Apple Updates Corporate Bylaws on Diversity Following Criticism Over Lack of Female Leaders

[Renzatic]

Actually, in some European countries have put in place explicit quotas for board representation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/18/germany-women-quota_n_4294795.html

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390443696604577645470530827882

Ahh. I did not know that. I was going by the US law when I said that above.

I will agree that quotas aren't a good thing to have around, and will lead to resentment rather than a gold standard multicultural workplace. Diversity is something that'll happen of its own accord provided you're hiring based on qualifications alone. If no one's playing favorites, you're bound to get a good mix of anyone and everyone. But forcing it does no favors for no one.

Instead of having Bill around, that guy who's really good at typing documents who happens to be Asian, you have Bill, the required Asian who can type documents.

If anything, quotas have the opposite effect of its intentions. Instead of ignoring race, and allowing people to succeed on their own skills and merits, it draws direct attention to it.

 

[Technarchy]

Apple hire before statement...

No one questions her presence or qualifications.

Now any woman after will come under scrutiny as being a so-called "diversity" hire

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

If over a sufficiently large group (e.g all listed companies) redheads are underrepresented then that seems like a reasonable thing to do.

No it doesn't. Redheads are extremely underrepresented on a national level, especially redheaded males. Yet, I nor any other redhead I know thinks this is an issue. At the most, it's worth a laugh and then get on with our day.

Affirmative action doesn't require businesses to hire X amount of Asians, black people, or Samoans per Y amount of white people. The quotas are all but a myth usually perpetrated by people who don't understand how it works. At its most basic, what AA does is insures a person normally discriminated against in the workplace has the same rights to a job and a living as anyone.

Like if you're a well qualified black dude who's been itching for a high paying job, but keep getting passed in favor of less qualified white dudes, then you probably have an AA case. But on the flip side of that, they're not gonna hire you just because you're black. That's not what AA does.

Having been on hiring committees, I can attest that while I haven't encountered a mandated quota, members in the committee have been highly suggested to make selections based upon gender and/or minority ethnic status.

Anecdotal evidence, take it as you wish.

 

[ctyrider]

Congratulations, government stopped the worst abuses. Now maybe it can let people be free to make their own mundane day to day decisions, like hiring the most qualified candidates.

You (and others) need to stop making this strawman argument. No one has suggested that Apple hires anything less than "most qualified candidates". However, when the end result is predominantly white male group of leaders - that's indicative of a bigger problem.

Look at other companies in Silicon Valley, such as Google or Cisco - they have a lot broader representation of minorities and women in their leadership team. Apple does not. Do not tell me that "majority of people who apply for technology jobs" are white males - that is false. Take a walk around Google campus - you will see a huge number of minorities (particularly of Asian and Indian descent) and women. White men do not make up for 99% of Silicon Valley technology workers.

Apple's hiring and leadership promotion culture needs to change.

 

[mrxak]

Annoyingly, everyone will assume that the next non-white or female leader hired will have been hired as a result of this policy change, and not on their individual merits.

That's exactly what will happen.

 

[Eraserhead]

Ahh. I did not know that. I was going by the US law when I said that above.

I will agree that quotas aren't a good thing to have around, and will lead to resentment rather than a gold standard multicultural workplace. Diversity is something that'll happen of its own accord provided you're hiring based on qualifications alone. If no one's playing favorites, you're bound to get a good mix of anyone and everyone. But forcing it does no favors for no one.

Instead of having Bill around, that guy who's really good at typing documents who happens to be Asian, you have Bill, the required Asian who can type documents.

If anything, quotas have the opposite effect of its intentions. Instead of ignoring race, and allowing people to succeed on their own skills and merits, it draws direct attention to it.

I think you have a point but I think a relatively low quota could make sure all companies are at least considering female applicants for board membership. A quota of up to maybe 20-25% for women shouldn't have an impact on quality.

