“Offer anti-racism and internal bias training as part of standard onboarding for all new staff, and provide sessions for existing members of staff too.”
What exactly does this involve?
Your vision for this training wouldn’t happen to resemble this, would it?
I’m genuinely curious what Monzo is doing to ensure they actually have a diverse range of opinions in Monzo?
Whilst the workplace should not be a hive of political discussion there will always be political conversations taking place. Do you think people that vote Conservative, voted Leave or lean right in general would feel safe admitting this? Or even that centre-right leaning people are even welcome at Monzo?
My take on the diversity analysis that Monzo undertook is that whilst race is an important demographic, it is one of several - all of them featuring in the data.
The result of their work is honest and open. They come up short in a number of categories and hold themselves accountable. There were very few “buts” in the report.
I’d say they’re simply asking the questions, mindful of the fact that they need to work hard to redress imbalance where they can. They’ll likely not succeed as rapidly as their values would wish, but having diversity as a live issue every day is a solid starting point.
Neurodiversity is a political term, and the goal of the neologism is to further a specific political/social movement. Lets be clear that when its used that’s its purpose.
I also don’t agree that many people these days see abnormal neurological conditions as bad (though in many cases they simple are bad and unfortunate in their prevalence and impact on a person), but to suggest that some don’t need to be treated is to leave those unable to fend for themselves in the ditch. The fact is people who function outside of social and societal norms do need treatment, be it routines, cbt, medication, awareness to those around them, accommodations etc. These are treatments.
I don’t necessarily accept that taking on this neurodiversity meaning as a 100% good, nor the attempt to make yet another group of people who simply aren’t a group with much commonalty. My brain is abnormal, I’ve no shame in that, and that’s the correct term to use.
It shows that they are an employer who are willing to make adaptations to make sure employment opportunities are available to those who are fully capable with a few changes or accommodations
Are you not making a bigger issue out of this by segmenting people into these granular groups? It’s one thing to be aware of peoples beliefs and health etc but should you be dividing people up like this and applying percentage figures? The reason I ask is that from looking at the report you’re highlighting the minorities and is that not going to make those people in the smaller groups feel more vulnerable?
I can’t speak for underrepresented groups so take this with a grain of salt, I just read a lot.
A fundamental component of inclusion and diversity is empathy. Although hiring people from diverse backgrounds is a component, the foundation is empathising with underrepresented groups by understanding how they’re disadvantaged and how they can be supported to overcome those disadvantages, so they have the same opportunities to realise their potential as people who didn’t have those disadvantages.
A company without a strong belief in diversity could publish the exact same report that Monzo has reported and make the referenced employees uncomfortable, however in a company that does care about diversity it can be empowering for those employees to be a part of something that is benefiting themselves and others, not just at Monzo but across the industry. Essentially, it’s a question of being supported as individuals vs. being used as numbers.
I think the simplest way to think about it is to imagine you’re someone from an underrepresented group, you know the struggles of others similar to you, would you want to shout from the rooftops “hey! don’t lose hope, there’s companies like Monzo out there that understand you and what you have to offer!”?
I assume Monzo allows employees to opt-out of inclusion in reports like this if they are uncomfortable, respecting individual’s wishes generally goes hand in hand with having a genuine belief in being inclusive.
Specific to the use of vulnerable, for many underrepresented people they feel vulnerable in many situations that represented people take for granted, and so it’s not a question of feeling vulnerable vs. not feeling vulnerable, it’s a question of how vulnerable – and feelings of vulnerability are likely to be lessened when you have the support of your organisation and everybody in it.
We talk about this in work. The fact is you can’t make adaptions for neurodiversity because its simple not a thing that exists. It’s a word that attempts to lump a loose group or abnormal people together where there simply isnt much commonality to allow for ‘neurodiverse accommodations’.
What you can do is provide flexibility (to a degree) for everyone who requires with reasonable requests, accommodations. A lot of companies already do this, in fact i recon most do. But that has nothing to do with neurodiversity and doesn’t look cool on a diversity report.
Thankfully ‘neurodiverse’ people in the UK aren’t actively being used to fill quotas yet and are still hired on their merit.
