DIE, Google, DEI
Melonie Parker is Google's chief diversity officer, in charge of sociopolitical checkbox-based hiring. She joined Omose Ighodaro in the BBC's Executive Lounge, boasting Google's DEI credits in How Google is sticking to – and soaring past – its DEI goals. Although soaring past
suggests that their goals may not have been too much of a stretch in the first place.
It's another 2dull2read puff-piece for BBC Worklife, aligning with the PPRP's sociopolitical agenda. I did manage to get as far as the second paragraph of Ighodaro's preamble though:
In recent decades, many global companies launched new initiatives to improve their DEI efforts, bringing in new executives and bolstering their hiring of diverse candidates. However, the landscape shifted in 2022, when many tech companies made significant cuts and downsized DEI programmes. In many cases, workers of colour were among the first affected by layoffs.
Omose Ighodaro, How Google is sticking to – and soaring past – its DEI goals, BBC Worklife
I wouldn't go so far as to say this has been a phenomenon over recent decades, Ms Ighodaro, just the last one or so, as venture capitalist institutions such as BlackRock sought to deflect criticism of their business and profit model by cynically mandating arbitrary ESG targets for companies they're invested in. Consequently, if those diverse candidates were hired based predominantly on diversity rather than effectiveness, then of course they're more vulnerable when it comes to layoffs. It's a no-brainer; when times are tough, companies want to retain the best and jettison the rest.
Frankly, I don't give a shit about Google's virtue signalling, unless the drive for diversity and inclusion extends to updating its services to include people whose mother tongue is diversified from their geolocation. But I get the feeling that Parker's priorities are more parochial than that.