----------

No it doesn't. Redheads are extremely underrepresented on a national level, especially redheaded males. Yet, I nor any other redhead I know thinks this is an issue. At the most, it's worth a laugh and then get on with our day.

Perhaps they should do. Excluding redheads means we are potentially losing good candidates.

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

Perhaps they should do. Excluding redheads means we are potentially losing good candidates.

Excluding anybody for any reason other than talent would mean places are losing good candidates.

 

[bsolar]

And yet in Iran in 1999 40% of CS graduates were women - http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/software-engineer/it-gender-gap-where-are-the-female-programmers/.

That's still far from 50% especially since as far as I know in Iran female students far outnumber males. I'm also not sure I'd like to import the social/cultural situation of Iran here to try to motivate women to study more...

 

[macpro2000]

Not unfair if they are truly the best. They probably are.

That is exactly the thought process that leads to unfair hiring practices.

So, if everyone on the board where women and non - white males , you would still believe that only the best qualified where hired?

Somehow I doubt that.

----------



You forgot to add the /sarcarsm...I hope.

 

[dysamoria]

What I get out of reading the comments here is that the majority of people here don't "get it" because they're white males. White males have a tendency to not understand discrimination (unless they have been discriminated against for age, sexuality, or disability).

I worked for a state government once. They hired my immediate supervisor over someone else because he had "military time". This happened at a prior workplace we both worked at. His military time, by the way, wasn't serving in any military capacity; he was a computer tech, and not a very good one (as I discovered, working with him). He was a limited-skills programmer, yet his "military time" gave him the benefit over equally, or better, skilled candidates for management positions. He was a very bad manager and he treated the corporate and academia worlds as if he were still in the military. He had no experience in leadership and no skills in leadership. He is also a very white middle-aged male.

This is an example of bad hiring through quotas. It has nothing to do with diversity, though. He is the exact opposite of diversity and has great issues with women & minorities himself. Hiring him as part of some quota or benefits to former military personnel does damage to the workplace.

However, there is an assumption that women aren't interested in, and/or aren't good at, many jobs that are currently held by a male majority. This is an institutional problem. It starts at childhood social indoctrination times in grade school. Parents do it to their own children and schools reinforce it. That's why we end up with "few women engineers".

The attitude is pervasive among white males, and especially among technical people, who frequently have problems with human social skills and relations. So they artificially prop up the notion, to defend their own issues. This results in women not being even interviewed for jobs that people assume they're not interested in or not good at. Forcing candidates to be considered at all is where laws are useful to balancing out a social discrimination issue in hiring. Unfortunately, it doesn't address the attitudes of those already in place. Those people will just throw up all the responses shown here on this forum about how there's not really a problem and how the "best man for the job" should be selected, period.

Someone else noted that Jobs likely hired people like himself. This is true. The supervisor I mentioned earlier in my post hired me thinking we were alike (and, more importantly, that he could dominate me). He was very wrong (on both counts) and proceeded to show how intolerant and bigoted he was when he slandered me to my face for my youth (compared to him), hair style, cultural influences, and, later, disabilities and health issues. He slandered me to anyone who he thought might support his position. Essentially, he was insecure and had realized (and admitted verbally to me) that I had better people skills than himself, and that I could run the place (his words), during a few days of emotional vulnerability after a car accident... the only emotionally accessible moments he may ever have had.

I think there are more people like him than not. Insecure and paranoid sociopathic white males. In fact, the most common feature of serial killers, for example, is the upper middle class white male. Why is that?

It would only help our society to encourage and promote a more diverse working world. Don't presume women don't want your preferred industry. They've just been guided into following the same indoctrination you have about what men and women do and do not like. Stop telling women what to be interested in and you'll see more women engineers. Personally, I've known several female computer techs and programmers, surrounded by otherwise all white male co-workers. They were just as capable as the men. Several were better at their work than many males on the job, especially where handling customers was concerned. It seems tech women have better social skills than tech men... maybe because men are "allowed" to be insensitive jerks (and women are expected to be sensitive)... and so they are.

