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HR entrepreneur Mike Coffey, SPHR, SHRM-SCP engages business thought leaders about the strategic, psychological, legal, and practical implications of bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. As an HR consultant, mentor to first-stage businesses through EO’s Accelerator program, and owner of Imperative—Bulletproof Background Screening, Mike is passionate about helping other professionals improve how they recruit, select, and manage their people. Most thirty-minute episodes of Good Morning, HR will be eligible for half a recertification credit for both HRCI and SHRM-certified professionals. Mike is a member of Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) Fort Worth and active with the Texas Association of Business, the Fort Worth Chamber, and Texas SHRM.
One of the interesting things when we talk about this difference in language and the notion of diversity versus inclusion, I have a certain sense that diversity was the idea of diversity was something that we as the organization are going to require of our organization. Right? Whereas inclusion is almost from the opposite perspective in terms of we need to create an environment where people want to work, where all people want to work. And it makes you think in terms of how do you create an organization where people desirable candidates are not self selecting out of it.
Mike Coffey:Good morning, HR. I'm Mike Coffey, president of Imperative. Bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. And this is the podcast where I talk to business leaders about bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. Please follow, rate, and review Good Morning HR wherever you get your podcasts.
Mike Coffey:You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or at goodmorninghr.com. The last Thursday of the month means it's time to do our wrap up of recent HR news items. And joining me today is returning guest, Catherine Clifton. Catherine is an attorney and partner in the employment law firm Ross Ganaway Clifton where she consults with employers about a wide range of employment law issues. Before joining Ross Ganaway Clifton, Catherine spent over 20 years working in public sector employment law here in Texas.
Mike Coffey:Welcome to Good Morning HR, Catherine.
Catherine Clifton:Thank you, Mike. I'm so happy to be back here. I felt like it's been too long since we got Sean. Yeah.
Mike Coffey:Well, it has. Yeah. You were, like, episode 63, and now we're at 141. So Wow. It's, time flies when you're having fun.
Catherine Clifton:You've been doing a lot of work.
Mike Coffey:Yeah well it's my you know all I have to do is ask them questions. I just have to find smart people to answer them. So you're here, so welcome back. Thank you. So let's start with this this sunshine raisin case out of California.
Mike Coffey:$2,000,000 sexual harassment agreement to settle a lawsuit brought by the EEOC. When are we gonna learn that sexual harassment doesn't fly?
Catherine Clifton:Yeah. This is one of those cases that was kind of, kind of takes you aback because in recent years, we've been much more in the I I don't know. Not subtle, but the less overt forms. We're not usually seeing the quid pro quo. We're seeing more hostile work environment or allegations of hostile work environment cases.
Catherine Clifton:And this one really, really takes you back that, you know, the things that were going on that you have the physical contact and the groping and the threats and, like, just over quid pro quo. And so that was kinda surprising about it, but it's it's interesting in another aspect too, actually a couple of other aspects. One of which is the procedure of it. How you get to the EOC actually files a lawsuit because most of us have employers Yeah. Have been through that process where you get a charge and you have that opportunity to begin with usually to go to mediation.
Catherine Clifton:You either elect that or you don't. You write your position statement. You wait year, year and a half, and you get you get a communication that's is dismissal and notice of rights, but it's what we call the right to sue letter usually. And that obviously wasn't the process in this case because in those cases, it's up to the employee to go out and find an attorney and see if they think it's worth taking after they've waited for the EOC to do something. And in this case, the EOC sends a different letter.
Catherine Clifton:They send this notice of determination saying, they believe that discrimination has occurred. And then they have that offer, that opportunity to go into conciliation, which is basically mediation, although now the EEOC is more of a party when mediation at the beginning is where the EEOC is this neutral third party before they've done an investigation. That'll happen in this case, and they couldn't settle this reconciliation, which is kind of amazing to me because the facts look so bad.
Mike Coffey:Right. And that's probably why the EFC knew they had a slam dunk. They they don't wanna take cases typically that they think they're gonna lose. Right? And so the you know, this you know, to get to the preponderance of evidence or whatever their standard is on the civil side is like, you know, but you've got people here, you know, grabbing and groping employees and making explicit comments over multiple years.
Mike Coffey:Complaints were made, and they threatened to fire people for, you know, for complaining, you know, an overt request for sexual favors. I mean,
Catherine Clifton:you
Mike Coffey:know, this is more like madman than it is a workplace in in in in the, you know, the 2000 21st century. So kinda nuts. And so why don't you settle this? Yeah.
Catherine Clifton:Right. And I think the EOC, you know, in their statement, they really took this position that, hey. This is the most vulnerable group of people. These are people who
Mike Coffey:Yeah. These are farm workers. I don't know if I said that earlier. Yeah. These are migrant farm workers, and that's probably why they thought they could get away with it.
