"I will prove to you by example now what I am talking about and show you how we at DiverCidade were born to change this reality.
Recruitment and Selection: The area we hear about as the most important, the one that chooses the people who will make a difference in the company... The area that rejects candidates for being women, the area that notes on paper "too black," the area that refuses because of being over 30, the area that exchanges (leaked) audio messages about only hiring attractive people. Unfortunately, it doesn't end here. Recruitment is mostly made up of people who have just joined the company, with no preparation in people management, no behavioral analysis skills, no body language reading, no ability to extract information. The proof? The candidate needs to impress the recruiters. And it makes sense because the recruiters can't read a candidate.
Training and Development: One of the areas that I personally find less bad, but still full of mistakes. The T&D area is responsible for finding the link between the company's goals and the gaps between reality and the goal. It is the area that should be the fuel for employee performance, to empower them to overcome existing and potential challenges, thus keeping the company running, profiting, and developing people. Sounds great, right? But cut to an animated training with characters that shouldn't have been used since 2004. Teaching methodology? Non-existent. Multidisciplinary approach? Non-existent. Reports indicating strengths and weaknesses? Non-existent. An area reduced to checking mandatory training, sending live training invites, and fighting to the death to convince people to meet the training quota.
Culture: Ah, the culture area... So highly regarded among those who don't understand organizational culture... But unfortunately, it's another colorful tale in the gray world of companies. The area responsible for creating a culture in the company and managing it needs to have a vision beyond nuclear HR, a business vision, a market vision, a vision of how to inspire people from different areas with a set of beliefs and behaviors that keep them in a healthy and productive movement. Unfortunately, we've reduced this area to catchy phrases, stickers with values on the wall, and employees in the hallway, widely frustrated, criticizing the lack of coherence between the colorful stickers and their daily work realities.
Business Partners (BPs): Finally, the BP area, the intermediary area between people and departments, the area with the most abstract and variable job definitions. BPs can be the lowest-paid employees or partners and shareholders in the company. Described as consultants who need to ensure the execution of the business plan, the BP area tends to be the most conflict-averse area of all, but not in a good way. It has become naturalized in HR in general, but primarily in the BP area, to pretend that everything is fine and always act with a forced smile on the face. Forced positivity doesn't generate results, doesn't strategically correct course, doesn't allow room for improvement, and serves no purpose other than protecting positions before someone realizes they are not working.
Now, let's talk about diversity!
Think about this fragile structure that I've pointed out and consider the introduction of diversity and inclusion, whether as a new area or as a cross-cutting initiative. The first thing that comes to mind is chaos.
DEI professionals are a separate issue that I will also criticize, but that's for another text. For now, let's focus on the initial topic.
When we introduce diversity and question recruitment, "where are the Black people?" we are inevitably exposing a flaw in the team. The same goes for questioning accessibility with T&D. When we question the culture area about conduct and the implementation of the proposed culture, it's the same. The diversity area enters HR and automatically exposes such a mess. The inevitable response is HR trying to turn the D&I area into a minimally functioning area, just like the rest, to avoid frustrations.
That's why we at DiverCidade are more than a company; we are a movement."
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