Discrimination and Diversity In the Workplace

Discrimination:  When an individual is denied a job, a raise, a civil right, due to their race, gender, age, religion or sexual orientation, that defines discrimination.  It is illegal and in my opinion immoral.  It is also counter productive to whatever an organizations goals (both private and public) happen to be.

Diversity:  When an individual is given a job, a raise, special privileges, etc. due to their race, gender, age, religion or sexual orientation it is legal but will always be counter productive to an organization’s goals.  With such diversity employee performance will reach the lowest common denominator.

Too many “professional politicians” don’t seem to understand this and believe that individuals are interchangeable. The goal is to make the pool of employees reflect the same makeup as the general population.  It’s not their seemingly lack of intelligence, it’s their lack of experience working in the private sector.  In the private sector there is a need to have a positive bottom line and as a result the strategy is to hire and promote the most qualified individuals regardless of their race, gender, age, religion or sexual orientation.

In the public sector there is no incentive to excel, just do your job and you will get your paycheck.  So perhaps diversity is the proper way to divide the budget provided by taxpayers, but diversity will never work in the private sector.  Politicians on the left know this and that is why they want to minimize or totally eliminate the role of the private sector in the U.S.  The goal is diversity and the methodology is called “affirmative action”.  It may work in the public sector but the “all knowing politicians” should not be allowed to determine how those in the private sector manage their employees.  Market forces are much more efficient at teaching those lessons.     

 It is rare, in both Political Parties, to find candidates with any work experience in the Private Sector.  That is until they retire or get voted out of office.  They will then accept a position in the Private Sector to collect on all the IOUs earned while in office.  But that is a discussion for another day.