Mike Coffey:We'll just, you know, they'll just go back home after
Catherine Clifton:the season's off. They got away with it, I think, for a long time. One of the other procedural things that's interesting to me in this one is that it started out as 3 people who complained, 3 people who filed that charge. And by the time this is filed, it's expanded where the EEOC has said, we're representing this entire class of people that were affected because these 3 weren't the only people that experienced this. One of the other things that I think is really interesting in terms of what actually happened in this case is that you had a staffing agency.
Catherine Clifton:And I think that's where the Raisin people were like, we weren't the employer. We were using a staffing company. It's their fault. And the EOC and the court said, no. That's not how this works.
Catherine Clifton:But I do think that's interesting. And there is another case that came along from the 5th circuit back in the fall that was also possibly even more egregious than this that have involved the staffing company. And the posture of this one at this point is that now the EEOC has entered into this settlement with the company, but the case with the staffing company is still pending. And the staffing company, I think, is gonna make the same argument that the company in the Arredondo case in the 5th circuit made which is we couldn't have known about this. And I'm I'm not sure where this one ends at because we don't have, like, we don't have all the facts.
Catherine Clifton:I'm not reading from a transcript. Right? But in that case, the court was pretty clear. In the 5th Circuit case, the court was pretty clear that, well, they never made the the employees never made a complaint to the staffing company. And The staffing company had no reason to know this was happening, but at that time when I was reading their Arredondo case, I thought, okay, but what does this do for them in the future?
Catherine Clifton:Because now that staffing company potentially is unnoticed if something similar happens again and in that case there was actually sexual assault. It was like, that was the one that really smacks you in the face like, are you kidding me that this is happening in this day and age? Although, I will say this case actually started, I think, in 19 or 20. So it's not as recent as it feels because it takes a while to get through the court system.
Mike Coffey:But it's still post me too.
Catherine Clifton:Absolutely. I mean, you
Mike Coffey:know, and and you would think that the me too era would have would have woken even, you know, employers of blue collar employees, you know, who up to it. And the staffing company, I think it's gonna it's gonna be hard for as long as this happened and as to many people as it happened to say that nobody ever notified them. Nobody ever complained to them or did anything. I mean, now finding those witnesses may be challenging because they're migrant workers and finding somebody from 2017 or 2018 who who came back, you know, and you know, they may well not have been rehired anyway. So
Catherine Clifton:Right. And it would be interesting to know what's going on in the discovery in that case. Those things that aren't visible to us at this point because the facts haven't been and usually when we get all the facts is when these cases get past the district court and they're appealed and that's not where that case is right now. So yeah. It it's in that one will be interesting though if there's further court action on it.
Mike Coffey:And the thing that might that would, you know, $2,000,000 is a lot and, one hopes they've, you know, they've got EPLI and it's covering, you know, this or, you know, or maybe you don't hope that. Maybe you think the, you know, the the dirty bastards have to pay it themselves instead of passing it on to the insurance company, but, they also had they've got to hire a third party monitor Right. You know to pay it you know so they had to have their own ombudsman or their own, you know Right. Basically pay for somebody to report things back to the EEOC and monitor what's going on. You can do all the training and all of that, update their policies, and then continue to provide reports to the EEOC about any complaints and all that.
Mike Coffey:I mean they've taken on a pretty good administrative burden here too, just just to keep, you know to settle this case. And like you said, the staffing agency is apparently still fighting it and, and that, you know, maybe that's a decision made made, you know, largely by their insurance company. But Maybe
Catherine Clifton:they're waiting for visas to expire so that Yeah. People aren't present. Yeah. But that's that's what you brought up about the 3rd party monitor, I thought was really interesting too. And it makes me think about what does that look like in the workplace when you have a third party there?
Catherine Clifton:And in some ways, I think that's very helpful to the employer in this case because one of the things that we see pretty frequently when we do investigations or when we're helping our clients proceed through investigations of complaints in their workplace is that once people have been even if there's just a witness in the investigation, they're very concerned about anybody making a claim and they're, you know, they're contacting me. Well, these people are all concerned. Like, they feel like they shouldn't talk to this person. How do you behave? What do we tell them?
Catherine Clifton:And it's like, you know, this is why there's an investigation process. Right? And if you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about. But I think about this place and as long as it's gone on and if those employees are all still present, just how awkward is that workplace? And I think that's very common.
Catherine Clifton:Happens everywhere. Right?
