Dear Editor,
I admire very much the writing style and obvious command of the English language of Mr GHK Lall and take this opportunity to thank him for the inspiration I get from reading his letters. However, I must take issue with aspects of his letter of June 2 in SN titled, ‘There must be diversity in the workplace…’ wherein there are strong suggestions favouring numerical equality in recruitment to reflect the racial composition (and possibly by extension, political affiliation) of Guyana’s population.
Recruitment is a very serious business; its prime focus is the attraction of an ample pool of qualified applicants from among whom the most suitable candidate(s) can be selected having regard to the competencies required for the effective performance of the duties and responsibilities of the vacant position(s). The pursuit of this primary focus does not necessarily exclude other secondary or peripheral considerations that are germane to the current context or future plans of the organization, or the current/anticipated state of the labour market, or imminent technological/administrative dynamics, etc, but to superimpose ‘social engineering’ objectives that are external or irrelevant to the job or the organization could very well lead to loss of both cutlass and iguana, to use one of our popular indigenous sayings.
My caution stems from my many years as a Human Resource Management professional in numerous organizations and countries around the world, where I have experienced both the pros and cons of affirmative action aimed at correcting and/or preventing racial, ethnic, religious, caste, gender biases and/or inequities, etc. Too often I have experienced situations where “the potential or anticipated cure was worse than the perceived or actual disease”. And such situations were exacerbated by the practice of “rewarding managers for diversity in hiring and promotions” as was hailed by Mr Lall in his letter referred to above. Such misplaced awards can conceivably flood the organization with socially appropriate but competency-deficient employees, much to the detriment of the organization and the critical services/competencies required for current and future effectiveness.
Even without such inducements and rewards, recruitment and promotion programmes that are not anchored in job-related competencies, performance and potential, risk infecting the organization with misfits and malcontents. Indeed, I have experienced, ad nauseam, situations where very good ‘recruits’ and ‘promotees’ are un-motivated, demotivated and even demoralized because they are never sure if they were successful because of their competencies or because of their skin colour, caste, race, gender and similar non-professional attributes.
I therefore plead with the powers-that-be to tread cautiously and at all cost avoid extraneous considerations such as race, colour, gender and, of course, political affiliation when making staff selection and promotion recommendations/decisions.
Yours faithfully,
Nowrang Persaud
