My friend, who works as a license renewal and hiring manager at a large tech security firm, once shared something interesting with me. He said that when hiring under his company’s DEI standards, he sometimes had to bring on someone who wasn’t the strongest candidate for the role. The goal was to meet diversity requirements, but the tradeoff was that it occasionally meant hiring someone less qualified.
According to him, if a hire brought in under those standards didn’t perform well, it could be harder for the company to let that person go. The emphasis on maintaining diversity created extra pressure to hold on, even when performance wasn’t where it needed to be. That situation, understandably, can affect the rest of the team.
Personally, I don’t have anything against DEI. In fact, I think it helps reduce nepotism, which is a positive. But I also don’t think DEI always works out the way people imagine it will. Like many policies, it has both benefits and downsides.
The reason I bring this up is because I think it’s a slippery slope when governments start drawing hard lines about who can and cannot be fired. At the end of the day, what tends to matter most is whether someone makes the company money.
Take my friend as an example again: he’s only required to bring in $250,000 each quarter, but he actually brings in around $4 million. Because of that, he has survived multiple layoffs and has even been moved to different departments, simply because his performance makes him too valuable to lose.
My friend, who works as a license renewal and hiring manager at a large tech security firm, once shared something interesting with me. He said that when hiring under his company’s DEI standards, he sometimes had to bring on someone who wasn’t the strongest candidate for the role. The goal was to meet diversity requirements, but the tradeoff was that it occasionally meant hiring someone less qualified.
According to him, if a hire brought in under those standards didn’t perform well, it could be harder for the company to let that person go. The emphasis on maintaining diversity created extra pressure to hold on, even when performance wasn’t where it needed to be. That situation, understandably, can affect the rest of the team.
Personally, I don’t have anything against DEI. In fact, I think it helps reduce nepotism, which is a positive. But I also don’t think DEI always works out the way people imagine it will. Like many policies, it has both benefits and downsides.
The reason I bring this up is because I think it’s a slippery slope when governments start drawing hard lines about who can and cannot be fired. At the end of the day, what tends to matter most is whether someone makes the company money.
Take my friend as an example again: he’s only required to bring in $250,000 each quarter, but he actually brings in around $4 million. Because of that, he has survived multiple layoffs and has even been moved to different departments, simply because his performance makes him too valuable to lose.
Probation period is commonly 6 months during which time it’s basically at will employment. This is the time to figure out your hire and deal with it.