Mike Coffey:Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, you see in in white collar things where, you know, an investigation about sexual harassment, let's say, turns into a he said, she said. There's no corroborating evidence. There's no previous history of his behavior by the person that made the complaint or by the person who, you know, who the target of the complaint. And you just have to say, we're gonna retrain everybody and and, you know, this is what we we don't tolerate here.
Mike Coffey:These are our policies and you just move on. So now you've got a complainant who's often not satisfied in those situations and, you know, you may well have a an accused who feels like they were treated unfairly, throughout the process because, you know, they're convinced that nothing, you know, you know, very rarely did does anybody think they actually did anything wrong. And so you get through all of that, but then those people have to interact. And and some you know, depending on the size of the organization, it's it's unavoidable. And, and then for us, the office knows about what's going on and people you know, it is it's it's awkward, and it's why you wanna do all your training up front because this is the cost of all this this drama in your organization is is probably more than you wanna pay.
Mike Coffey:And it's a lot it's a lot cheaper just to train everybody and say, we're not gonna do this.
Catherine Clifton:Absolutely. The lost productivity in dealing with everybody being worried about what's happening because things weren't addressed upfront is certainly significant. And it's not one of the the costs that people think about. You were talking about, you know, we're kinda talking about how this is awkward. Right?
Catherine Clifton:And you look back over 25 years of and this whole thing where you complain, you, you know, you do training and then somebody complains and then you have an investigation, you take prompt remedial action, etcetera. And I look back on, you know, 20 years ago, if we had somebody complain, they felt so stigmatized by making a complaint. You would see those people it's really rare for those people to stay in the organization. And you can just see how how much pressure that puts on people when they're the complainant. Obviously, it puts a lot of pressure on people when they're the accused.
Catherine Clifton:And now it's become more normal. Like, people are less in many workplaces, people are understand. They understand this process, which is the result of all the training, maybe the result of having experienced it to say, this is the process and I can be comfortable and confident that the process is gonna work. And if I didn't do anything wrong, you know, all I do is provide information. But you see a real difference, I think.
Catherine Clifton:I see a difference in the investigations I do with people who grew up with this. Like, you and I, we didn't grow up with this training. Right? I tell people the closest thing I had when I went to college, the big thing was date rape. And you have training about that that we all went to together and you sat in it the 1st week that you're at college and you have all these very young adults, who have just met each other and then they're addressing this awkward conversation, awkward topic, and how people behave about that is that you make jokes.
Catherine Clifton:Same thing happened when we started doing sexual harassment training and some of the jokes were like, no. We're are we making things worse here? And now I don't see that at all. People are people are more comfortable talking about it because it's it's repetitive. Younger people have grown up with this, right, from school and coming to the workplace, and that's more normalized to them.
Catherine Clifton:And just the process, I think, there's less stigma to complaining.
Mike Coffey:Well, you know, the thing, you know, I've got like you, I've got my my children are all adults and out of the house now, which is nice, but I thought, you know, my number 2 son went off to Houston Ballet to study for 3 years in high school and lived down there off-site in a dorm and I had this big conversation with him about, you know, sex abuse and in the ballet world, but just generally and you don't, you know, it's never your fault. You don't have to, you know, ever feel bad about. You can always reach out to us. There's not a and we had that whole conversation. He's rolling his eyes the whole time, but that's not a conversation my parents would have ever thought to even have with me.
Mike Coffey:Right? And so I think as a society, we recognize these things happen, Whereas maybe when, you know, when I was in the college in the eighties, you know, oh, sure. And I saw what happened at Rush parties, you know, and and and I watched all the 80 John Hughes movies, and so, you know, but it didn't, you know, think about it happening in a professional environment when I was first entering the workforce didn't even really occur to me and you just didn't think that happened until. And it's like the me too movement. Now we realize how nasty things are in Hollywood and we've got this idea.
Mike Coffey:So it doesn't surprise us now whereas it might have before when somebody, was proven to to have been a spin back bad actor. So the more we pull this stuff out, you know, you know, from behind the couch and we know it's it's, you know, it really happens. I think there's a better sense of, okay, well, this is these things happen and it's not acceptable, but the person who to whom it happened to shouldn't be made a pariah. And I think that I think they're I think we're a lot more empathetic professionally around those things.
Catherine Clifton:I think that's true. I think that we also see from our witnesses and I I do see a difference, that I think is largely correlates to age. I don't wanna say it's causative, but there's significant correlation there that they'll come in and talk about things in investigations that people, you know, gen x and up are much more reluctant to talk about. They're less candid, historically. We have these younger people who are like, I saw something happen and it didn't affect me personally, but I think it was wrong and I'm gonna tell you about it.
