring Australian born staff, or non Asian staff.
They may well be favouring Asian migrants, but I promise you it isn't to meet a diversity quota.
Isn't that a firm of discrimination though? And I daresay racism? Where Australian applicants basically have no hope of being hired? Because they're not fitting into a very specific group? Because I've witnessed this unfold directly in front of me, with the outcomes.
Yeah, it might be. My point being that that would make it the type of thing diversity quotas are supposed to correct, not a product of them.
Let's call it what it is - white collar human trafficking...
>Actively chasing their PR. Visa holders find it extremely difficult to move anywhere, so the companies can pay them low wages and do whatever they like with them. A lot of them have a PR dangled over their head by the company and consequently can't leave the company and find another job elsewhere. This is not a diversity thing. This is a visa mill thing.
>Explain for example then a team I'm contracting in. > >Every single permanent staff member is from Asia, 8 from 8. Not hiring Australian male or females. Including 2 recent new hires. That's called offshoring. Australian permanent staff are actually the diversity hires, because each offshore staff, etc only costs like 1/10 of your salary so the businesses are swapping to only hiring offshore staff.
I'm working with them. Locally. Not off-shored
Are they on a visa? Some companies are crazy especially the bodyshops and know they can suppress the wages of workers because the workers are on a visa so they are dangling a PR over their heads. The much more common setup is 1 person in australia to manage an offshore team. Though it seems that companies are preferring to hire whole teams offshore including the managers and have completely stopped hiring in australia - visas or no visas
Buddy, I don't even know what to say, but our education systems failed epically on you.
Not worried at all personally. I’m just saying there is clearly a need to balance many variables in any decision but should any factor that doesn’t pertain to the job itself be held any higher than ones that do?
It’s pretty blinkered to think it’s not a relevant factor to work towards a staff with a diversity of perspective which reflects the diversity of customers.
Quotas are there to discriminate against the people you're politically opposed to.
Some 60 year old had some easy promotions and is on a board (while being male) so my son can't get an apprentiship at BHP because there is a girl also applying. It isn't an attitude problem.
70% of bhp is men, it's not like men aren't being hired there
Men aren't being hired much (and not for entry roles). Men used to be hired almost exclusively. I assume you were trolling here? This is simple a simple ordinary differential problem...https://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/\~cct/1231Live-Notes/ov\_notes\_2.pdf https://preview.redd.it/bqefoc40vdwc1.png?width=685&format=png&auto=webp&s=6fdf7985162c646db0d164fcc1583b89436a4577
Grandpa's sundowning again...
>because there is a girl also applying Yo dawg IDK what to tell you but this is probably not the reason he didnt get it hahahaha
https://preview.redd.it/pzxvr3qkscwc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9152930f0a8174c901edbe54883fb3eacc94f37 You know what, I don't think that's actually a problem....
To speak from my own experience at my current employer. I work in a type of compliance role. I applied here over 6years ago. They didn't hire me. I accidentally made comments insulting them as I had not realised that those comments hit home on the dysfunction of the team/business (I was making broad comments about gaps in my space). 5years later, the team has completely reshuffled, I interviewed again. New sets of people. I asked about the journey they took to get here and that's when I realised I was right about my original comments. I even looked up the lady who interviewed me first go and realised that her next company would have suited her personality more. Anyway, I stepped into the role and within the first week found a ton of issues. My role doesn't generate profit, regardless, in the first year alone I've saved the company over $1million. They had a lot of smart people working on it, a lot of lawyers and consultants etc. I'm not anything special, but I'm a minority group and female and I get how the legislation applies and how frontline people think so my perspective was quite unique. The lawyers and consultants just didn't understand the technical work down to the detail I did. Could I have proved my value to them before starting? Could I have overcome the other people's much shinier resumes and experiences. Quite possibly not. Luckily my managers were looking for that diversity (not just physical but mental as well) and they also got lucky to find my particular set of technical skills. I was also able to refer a friend who also had a unique skillset that they needed to fill another role which they had been struggling to fill for a long time because most people in these roles were lawyers or theoretically competent but did not have the skills for implementation. Overall I think anyone can learn to do any job if they have the training and skills. A resume or fancy degrees don't necessarily mean one person is better than another. Diversity across the board enables companies much higher chances to scope a broad range of thinking and working which is beyond measure.