Your attitudes shape the world around you. Contribute to diversity by recognizing your own bigotry and averting it. It's not a black and white system. Not all regulation is bad. Otherwise we would still have underage workers being exploited in the USA and many other countries where children are protected from employment exploitation. Sadly, exploitation and exclusion of non-white/non-male adults is still very prevalent. We are not yet beyond it.

By the way: claiming to be race, sex, or gender "blind" is not going to help your case. It just shows your lack of comprehension of the fact that race and gender are still very serious issues in fights for equality and in the reality of bigotry. Being blind to differences averts addressing the very real limitations imposed by the majority onto the minority.

 

[bsolar]

I think you have a point but I think a relatively low quota could make sure all companies are at least considering female applicants for board membership. A quota of up to maybe 20-25% for women shouldn't have an impact on quality.

Sorry to be rude but that basically translates into "women are not good enough but few enough of them will not be too much trouble". I'm not sure that it's actually what you mean.

Anyway, if they don't have an impact on quality for bad they don't have it for good either, so why have them in the first place? A quota just to warm chairs with a given minority makes no sense.

 

[BaldiMac]

Wrong, wrong and wrong. Apple's high performance returns were related to the market changing products that Steve propelled during his tenure. Results under Cook for the first year or so were still based on what Steve's leadership developed and implemented. As time goes on we see what Cook is capable of or not - and the market is NOT impressed. Apple, from an investor ROI perspective, is morphing into a Microsoft

The market is NOT impressed? Then why does the market consider Apple the most valuable corporation in the world? By a large margin. Talk about grading on a curve!

 

[Glideslope]

Bend over Guys.

My oldest is a ChE / MBA for a Global Fortune 100. Was passed over last summer for a female with less than half his experience within the corporation. The corporation had made similar changes in their Charter a couple years prior.

He understood, but was very unnerved by the experience. He was convinced this corporation was looking at performance, and qualifications.

Be proud of your Penis'. Fight back!

 

[Renzatic]

No it doesn't. Redheads are extremely underrepresented on a national level, especially redheaded males. Yet, I nor any other redhead I know thinks this is an issue. At the most, it's worth a laugh and then get on with our day.

I'd say that's because true, honest to god, ain't coloring it to be a poser redheads like the kid in your pic are relatively rare. Even in Ireland and Scotland, which most people think of as redhead central, they only make up, like, 10% of the population there. That's probably why you don't see too many of them around. For some totally anecdotal evidence to throw at you, I only know three: my aunt and a couple of old friends of mine.

...though really, why would anyone discriminate against a redhead? Comeon. It's just a hair color.

Having been on hiring committees, I can attest that while I haven't encountered a mandated quota, members in the committee have been highly suggested to make selections based upon gender and/or minority ethnic status.

Anecdotal evidence, take it as you wish.

I think when all things are perfectly equal, it comes down to a "hell, why not" type thing. To get cynical for a second, having a wide diversity of people working for your company does make for a good image.

Though if it were me in that situation, between two equally qualified employees, each one potentially being a boon to the company, I'd just pick the one who's been looking for a job longer.

 

[IbisDoc]

Complete whiteness is totally acceptable for Apple's board, as long as Al Gore is one of the chosen ones, and their CEO supports the non-white president by sitting at his SOTU address with a dumb grin on his face. Those 2 steps alone maintained the silence of all of Apple's liberal hypocrites, er supporters.

Genius move to protect their whiteness.


By the way, anyone else notice that the title of this blog entry misrepresents the actual issue, and for some reason limits Apple's discriminatory practices just to women? Agenda?

“There is a general problem with diversity at the highest echelon of Apple,” said Jonas Kron, director of shareholder advocacy at Boston-based Trillium, which manages $1.3 billion. “It’s all white men.”

Apple is now adding the following language to the charter of the board’s nominating and governance committee: “The nominating committee is committed to actively seeking out highly qualified women and individuals from minority groups to include in the pool from which board nominees are chosen.”