If they can get through the hiring process. If they think they can manage the work environment. Yes it’s a huge range of conditions and needs but an autistic applicant who can’t do a traditional interview, gives black and white answers or knows a busy noisy office would be too overwhelming can look at these kinds of figures and know it’s more of a possibility than others.
I have 2 autistic children and I’ve been encouraging them with companies such as google and Apple who are autism friendly. The more places that give out this info the more hope I have that they’ll be able to fulfill their potential
Monzos report literally says nothing about what they’ve done for ‘neurodiverse’ people, and has zero representation of autistic people on that report. Neurodiverse doesn’t mean there are any autistic people there. (though statistically there will be in Monzo).
Basically every tech oriented company is autism friendly as there’s generally a job which fits certain types of autistic people. Of the huge tech companies out there Microsoft and SAP (if you haven’t looked already) have very good accommodations for people who have reason to require them and are quite friendly to hiring people who get the job done, regardless of their social tendencies (to a degree obviously).
You’d be surprised how many non-autistic people are like this. But that’s kind of my point. Neurodiversity isnt a thing, and you can make accommodations for it. What you can do is make accommodations for anyone who has a need for it.
Not to mention Monzo could have just replaced ‘neurodiverse’ with ‘disabled’ or similar and it could have given more accurate reflections of the specific types of people they have hired.
This is why i greatly dislike the term. What about my family relation? Who they would never hire because there too disabled to be of use? The fact still remains for me that neurodiverse as a term groups un-group-able people together but only includes those who are barely functional in society to make use of. Neurodiversity is quickly leaving those behind that aren’t so functional.
There is a lot of value in being open about this, though. The idea that a company either hires on merit or supports diversity is based on a deep misunderstanding[1]. For many people who would fit into the “neurodiversity” group it can be very daunting to even think about many different aspects of employment, and that can restrict them from ever trying. A policy of accommodating unique needs can only help people with unique needs if they know about it. There are industries where it’s generally expected that some needs are accommodated, such as technology and autism, but it’s far from certain that every autistic person wishes to work in technology.
I have struggled over the years with some mental health issues and I would have never been able to pluck up the courage to apply to a company that didn’t explicitly inform me that they could accomodate my needs. Monzo are clearly communicating to people that they are welcome and will be accomodated, and that’s very helpful.
[1] Merit doesn’t exist in a vacuum, in fact “merit” should really be thought of as “value”. Value is created, for some their value is created through their circumstance, for others it’s in spite of their circumstance, and for many it’s a mix of circumstance, natural born talent and opportunity. Inclusivity initiatives aim to loosen the grip circumstance has on value, and give as much power to the individual as possible.
There could be 2 applicants to a position, one who has grown up in a family of computer scientists and studied at oxbridge and the other who dropped out of high school and has only recently learned how to write code. They both interview and in a test the graduate scores 50% higher than the drop-out, however it’s entirely possible that the drop-out given the right accommodation could outgrow the graduate and provide far greater value to the company over the long term. Value is not measured by a company at the point of hire, it’s forecast over the lifetime of the employee.
But autistic is as meaningless by your definition as neurodiverse. Huge spectrum with a massive variety of different ‘issues’ and most definitely shouldn’t be classed as disabled
Value isnt determined just by your ability to pass a test, and i never suggested such. Merit isnt just your provable ability to do something, its everything combined. We’re passed by people good on paper because they didn’t fit and hired people who did fit regardless of there disabilities or lower on paper education.
Quite possibly, but at least then its more defined and can be talked about more specifically and clearly than lumping all brain disorders together. And doesn’t separate autistic people.
It is, and should be. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a developmental disability/disorder and that’s perfectly fine. Not classing it as such would imo be a disservice to those who need more help than others.
“Offer anti-racism and internal bias training as part of standard onboarding for all new staff, and provide sessions for existing members of staff too.”
This is a better example of what passes for anti-racism and diversity training, taken from Google’s internal training
I’m genuinely curious to know if the Monzo approach to anti-racism training will be straight out the Robin DiAngelo playbook of “all white people are inherently racist”
Theoretically, what would happen to a Monzo employee who a) refused to go on an anti-racism/unconscious bias training or b) stated that he/she/they disagreed with it?
Maybe you should define what you mean by “conservative”, “lean right” and “centre-right”? Do you mean people who vote for the conservative party, or do you mean the rejection of socially progressive values?