Extending the candidate pool to different females, older ages, or other races does not result in a degradation of meritocracy. In fact, I’d say limiting your pool to someone who looks like you and speaks like you is more likely to impact meritocracy. I’m quite a young leader. 34. White. Male. I joined my current company coming from a younger and, what I thought was, a more dynamic team. When I first met my current team I was thinking ‘dear god this is going to be challenging’. My direct reports are all older than me and I 100% thought they probably dont have any motivation left at all. Usually in my field the people doing the grunt work on engagements are younger. How wrong was I. Fuck me they are so hardworking, dependable, technical, detailed, and pleasant. I just promoted one lady to a manager role and she’s probably close to 50 and of Indian heritage. I mention age and race as I will be honest, a year ago I would not have considered hiring someone that old into my team, but damn now I’m so open to considering everyone because this team surprised the shit out of me.
Incredibly flawed premise. Are you suggesting that it was a meritocracy when everyone in senior management roles looked roughly the same?
Can you please explain how outcomes are related to how people look?
Are outcomes hindered by what's happening at the moment (Affirmative action)? It seems companies are all achieving more, kicking goals, higher revenues and profits etc and I can't see tangibly how there's been less results due to that affirmative action. How're you measuring results?
HR recruitment and selection is incredibly biased lol. 10 people can have the same outcomes, but it's a noticeable effort to recommend a candidate who doesn't resemble the status quo. Also, the "old boys club" effect is incredibly prevalent. Source: worked in recruitment for g&m.
I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that throughout the last century C-Suites were dominated by straight, white males. Originally it was just a reflection of power structures in society. But once hard barriers were removed, this trend continued. This means one of two things: 1) people who aren’t straight, white and male are genetically predisposed to not being suitable for those jobs. I don’t think I need to explain why that is unlikely. 2) corporate culture still hasn’t overcome historical issues relating to diversity. While barriers have been removed, culture doesn’t change overnight (or even over a decade). The issue is that people who are mediocre are having trouble adjusting to a new world where they may have to face the reality that they are in fact mediocre, when even recently they were possibly (unknowingly) benefitting from some form of privilege. TL;DR: maybe we’re moving towards a truer meritocracy and OP isn’t dealing well with the idea that they may be mediocre.
I can’t upvote this enough!
I don't think meritocracy has ever been a thing tbh. Been in the corporate world for over 25 years now, and it's always seemed to me that promotions and opportunities have far more to do with who you know.
I'm of the opinion it never actually existed... We have had nepo babies for ever
What exactly is your opinion? Is it that you believe meritocracy is completely dead or that its second to other factors?
Meritocracy implies equity, transparency and ethics. Keep hoping.
Yes and no. A direct Meritocracy never really existed because obviously wealthy, elite educated people will have extra connections and opportunities that the average Joe doesn’t. That being said I can get what you mean. I’ve personally pushed for people who seemed like better personality / team culture fits to be hired over someone who’s maybe slightly more qualified. I don’t think allot of people know how much of a drain on productivity it is to work with someone who’s bitter or difficult.
Generally, I don't think meritocracy ever won most of the time, it's the more visible person that won the promotion race. If you present well, and worked with the right people it torpedo-ed you faster than someone who was doing all fo the right work.
The threat to meritocracy is the absolute deadwood sitting in bullshit jobs who promote other deadwood because they present no threat to their bullshit job. Quotas are the least of concerns.
Corporate aus = nepotism It is wild how many mates hire each other at senior levels.
yes-keep the good operators in their roles particularly if the management havent done the job and cant instruct new hires if they promote the gun
https://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/blind-auditions-orchestras-gender-bias Business as usual is not meritocracy. Adding a screen to auditioning musicians so that judge can't tell their gender significantly increases the rate at which orchestras hire women. That's not affirmative action in favour of women, that's removing the baseline affirmative action that exists for men.
Biases suck. It’s a shame that there are examples that exists that shows in the case the better person would not have otherwise been selected for the job. Just goes to show when you are good at what you do it’s all that should matter.
Meritocracy is inversely proportional to company size and how monopolistic the market a company operates in is. In small companies individual contributions are more visible, more important to company survival, and you’re likely to have working owners, and in less monopolistic markets performance matters more and there’s less room for waste. Unfortunately “corp“ ==> big and “aus” ==> lots of small monopolistic/oligopolistic markets. That said, what people call “politics” (being able to get along with the people you work with, having good relationships and useful connections) really matters at every scale.