Wonder if they have separate water fountains and bathrooms in the new spaceship campus.

 

[Apple Corps]

The market is NOT impressed? Then why does the market consider Apple the most valuable corporation in the world? By a large margin. Talk about grading on a curve!

Because they have 940,000,000 shares outstanding with a depressed share price.

Look at the trading multiple for heaven's sake.

 

[bsolar]

Don't presume women don't want your preferred industry. They've just been guided into following the same indoctrination you have about what men and women do and do not like. Stop telling women what to be interested in and you'll see more women engineers.

Let me get it straight: in your opinion women don't actually know what they want because they have been taught what they want via indoctrination? You actually think that you can tell a woman what to be interested in, and that she would gladly comply? Not to mention suddenly be interested in CS or whatever as soon as she would be told that it's fine and good for her?

I'm sorry, you are not describing the women I know. If in your society women can be told what to be interested in like that their career is the least of their concerns.

 

[mrxak]

Clearly, women have been discriminated against for years, placing many men in positions that they really didn't deserve because there was an equally qualified (or even more qualified) woman who got passed over.

Clearly?

I dunno about you, but I studied in a technical major at a technical school and there were no women to be found in the classroom. The school made every effort to attract more young women to the school and program, but they just weren't interested in applying. The women present on campus flocked to the physical sciences, social sciences, and liberal arts, not the computer science or engineering buildings.

How do you claim women become "equally" or "even more" qualified than men if women won't even choose to get educated in related subjects Apple is hiring for? I'm not going to claim that there are no women at all in technical fields, but they are a woefully small minority by their own choice. They don't go to school for it in equal numbers, they don't get low level jobs for it in equal numbers, yet you expect Apple to hire them to upper level positions in equal numbers as men? Ridiculous.

I absolutely want to see more women in engineering and computer science, but the solution is not diversity hires. Little girls grow up playing with dolls while their brothers play with computers figuring out how they work. That's where it all begins. Address that problem, or decide it is not a problem and leave it alone (and accept that maybe males and females have different personalities and interests). But absolutely do not force businesses to hire based on any criteria besides experience, talent, and education. If Apple is so concerned that they're only hiring white men, how about taking names off of people's resumes so HR is blind to race and gender. Conduct interviews in an equally blind manner. If Apple still keeps hiring white men, nobody can claim Apple of being sexist, racist, or whateverist. I am absolutely certain Apple will not suddenly be hiring a bunch more women, because I know qualified female applicants are not lining up around the block. It takes decades of experience and work in the industry to be an industry leader. Even if women suddenly became 50% of the students in this field, today, they would not filter up to the top of the industry for decades to come, unless unfair advantages are given to unqualified candidates.

Nobody wanting Apple to succeed should want Apple led by unqualified individuals, regardless of race, gender, or whatever.

 

[SeattleMoose]

Because society is still sexist.

Source?

 

[mrxak]

Given women make up half the population shouldn't the long term aim be to make the board half women? Then Apple is woefully short.

Why? What does a person's reproductive organs have to do with being members of a board? What if there are more qualified women than men? Should the board still be 50% men to make the men feel better even if the company suffers?

 

[Apple Corps]

Nonsense. Follow the link to the Forbes article. If Jack Welch says it's nonsense, then it's nonsense. The primary responsibility of a corporation is to do what its stated goals at the time of incorporation are. Even if "returning value to shareholders" was the primary responsibility, both the most unsuccessful and the most successful companies have proven that using this as a short term strategy is disastrous, and that putting customers first, employees second, and shareholders a long long distant third, will actually produce the best results for everybody.

No nonsense at all. Jack Welch's star has dimmed considerably. How well has GE done under Jack's highly supported successor Jeff Immelt?

Hmmm - GE trading at $60/share in 2001 when Immelt took over. Today, GE is at $27/share. Your shallow analysis is nonsense - get to the investor related facts.

 

[Boston007]

Clearly?