Catherine Clifton:And they you have these younger cohorts that seem like they look out for each other a little bit more. And it's kinda nice to see after, you know, doing this for 25 years and saying, look, all this training has made a difference. Like, you can look back and have that perspective and go, we've come a long way. And then you have a few cases like this where you're like, this is 1975.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. That's crazy. And let's take a quick break. Good Morning HR is brought to you by Imperative, bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. For 25 years, Imperative has helped risk averse clients make well informed decisions about the people they involve in their business.
Mike Coffey:Whether that means very thorough pre employment background checks, due diligence for family offices or private equity firms, or any other kind of business due diligence, if there are people involved, there's risk involved. We help businesses mitigate that risk. You can learn more at imperativeinfo.com. If you're an HRCI or SHRM certified professional, this episode of Good Morning HR has been preapproved for 3 quarters of a recertification credit. To obtain the recertification information, visit goodmorninghr.com and click on research credits.
Mike Coffey:Then select episode 141 and enter the keyword Clifton, That's clifton. And if you're looking for even more recertification credit, check out the webinar page at imperativeinfo.com. Now back to my conversation with Catherine Clifton. Well the other big news item that's for probably the last 2 months, I mean yeah at least 2 months, has been the future of DEI. We've seen that a lot of the tech companies and big corporations that jumped on the DEI bandwagon especially in 2020 when the, you know, the George Floyd, protests were going on and some cities were literally on fire, and these companies jumped out and said, yeah, we're gonna do this, we're gonna make all these commitments to DEI without ever really defining what DEI meant.
Mike Coffey:Right. And, you know, and if you ask 5 different people even in that space what DEI means you're gonna get 5 different answers. So but we you know then this past month we had the revelations about how lopsided like Google's artificial intelligence was because of the DEI, you know, stuff that they put on there You couldn't even ask their image creator to generate a picture of a white guy when you asked it for pictures of the founding fathers or the Catholic Pope. It would always be somebody diverse, and a lot often female and things like that. So, you know, said we wonder why you know there's a reaction against that term DEI because all of the stuff gets swept under it even the anine stuff.
Mike Coffey:But then on the flip side you get Florida's Stop Woke Act, which basically went beyond just what the government's doing and made it illegal for employers, private employers to have programs, that dealt with you know training and education for their employees on race, color, sex, national origin, title 7 stuff, right? And, Florida said that's gonna be illegal and, 2 companies that wanted to do that training for their employees sued, and the federal district court disagreed with Florida's position. Florida said, hey, we're not regulating speech. It's not a first amendment issue. We're we're regulating conduct.
Mike Coffey:And the court basically said you know you're relating conduct related to specific ideas that you disagree with and so this is First Amendment and then it went to District Court and the District Court also agreed with with the lower court And I thought the thing that jumped out at me about that decision was, you know, and and as an almost free speech absolutist, you know, you know, they said banning speech on a wide variety of political topics is bad. Banning speech on a wide variety of political viewpoints is worse. A government's desire to protect the ears of its residents is not enough to overcome the right of freedom of expression, and, you know, good for the district court in this one. I, you know, you rarely hear me say that, but in this case, they made their, you know, I I really think, you know, when the government steps in and tells people they can or can't talk about something, we've got a real problem. And this was political posturing on Florida's part.
Mike Coffey:They knew what was gonna happen anyway, but, when the governor of Florida was running for president, it was kind of apparent. So what's your take on on the court's decision on the stop okay?
Catherine Clifton:Oh, I I think I think they ended up in the, like, clearly right place. Like, how do you say this is conduct when you're saying don't talk about this? Well, so that was that was really a reach. I think the court got it right. The 11th circuit got it right.
Catherine Clifton:One of the things that's always interesting to me about Florida cases is that they're closer to us. And by closer to us, I mean, the 11th circuit was carved out of the 5th circuit. So when we're sitting here in the 5th circuit, what the 11th circuit does is still based on a lot of the jurisprudence that initially came out of the 5th circuit. And so it's always it's always a closer connection between cases out of Florida and Texas, Plus, you have some some similarities in the political environment, and some of the attitudes and so forth. I think you're right about it being posturing, but also and probably campaigning.
Catherine Clifton:There's also it was about employees but also about students. And so there's a corollary case that came to the same place in the district court And I think it's gonna be it's gonna go to the circuit in June, maybe. I anticipate that it's gonna end up in the same place. Although
Mike Coffey:because it's talking about private universities, not just public universities. Right?
Catherine Clifton:This is high school saw public public I don't know about private education one, but it is. That that is the it's gonna be heard in the context of the Harvard case from last summer. Right? But based on what the language we saw from the 11th circuit, I don't I don't imagine this is gonna end up any place different because this is about speech. That was about speech.