I am going to assume you mean the rejection of socially progressive values, which is along the lines of gender is assigned not an identity, diversity efforts are anti-white, men are disadvantaged too just look at the gender ratios in the most dangerous jobs…
The problem is not with holding differing views, the problem is with views that are actively threatening, they have targets. For example, imagine you’re a trans person who works in a team with someone who denies the existence of transgenderism: how would that make you feel? Would you feel safe with someone who denies your existence? What if you were not white and your co-worker repeatedly talked about how so many non-white people get jobs just because of their race? How would you feel as a woman who listens to her co-workers repeatedly discuss how men are inherently better at programming and that women are just filling diversity quotas?
You talk about how right-leaning people might feel unwelcome at Monzo, what about everybody else? You can choose whether or not to be racist, you can’t choose your race. You can choose to vote against immigration, you can’t choose your country of origin.
Voting Leave is a great example because regardless of the reason, voting Leave is a vote to restrict access to this country for many people who work at Monzo. How would you feel if you were a European citizen working at Monzo and your co-worker actively supports your removal from the country? How would you feel if based on “merit” you were better than your leave-voting co-worker who will keep their job while you will lose yours because they voted to remove you from the country.
There’s a huge difference between rejecting intolerance and being intolerant. Also I’ll pre-empt the nonsense argument that it’s “nature” that these differences should benefit one group more than others: humans have long disregarded what nature dictates, there’s no end game for human life, equalising the experience is a noble pursuit, one that does not deviate from what humans have done so far. Ask yourself as you admire Elon Musk’s latest rocket “why do I believe humans should defy nature by shooting themselves into space at very high speeds but I don’t believe that women should be given equal access to programming opportunities because nature dictates that men are better programmers?”
I know that your program comes from a good place and you are trying to be good people. I wouldn’t doubt that your intentions are noble. You have just moved into a wonderful new office and I am so glad of your success as someone who signed up early to your project and really believe in what you are trying to do.
But, there is always a but. I don’t see any class diversity. No tracking or inclusion of people from impoverished backgrounds. I run my own tech company and have been to many events about inclusion and they hardly ever include people from poorer circumstances. The fact that you run a financial company is quite shocking I am sorry to say. You have tools to help those people and yet I don’t see your inclusion report talking about them at all. Financial access is key to people who are impoverished. I have introduced your app to people in those circumstances as a way to help take control of their spending. I know this is not a particularly lucrative market for you. I am not saying that you excluded them because of that but if you have people from that background they might of pointed it out.
Please don’t get me wrong. This is not be berating you or “calling you out”. I just hope you could just think a bit about it. Tech companies ignore a huge section of their own society that they live in as it just doesn’t fit their audience or values. It’s easy to do. I understand completely.
With the tech revolution I called it the failure of “tech trickled down”. Where new tech was available to the likes of us but was never useful to the last 20% of societies. Let’s make sure the new fintech revolution doesn’t do the same. I just feel this report which I have seen in many other tech companies can help cement that failure. All it will lead to is more Brexits and Trumps, until we start listening.
the irony is that @42644 perfectly illustrated my point about political diversity.
He took the position of Conservative/Leave voters and people who “lean right” and spun/misrepresented/exaggerated that into a position of “rejection of socially progressive values”
The implication that voting Conservative or Leave makes you a racist, sexist bigot is an awful one, but is a sad reflection of the polarised nature of our current political discourse.
What I’m trying to understand is whether the Monzo commitment to “diversity and inclusion” is fully in line with the definitions I posted earlier, and whether or not people with views outside a typical “woke”/intersectional agenda are welcome.
Let’s tone it down a notch and try a (hopefully) less controversial example.
A group of Monzo colleagues are discussing diversity, they ask someone who has been keeping quiet what their thoughts are. They comment that:
“here can be 12 white blue-eyed blonde men in a room and they are going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation.”
@Demmedelusive I completely agree that we have to find a way to discuss these things without labelling and then dismissing.
The fintech revolution though could be a chance to help the most dispossessed to enhance their lives. I just see with initiatives such as this being driven so hard that it disconnects them from that group. I see that it’s done with best intentions but it has unintended consequences. Also, you are right how the people who view this from the outside just now see noise. No minds will be changed just positions cemented.