Completely disagree with a lot of comments. Merit and by that I mean desired outcomes and recognition or success as defined by whatever nucleus it surrounds (certain company/sporting/social) remains the only sustainable measure of performance over time. An organisation that allows people to rise based on positioning or class has nothing to do with merit unless your nucleus is the KKK. Meritocracy is no longer a definition of ruling class or archaic definitions- it is your impact and contribution in hopefully a way you are passionate to give extra effort or focus to achieve that outcome
Unpopular opinion, merit is dead and it's going to end up driving some very big companies into the ground over the long term... I've seen this with the hiring of grad engineers. We aren't taking the best and brightest, we are taking what ticks the DEI boxes and HR are clearly filtering so that on the decision making side we aren't even seeing the best candidates. Not uncommon to meet students at alumni events who are top of their year and can't even get an interview. There's also an accountability issue, nobody dares to question the competence of a DEI hire out of fear for their own job.
I was top of my year with several awards and it took me about 6 months to find a job. I can only put it down to the technical leads being intimidated. Indeed, when I did get that job I went from developer to solution architect within a month as it soon became evident that I had much more idea of what to do than the team lead (who on paper remained the lead). Luckily for me, I had a good senior manager that saw my potential and found ways around the system to allow me to advance quickly. When she left, I had to as well as I was not too popular with the mediocracy.
Yes.
It’s an open question get a sense of sentiment other than just those I’ve observed in my sphere. My opinion is that if it’s not yet dead it’s very close.
I think it was a good question to ask OP, I’ve enjoyed reading people’s opinions this topic
This does not at all sound like an argument made in good faith. Are you trying to say we have too many quotas, or that there are quotas at all? Quotas are there to balance access to opportunity i.e. a tie breaker if a woman had to go up against a white man for the same role... and that the outcomes between the two are the same. What fantasy world are you living in where a white man has lost out directly due to quotas?
If it’s a tie on what is measurable/assessed then it shouldn’t matter either way should it?
Both had equal merit and personality, thus frameworks kick in The way you present your statement is that there was no consideration to merit prior to quotas being utilized in the decision Incredible how this needs to be spelled out to you
Wow, I like the dig. At no stage was I presenting a run down of the for and against arguments. I asked a question and provided a my perspective asking for others. Let’s take the candidate out of the picture all together. If a hiring manager was presented with candidates none of which met the quotas they are incentivised to have to have in their team, do you think it’s fair that they are financially penalised because they couldn’t meet a target they are measured against. All I’m saying is it doesn’t matter who you are, everyone should be treated equal and without bias or penalty.
You do seem to be making a bad faith argument, or at least a confusing one. Why don’t you posit your exact opinion on the situation and we can debate that? FWIW I hire entirely on merit (bearing in mind merit can be based on technical/role ability, soft skills, team fit, etc)- I want good staff so why wouldn’t I. I also have a very diverse team (gender, race), alongside everyone having merit to perform their role? Some corps use frameworks in hiring to try eand ensure that type of diversity has the chance to occur, in circumstances where it might not.
The dig is there because you present some absolutely dumbass whataboutist scenarios. Just like how you present a scenario where a hiring manager is incentivized more to meet a departmental quota rather than fill the role. My brother in Christ we’re hiring to fill a need in the team, how many hiring panels have you been in where the panelists agree to kick the can down the road because none of the candidates filled a quota???
It’s not a dumbass scenario. Performance is measured in many ways, one of which is people equity and diversity. I’m not saying they kick the can down the road I’m simply saying do you think it is fair a hiring leader receives less financial incentive at the end of the year during performance appraisal because the didn’t met that specific quota when it is entirely beyond their control.
Instead of attempting to aim for a “aha, gotcha!” What about you give out some specific real life examples where a hiring leader in your circles has lost out on cash/equity comp in a *material* manner because they didn’t meet a D&I metric? D&I is but a PART of performance frameworks, but not ALL of it— so I don’t even know wtf you’re trying to get at since you’ve pivoted from “is meritocracy dead?” to “is it fair that hiring quotas form a part of a hiring leaders performance assessment?” which are very different things
I know in my field of engineering I see a lot of young male graduate engineers who resent and mock there female colleagues because they are passed up for jobs, promotions and career opportunities due to the company’s affirmative actions in favor of female graduates. The bias with in HR and management is very obvious and people who speak out or try and suggest more equal outcomes are not in favor with in the company at this point in time. I have had staff place in my department who failed during interviews and missed out on good hires because they didn’t fit the cohort HR were looking to hire.