Catherine Clifton:And the Harvard case was about admissions decisions based on race conscious criteria. So I don't think there's a big influence there, but I do think that that's kinda easy for people to conflate those things. Right?
Mike Coffey:The thing about the Harvard case was it was it was I I, you know, I I believe a wake up call for a lot of people who are sympathetic to the idea of moving our society past the racial prejudices we've had and and and even looking for ways to mitigate, you know, implicit bias and all that. And I'm on board with that, But when you start flipping it to the other side where you know and everybody says there's no such thing as reverse discrimination. Well, there is, and I think, you know, we saw some of that in the Harvard case and, and so I understand why employers, and I think that's what the wake up call for employers. Oh, well, we do have title 7 we have to pay attention to and title 7, we always talk about protected categories, but the protected categories are the categories themselves not not the different groups inside the categories.
Catherine Clifton:Right.
Mike Coffey:And I think and I think that's just beginning to dawn on people that, you know, there is such thing as reverse discrimination, we can't do it, and in fact, there was a the next case we're gonna talk about was a reverse discrimination case. Right. This guy, David Duvall, was an executive with a health care system called Novent Health. And according to testimony in the case, he's he's a white guy who got fired abruptly in 2018 and he was replaced by a white woman and a black woman. And he didn't have any previously addressed performance issues and was only told, you know, the company is going in a different direction by the CEO.
Mike Coffey:And in and of itself, none of that's a giant red flag. Right? You know, we make decisions sometimes about executives. They're not the right fit, and we move them out and, you know, but I think the context matters and the fact that in 2015, Novent Health implemented it what they called a diversity and equity strategic plan. And part of that plan as it's developed over the years is they've set a strategic or a company goal of making sure their executive ranks match the racial and gender composition of their community.
Mike Coffey:And when you go, you know, and they say, oh, it's not a quota, but you say x percent of our community is of this of this gender or of this color or racial background or whatever and we want to and our goal is to match that. Well, what are the incentives here? And so David Duvall claimed that he was fired to make room for the in the executive ranks for women and minorities And, this goes back to documentation when he terminates somebody too because the the company came back and said, oh, no. We had these reasons.
Catherine Clifton:Right.
Mike Coffey:But they weren't they were all documented after the fact. They're, you know, years after the fact, you know, like when he showed when they show up for this, you know for their depositions kind of thing. And so maybe they were legit maybe they weren't but the court didn't buy it at all the lower court didn't and the circuit court didn't. And so the, you know, the case and they, you know, so they affirmed the decision on his behalf. But what's your take on for on that kind of situation?
Catherine Clifton:Well, I think, you know, what we call reverse discrimination, I kind of had kind of an adverse thought from what you did that there really is no reverse discrimination. It's all just discrimination.
Mike Coffey:Right.
Catherine Clifton:Because of exactly what you pointed out that title 7 doesn't say, oh, you can't discriminate against this specific, you know, race or national origin. It's you can't make decisions based on race. You can't make decisions based on sex. So, you you know, that's always been implicit to me, but, yes, I've heard that before that, oh, well, no. A person a a white male can't make a claim.
Catherine Clifton:Well Right. Patently untrue. And he can make a successful claim.
Mike Coffey:And I'll say that I've heard I've heard DEI people who've done the work and are out there, you know, promoting themselves as consultants or whatever. I've heard them say it's not possible to, you know, to discriminate against a white person. I mean, you know, and, you know, because the power structures and all that blah blah blah. But if I'm the one guy who's losing his job because of something that had nothing to do with any characteristic I had control of, that's discrimination, and and you did just discriminate against me.
Catherine Clifton:And this is one of those, and this is true in, I think, pretty much every case where bad facts make bad law. To your point, earlier, they they talked about in the case, like, he was from all reports, an exemplary employee. He did amazing things. He was recommended nationally recognized nationally for the work that he had done in that with that particular company. He had some interesting fallout afterwards, from this because then he goes and gets hired by someone else.
Catherine Clifton:He files suit against his employer, and his new employer terminates him for suing and then can't find a job after that, which is all included in this case, which is kinda interesting because that's all stuff that happened after the fact and didn't have anything to do with that employer. But, you know, this is where we tell people you gotta be consistent. Whatever the truth is, that's the truth. And in this case, it it looks bad when you have told 3 different stories, and his employer did. His employer told him at the time, we're just going in a different direction.
Catherine Clifton:Then he kinda doubles down and tells a third party later, oh, this guy's great. It's just that there were changes going on in the company, but he's fantastic, and I would hire him again. And then he says in his deposition and on the stands, well, he choked during this presentation, and he didn't show up for some of these meetings, which was an interesting change in strategy in terms of that case. But I also look at this case from kind of my side of things and say, you may have really had some performance concerns with this person, but they didn't document them.
