United Kingdom V: Son of a beach

[Brad]

Exactly. When your preferred political party doesn’t get it what do you do? Switch allegiance? No, you wait for your opportunity to change things. And that’s what I’m waiting for; for everything to get worse, much worse (which it will) and then ask nicely to be let back in.

[Neon Ignition]

The recession is coming regardless. Doomed!

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/05/eu-revives-plans-for-mandatory-quotas-of-women-on-company-boards

The EU is to try and revive attempts to mandate that all company boards have at least 40% representation by women, a drive that is expected it seems to fail again due to opposition.

[Asura]

That's a thorny one, because I approve of what they want to accomplish but not the method.

[Dogg Thang]

That's a thorny one, because I approve of what they want to accomplish but not the method.

What method would you use (I ask without having any possible idea what I would suggest myself...)?

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/05/coronavirus-latest-at-a-glance-5-march

Johnson's spokesperson warns that it's now likely we're going to experience a mass outbreak of Coronavirus in the UK

[charlesr]

I dread to think what it will be like at the supermarket when I do my normal weekly shop.

[Brad]

It’s just like normal mate except you can’t buy hand sanitizer.

[QualityChimp]

Or toilet roll.

[Brad]

Wtf!? That makes no sense. Why!?

[QualityChimp]

Luxuries go first?

There's no paracetamol etc left either.

[importaku]

Lol wait till people find out soap & water will protect you, not touching your face and regular hand washing will protect you pretty well without hand sanitizer. Typical idiots whipping themselves into a frenzy over nothing, stop watching the news you muppets they are making it out it's like armageddon is coming they revel in those sensationalist hot takes on the news.

I work in micro, i have touched thousands of corona screening samples already and guess what no corona infection yet, and if crap does kick off i know where all the exits are in the creepy umbrella mansion where i work and where the pots of red green & blue herbs are dotted around the building lol. Now if you excuse me i need to find the Spade key to get into the damn break room again.

[Asura]

What method would you use (I ask without having any possible idea what I would suggest myself...)?

I'm uncertain. However speaking in terms of recruitment at the opposite end of the scale, in industries that have gender disparity, I've been active in initiatives that work to improve this. We've tended to focus on education; going to schools, colleges and universities and working with events that promote diverse causes, e.g. LGBT spaces, women-in-STEM fields initiatives... The work is longer-term, but I believe it works better, because it's trying to promote a cultural shift. Having more women at the education step (and not dropping out of those fields at an early age) will result in more applicants to jobs later, more managers later, and eventually more directors.

I don't always disagree with quota-based stuff. I just think that it's difficult when it comes to boards/CEOs etc. because they're dealing with a small number of people, picked from a slightly larger (but still small) pool of people - and the decisions of those people will dictate the fortunes (and have life-changing ramifications) for the people underneath them. Not that women can't be CEOs; that'd be a ridiculous thing to say! But rather that we need to value the work needed to make sure that the pool of people who can become board members contains more women.

Like I said, I totally agree with the sentiment; we need more female directors on the boards of large companies. We need more diversity there in general, to prevent companies from approaching everything from a limited perspective. I just don't know if a quota is the solution.

And can I be clear that I don't "know"? I literally don't know enough about the top end of these companies to say with any authority. Like, do they have reason to believe that there is are widespread sexist practices for director selection, and that all the major firms already have female employees who are being ignored, in a malicious manner, when director positions become available? Maybe.

[Neon Ignition]

The issue is probably as simple as it being a long term ambition. As much as they want to hit certain representation quotas they can't simply say we want X% of women on the board because they will also want X% of ethnicity representation, non-binary representation etc which are perfectly fine ambitions but you can't just pluck a figure and jam any old person in the role simply to meet an arbitrary figure. There has to be a balance against ensuring the requirements, skills and knowledge of senior roles are maintained.

Now, you immediately hit the problem of there not being enough women etc with those backgrounds because of the lack of opportunties afforded to them throughout their earlier careers as well as the institutional discrimination that blocks their progression. That then becomes the focus, a strong focus on developing careers for these workers whilst putting what safeguards you can in place to ensure equal ops when someone does make it into contention for the CEO etc roles. It makes it a hard and long change for these top end roles in order to get to a proper equal representation in place but that's a symptom of the system that's been allowed to exist which is why mandated quotas don't work because it simply forces people who are unsuitable for key roles into positions they're poorly equipped to carry out for the sake of box ticking rather than actually doing anything about the way working experience and opportunities are handled, let alone how it could go on to affect the fortunes of businesses and by effect put workers at risk should something go wrong because of a senior selection based purely on gender etc.

Basically, the representation is an effect of a broken system and quotas like this would be just putting a band aid on the effect, not addressing the system.

[Dogg Thang]

And can I be clear that I don't "know"? I literally don't know enough about the top end of these companies to say with any authority. Like, do they have reason to believe that there is are widespread sexist practices for director selection, and that all the major firms already have female employees who are being ignored, in a malicious manner, when director positions become available? Maybe.

Yeah, I don't know either and all this is better than any answer I would have. What I do know, as NI also alludes to, is that you can invite women (or any other groups in) but, if you've built a system over decades that was only designed to cater to one group, you have a situation where you have institutional discrimination regardless of intention. It doesn't actually change because you announce equal opportunities for all. And sometimes (maybe always) that needs an active push to change before it becomes a normal thing and people really have those equal opportunities. I know from my limited end of work that visibility is a huge thing. I mean, I'm talking about kids so I can't say for sure it applies beyond that but, if kids don't see people like them in certain roles, they don't know they can do those things. Only a tiny percentage of kids (and usually very strong ones) will break through the roles they're shown and aspire to something out of the ordinary for their group. And it applies to other kids too - boys might see a certain role that they think is only for girls but girls are seeing that too and so can unknowingly exclude interested boys. So in order to make a change there, you need visibility. If this was to apply to a boardroom (and like I say, I don't actually know that it does so I can't completely stand by this point!), to get more women into boardrooms the thing to do first is to put more women in boardrooms. It's not enough just to open the door.

But I agree with your points and I agree with Neon Ignition too in that quotas are trying to force a change into what could be just broken systems (although quick note on his points - men are very often put into positions they aren't qualified or able for so I'm not convinced box ticking to achieve the same result with women is a major downside because, so often, unqualified people learn on the job regardless of their abilities going into that job). But I guess I'd default to my usual position on everything where I'm not certain - if someone has an active idea to try, try it. The only reason to not try a particular fix is if you have a better one that can be implemented. So I'd be curious to see what could actually be done here.