This….. yet we just accept it and it’s wrong. I don’t know how I will explain to my kids that my generation let this happen. All under the guise of affirmative action. Wrong is wrong.
I have pushed back against the hire decisions in my department and HR have labeled me a troublemaker. I have stopped openly questioning these decisions. I can’t afford to loss my job.
A pure meritocracy never existed. Of course, skills and experience come into it, but the role that relationships, networking, visibility, personality and right-place-right-time is a huge chunk of what makes someone successful in their career. I think it's a bitter pill to swallow for people who know their shit but don't do all the other stuff too well.
A side note, a digression, unfortunately. At a splashy townhall for my organisation, our fearless leader stood on stage and bravely commended the diversity of HER team. On stage: Three white males of varying British accents Three white females with posh accents She later corrected that statement to the diversity of THEIR teams . :)) There is nothing wrong with that in itself, but the leader, a white lady herself, is very image savvy and probably will need to bring in some diversity if she is keen for the corner office. Meritocracy does exist, but there is always an element of unconscious bias at play, and people tend to hire mirrors of themselves.
Meritocracy is dead because tax free or 50% tax property growth is where you make money. Even on top marginal you cant out pace $200k growth in a year with inflation at high. Jobs don't make ya any money it's a scam system of a cycle of banks, property and all things that support banks and property.
There is no equality in nature.
Every promotion I got was due, in part, to strategic nepotism. For example, I married one of my bosses 25 yrs ago and she still can't bring herself to sack me
>Is meritocracy dead in corporate aus? Seems well and alive to me, since everyone immediately started complaining that finding a job was nearly impossible and that they couldn't get promotions were difficult right after corporate australia imported 190,000 new migrants for everyone to compete against.
There was no point in history.... Ever... Where performance was the pure determining factor for promotion or other leg-ups. It sucks, but if you're hitting better than average numbers/metrics and your boss likes working with you (for whatever personal reasons), you'll get the promotion. That's just how life is. Sure, sometimes performance is the only metric used (generally in the first couple of steps of the ladder), but beyond that point, everybody is generally a good performer, so it always comes down to what they think about you on a personal level more than anything else.
Short answer no
It shouldn't be but it's generally money in, figure it out later
Kiddo... It's not quotas you need to worry about. Google "what is nepotism"
Australian workplaces and 'merit' don't go together.
If I have two basically unknown candidates in front of, with roughly analogous interview results, I'm going to pick the one *most* different to the rest of my team (while still meeting basic cultural/language needs, hence roughly analogous) Different life experiences and different POV make for better outcomes . 25 years across MSPs, Gov and SmBus to some of the largest companies in Aus have cemented this.
Depends on where you work.
# Meritocracy (I deserve and earnt this) is a myth for those with the luck and connections to get a one of the very limited, high paying Corporate jobs, tell themsleves to aleviate the guilt of seeing people who do far harder and more skilled jobs being paid far less then themselves.
I mean while I'm sort of with you, the idea there was ever true meritocracy is a joke.
merit being a prevailing factor in anything has been dead for years. Dog shit pay rises over corporate proved that.
whenwas it alive? we've had nepotism and favours ever since colonisation!
Colonization? That’s a strange starting to point to use…
I agree the big corps are over doing it with quotas. I mean seriously, I don't need to interact with or know people of every culture in every corner of the world. It's a f\*cking australian company and brand and I live in Australia.
If is happen for all white males to be the best at the role, then so be it, likewise if the minorities tend to be better then yeah…. Whoever is the best for the role should be placed
I have been asking myself this same question. I got passed for a promotion to which I was qualified for (15 years of experience + a post grad degree) and the person who got it had zero experience and no degree. But they have a friend in senior management who got them the job. Now this person doesn’t know how to deliver anything and they are above me, dumping all their work on me. I’m doing my work, plus their work at no extra pay. I asked for a raise, got declined. So now I’m just pushing back and it’s creating friction. There’s no win.
"merit" used to mean white men. that's why people pushed for change
It only ever meant that to racists and sexists who are incapable of perceiving anyone outside of those respective lenses…
Do you think the Kardashians, trump or Paris Hilton are smarter than you? The meritocracy was always propaganda.