Mike Coffey:And you didn't not even you did apparently, didn't even address them because, you know, you don't have anybody saying, hey. We had a conversation around this thing before or anything. Exactly.
Catherine Clifton:And this particular individual was on the committee, on their DEI committee internally and was, like, very well aware of those conversations. I did think it was interesting that they made the point, oh, no. It's not a quota because a quota is something imposed on you from the outside. These are our targets, and targets are fine. But it does go to this issue of we kind of recognize, right, as a society that there are some systemic inequities, and you have this notion of generational wealth that isn't the same across all races, all national origins, and that sort of thing.
Catherine Clifton:And this desire to how do we change this? And I think that's been the struggle for DEI initiatives is we wanna do something, but what are we gonna do? Because a lot of them have always been stymied by the well, now are you going to what what is your criteria for making decisions? And if you're still going based on merit, how do you how do you get to where you wanna go?
Mike Coffey:Right.
Catherine Clifton:And I I kinda think the same thing as the conversation changes to inclusion. What does that look like?
Mike Coffey:Well, I mean, the, you know, and my argument has been that the whole the whole reason to pay attention to DEI. I mean corporations are not social justice organizations and so you've got to make the business case and the business case is I want the broadest most qualified talent pool available. And if I'm letting some managers biases or outright prejudices limit that, then that's hurting the company. And and then, you know, and I think we've largely moved past outright discrimination. There's still, you know, we still see disparate impact on occasion from you know policies that maybe we didn't even intend to create a disparate impact and that was just, you know, we and maybe we fig, you know, we fix those but the the real the real issue is, you know, we wherever we can find it, we need to mitigate these biases so that we get the best talent we can get, and then we need the inclusion.
Mike Coffey:And the inclusion to me means everyone feels included, right? So you can you can come to work and you don't have to worry that when it's time to pray and you go off someplace privately to do your daily prayer you're gonna have a negative ramification about that. Inclusion doesn't mean everybody's on board with and thinks you're amazing and lovely because of your religious whatever your religious outlook is or because of your, you know your your sexual orientation or any of those things. People don't have we don't all have to love everything about everybody else, but we need everybody to work together to accomplish the organization's mission. And when that's a problem that's where we have to figure out, you know, how do we fix this?
Mike Coffey:Because I need to retain my best employees. I need to be this a place where people are productive and they wanna come to work. That's the business case for for the inclusion side, and that's what we ought to be focusing on. And as soon as DEI turned down this path where it was, you know, as we've seen in some of these other cases where it was, you know, this group of people is wrong because and they don't have any choice, but and we're making these essentialist arguments about, you know you know, this minority group has always been underprivileged and is always put upon, or this group has always taken advantage and has this level of privilege, which is gonna vary differently from person to person. And so, you know you know my white sons had a lot more privilege than a lot of people white people who grew up in Appalachia with real poor schools and low economy economics.
Mike Coffey:And so, you know, that's just gonna be different for every person. So whenever we start talking about people in these broad categories, we miss what we're actually doing to trying to hire. So Right. Off my soapbox. Go ahead.
Catherine Clifton:No. I mean, I I agree with you. I think that's one of the mistakes that we make, make, especially about other. Like, people who are in a different demographic for us than us that we tend to think they all have the same perspectives and the same beliefs, the same skills, talents, attributes, etcetera, even though within our own demographic, we can see extraordinary differences. Right?
Catherine Clifton:But we tend to have that other that well, if you're in this category, then you're gonna react the same way every other person in that category does, and there's just no such thing. I think that's I think that's difficult too to put a program together that's going to address all the myriad differences among people.
Mike Coffey:Right. Right. What we need to teach people is care about the work and figure out how you get along with the other competent people who are on your team and that you have to interact with and and maybe that is understanding macroaggressions. If if I'm clueless about, you know, a black female's hair texture and I reach up and want to touch touch it because I've never seen it before, yeah, I get that. That would that would creep me out if somebody reached up and touched my gray hair which is actually dyed this morning so it's not quite so gray, but that would be offensive right?
Mike Coffey:And so let's learn those things as we go along, but we don't have to, I think I think it hurts us when we we overgeneralize about people, and we just want to get, you know, builds brawls. And then there was the case of that this month of reverse discrimination case was dismissed, You know, this, a an employee claimed that with the Colorado Department of Corrections was doing some DEI training, and he filed suit saying that, the the program actually and apparently did from what I understood from the testimony state that all whites are racist and that white individuals created the concept of race in order to justify the oppression of people of color. And so for technical reason really is failure to state a claim, the case was dismissed. But what was really interesting, the court said, mister Young's objections to the contents of the DEI training are not unreasonable. And then they went on to say race based training programs that create can create hostile workplaces when official policy is combined with ongoing stereotyping and explicit or implicit expectations of discriminatory discriminatory treatment.