I dunno about you, but I studied in a technical major at a technical school and there were no women to be found in the classroom. The school made every effort to attract more young women to the school and program, but they just weren't interested in applying. The women present on campus flocked to the physical sciences, social sciences, and liberal arts, not the computer science or engineering buildings.

How do you claim women become "equally" or "even more" qualified than men if women won't even choose to get educated in related subjects Apple is hiring for? I'm not going to claim that there are no women at all in technical fields, but they are a woefully small minority by their own choice. They don't go to school for it in equal numbers, they don't get low level jobs for it in equal numbers, yet you expect Apple to hire them to upper level positions in equal numbers as men? Ridiculous.

I absolutely want to see more women in engineering and computer science, but the solution is not diversity hires. Little girls grow up playing with dolls while their brothers play with computers figuring out how they work. That's where it all begins. Address that problem, or decide it is not a problem and leave it alone (and accept that maybe males and females have different personalities and interests). But absolutely do not force businesses to hire based on any criteria besides experience, talent, and education. If Apple is so concerned that they're only hiring white men, how about taking names off of people's resumes so HR is blind to race and gender. Conduct interviews in an equally blind manner. If Apple still keeps hiring white men, nobody can claim Apple of being sexist, racist, or whateverist. I am absolutely certain Apple will not suddenly be hiring a bunch more women, because I know qualified female applicants are not lining up around the block. It takes decades of experience and work in the industry to be an industry leader. Even if women suddenly became 50% of the students in this field, today, they would not filter up to the top of the industry for decades to come, unless unfair advantages are given to unqualified candidates.

Nobody wanting Apple to succeed should want Apple led by unqualified individuals, regardless of race, gender, or whatever.

I absolutely love hearing these arguments that this industry is sexist. It's hilarious.

it's been proven time and time again most women do NOT like being in this industry.

thank you for your post

----------

Why? What does a person's reproductive organs have to do with being members of a board? What if there are more qualified women than men? Should the board still be 50% men to make the men feel better even if the company suffers?

"Because having the most diverse board means BETTER decision making. All OLD WHITE MEN IS BAD"!

It's almost laughable to hear some people argue.

Eraserhead will tell you that nonsense.

 

[BaldiMac]

Because they have 940,000,000 shares outstanding with a depressed share price.

How is that an explanation to the question that I asked?

Look at the trading multiple for heaven's sake.

Ah. So we should only consider statistics that favor your argument and ignore everything else. Fits well with your argument that Tim Cook's performance should only be measured in comparison to AAPL all-time high while ignoring the fact that they reached that all time high under Tim Cook. Because anything good that happened under Tim Cook must be attributed to Steve Jobs.

 

[mrxak]

So you don't think in the long run women aren't equal to men? Seriously?

So if women are equal to men, a proposition I am perfectly willing to believe, then women should have no problem earning their place in business (inherently a profit-driven, unbiased meritocracy) without any special treatment. If women need special treatment and extra advantages to achieve the same things, then they are not equal. Does it serve women's long-term interests in equality to be given special treatment if such treatment goes to prove they're not equal?

So what should they do to make sure women get onto boards?

Absolutely nothing, just as absolutely nothing should be done to make sure men get onto boards. That's basic fairness, basic meritocracy, and what we should all strive for as a society.

 

[Apple Corps]

Ah. So we should only consider statistics that favor your argument and ignore everything else. Fits well with your argument that Tim Cook's performance should only be measured in comparison to AAPL all-time high while ignoring the fact that they reached that all time high under Tim Cook. Because anything good that happened under Tim Cook must be attributed to Steve Jobs.

Go back and read my response - Cook inherited several market changing products propelled by Steve - NOT Tim Cook - he was a supply chain guru. We are now seeing what Cook has as his time at the helm has grown. All the anticipated product refresh is done, China Mobile is signed, cash flow will probably be great for the holiday season, stock remains $150 under where it was 15 months ago. That is poor roi performance.