Mike Coffey:And when this, you know, this is when this came out, a lot of people were kind of freaking out, on the Internet that this was, you know, the end you know, this was setting us back 20 years or 50 years, but it it just seems like obvious stuff to me. Right? That we don't wanna talk about people in in these in these broad categories.
Catherine Clifton:And there's also that issue of how do you how do you do how do you do inclusivity? How do you talk to people? And this issue that, like, what happens here, this guy falls suit because he's offended. He feels attacked. Right?
Catherine Clifton:Because if you think I need training, then you must think I'm wrong. That I don't know how to do this. That I don't know how to treat other people. Or that you're saying overtly that, you know, I'm racist and people really don't like being told that or feeling that they're being told that. And I think that's one of the challenges for I don't know if it's the DEI movement or we're now calling it the inclusivity movement to how do you communicate this?
Catherine Clifton:How do you get to be effective in that when it it's such a such a charged subject? And how how do you how do you approach that? I think sometimes the most effective way you help people with perspective, and I think that's a lot of what it is. It's just giving somebody some additional perspective, letting them see things from the perspective of a coworker who's differently situated than they are when they just haven't considered it before. And how do you do that?
Catherine Clifton:It seems like 1 on 1 conversations occasionally over the course of time are probably the most effective for that, and that's not something that you can say, look, here's our program.
Mike Coffey:Right. And, that it goes back to my early career. I'm always reminded that I worked alongside a professional who happened to be gay, and I didn't realize he was gay when we started working together. And, you know, I'm from Texas, and I was young and a product of my background. And I was kinda shocked when I found out he was gay.
Mike Coffey:And then it kinda sunk in that, oh, he's gay. Okay. You know, it it didn't really make a difference. But
Catherine Clifton:Does he still the person?
Mike Coffey:Right? It's not because I had my preconception of what that was like. And so I think the more we we work alongside people who are very different from
Catherine Clifton:us. Right.
Mike Coffey:And and we learned to appreciate them not because of phenotypic traits or their religion or whatever it is, but because they're contributing to the organization and the team and our our mutual success. Suddenly, we that's how we if you wanna deprogram people from their biases, I think that's how you have to do it. Right? You know, it's you gotta get them out of the habituation of how you think about people, and that's gonna come from experience. You know?
Mike Coffey:Throwing somebody in in a in a conference room for 8 hours is just, you know, all that's gonna do is just cement them and create bitterness Right. Of that that, you know, about the about this this whole environment. They're not gonna be willing to to learn and observe, what what other people are really like. So
Catherine Clifton:Right. And I think that's that's got to be a frustration because this is a slow process for change. And when you want to come in and say, hey. We're gonna make this change and we're gonna do it through these initiatives. But, realistically, you do have title 7.
Catherine Clifton:You know? But title 7. And title 7 exists for a reason, and it does have universal applicability. And that's the way it was written. So I I do think it's a challenge for people who are trying to gain ground in that direction, and I would like to think that someone can come up with better strategies, more effective strategies that can be more efficient in that.
Catherine Clifton:I don't have I don't have any ideas for how to solve that problem.
Mike Coffey:Well, especially when you're talking about systemic stuff and I've got a conference presentation talking about, you know, mitigating bias in the employee selection process and it's gotta be in your systems. And so what can we change in our systems that certainly in how we train managers, but beyond that, you know, how we word our job descriptions. Does this does this, you know, does this attract a diverse workforce? Or are we are we signaling to some folks, even if we don't intend to, yeah, you shouldn't apply for this. You know, and when, you know, there's nothing wrong with training people to question why are they why why are they uncomfortable with, you know, you know, when talking to an applicant, what is it about?
Mike Coffey:I don't like this applicant. Well, why? Well, they didn't look me in the eye. Well, is that an essential part of this job or are we just having a problem because they didn't look you in the eye, you know. They don't have the firm handshake or those kind of things, and those are biases just as much as any and they're unrelated to the job.
Mike Coffey:So the more we get people focused on competencies, and and eliminate even consider you know, I've got no problem with using your ATS to eliminate, the names candidates names and and gender references and and and whatever the hiring authority receives. That all makes sense to me, but at some point they're gonna have to meet this person and and they, you know, they've got to be grown ups and say, okay, I've got this check-in my gut about this person or I really like this person and you got to ask why do I like them so much? You know, why, you know, why are they so great? And is it competence related, or is it really related to the job? Or is it me just liking this person because they've got the same background as me, which doesn't have anything to do with doing the
Catherine Clifton:job. Well and I think that's that's a a good point too, especially and there's probably a little bit of variation. If you, as the interviewer, held that job that you are now hiring for, then I think you have a greater propensity to say someone like me will be successful in this role because I was successful and you have to be like me to do this job. And I think everybody, to some degree, forms their job, shapes their job around themselves and around the things that they are naturally more they're naturally easier for them, that they like to do more. And there's an advantage to that.
Catherine Clifton:Right? There's an advantage for the employer that, hey. This person's really working to their strengths and that's where you want them to be. But that also means that everybody can do the job a little bit differently. And as long as they're covering the essential functions in a way that's sufficient, then that's okay.
Catherine Clifton:You know, that variety gives you some some advantage too.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. And that person who does it a little differently may turn to be a better performer than the guy who went to the same school as I did or the same church as I did or any of those things that are totally unrelated to actually being able to do the job.
Catherine Clifton:Or may I bring you a perspective that when they when you have that interaction with them and they can explain something to you in a way that you see something you just didn't see before. And that that's ultimately advantageous for your company. Yeah. I think that one of the interesting things when we talk about this difference in language and the notion of diversity versus inclusion, I have a certain sense that diversity was the idea of diversity was something that we as the organization are going to require of our organization. Right?
Catherine Clifton:Whereas inclusion is almost from the opposite perspective in terms of we need to create an environment where people want to work, where all people want to work, and it makes you think in terms of how do you create an organization where people desirable candidates are not self selecting out of it. Right. Which then you think, well, how do you do that? And I I tend to think, there are certain jobs, and I I always think about fire firefighting. Like, that is white male.
Catherine Clifton:It's still predominantly white male, and they have made a lot of efforts. A lot of organizations have made efforts to say, how do we get more women into this? How do we get people who aren't white into this? How do we get greater racial diversity? Because we look at these reports and we don't match our community.
Catherine Clifton:And there is something to be said for that helps in your service, especially on the paramedic side that you match your community. So it's certainly a valid thing, but how are you do you attract these people into those jobs?
Mike Coffey:And that's what it rolls down to, though. It's about it's about your outreach and your recruiting efforts and those things, and that's not discriminatory to, you know, hey, we're gonna really, you know, we're gonna go out of our way to recruit out of our own community and and maybe that means we build training programs, but we do not create training programs for people of color. Again, I, you know, I think that's gonna be the next big title 7 thing because, you know, you're seeing you're seeing those you see a lot of those kind of programs, and I think that's on its face about, at least, on title 7. We're gonna do job training for people.
Catherine Clifton:When we talk about fire service, it's also generational. It's these are things that it's something that runs in families and so you have people that have grown up seeing that as a job and seeing aspects of it that they find desirable. And so you've got brothers and sons and that sort of thing, and then you kinda that's where a lot of your candidates come from. So then, how can you get that same sort of perspective and experience for the rest of a potential work force to say, let's tell you about what's good about this and how all this works. And I think it's a lot more informational, and it probably doesn't work as well to put that down on a piece of paper.
Catherine Clifton:You need you need kind of somehow a demonstration, a video, an explanation, 1 on 1 conversations with people, or 1 on 3 conversations with people about here's what's great about this work, or people who've had some individual experience with that profession in their life and said, I wanna do that because that person did something good for my family, did something good for me. I see them as being heroic. I see that as being something I wanna do, that I wanna serve the community. But I think that's that's requires a lot more thought about our jobs and our organizations in how do we how do we make that effort in recruitment. And we've talked about that before.
Catherine Clifton:Right? That, hey. Recruitment is where you do that. Make sure that you are getting broad recruitment, to all of your demographics. Especially when your your numbers say, hey.
Catherine Clifton:We're not we're we're really low or we're really out of sync with our community. And think, where do you go to do that? Where do you and some of that's relationship building with your community.
Mike Coffey:Well, hey. We've we've run way over time, but thank you so much for giving me, a big chunk of your afternoon today, Catherine.
Catherine Clifton:I enjoyed it. Thank you, Mike.
Mike Coffey:And thank you for listening. You can comment on this episode or search our previous episodes at goodmorninghr r.com or on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. And don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcast. Rob is our technical producer, and you can reach him at robmakespods.com. And thank you to Imperatives marketing coordinator, Maryann Hernandez, who keeps the trains running on time.
Mike Coffey:And I'm Mike Coffey. As always, don't hesitate to reach out if I can be of service to you personally or professionally. I'll see you next week, and until then, be well, do good, and keep your chin up.