Equal opportunity employer?

My organisation has 1 male and 27 female employees. Three out of 11 docs are male.

Med school entry is now around 60/40 in favour of women. We have had one male GP trainee out of the last 11 who have been working here, stretching back over about 8 years. Nursing and teaching are traditionally thought of as 'feminised' professions; medicine is now too (and that increasingly applies across most clinical disciplines).

I'm very happy about this, although it does have implications for workforce planning. Not that the NHS masters ever seem to do much of that though.

Bruce

That's not the whole workforce so a rather misleading thread title. 

Are you suggesting that women actually do all the work (and men just collect all the awards)? I'll see this to be even worse in equality point of you...

Oh so it's not about trying to spot the nominal LBGT person.

Muso production staff threatening strike action after being left out of shot.

Decades ago the Russians [or what was then the USSR] believed that women doctors made better GPs and men doctors better surgeons.

Something to do with the multitasking abilities of accessing all kinds of patients at diagnostic/remedy level, and the concentrating on a single task of performing an operation.

I guess they had some room for gender ability overlap.

Debs

I have a good looking lady consultant surgeon looking after me at St Georges hospital. Give me a female doctor every time.

My post was merely a provocative, somewhat rhetorical question made after seeing the picture on the website. Never intended to detract from the staff's award. What's most interesting to me is that the responses have all been with regard to the gender disparity, and that wasn't entirely what struck me. I live in an area close to Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing, etc., and I see a fair amount of diversity in these hi-tech work forces. I've heard London referred to as the multicultural capital of Europe, if not the world (I realize Naim is in Salisbury). For a hi-tech industry, I thought the Naim staff in the photo lacked both racial and gender diversity. 

Naim is a local company and tends to employ, mainly, local people.

What ever happened to hiring the best person qualified, irrespective of race, gender, or orientation?

FWIW, I have a very dear friend in Russia, who got into med school under the Soviet System, who is a surgeon.

In case you hadn't heard or maybe skipped your jr hi history classes, it led to a good ol' boys network that only felt comfortable hiring folks with similar ethnological backgrounds. That in turn decreases opportunities for those not in the majority.

What is that worth?

Does he/she want to work at Naim?

Nice non-sequitur argument Joe - the problem you allude to was because they were NOT selecting the best person for the job based on ability...but selecting the good old boys network.  Thanks for proving my point.

If I have a job to give, I don't give a damn about demographics; give me the truly most qualified person.

Adam - I was referring to the post above about doctors in Russia - I realized I had failed to mention my friend was a female after my time to edit had run out.

I'm sure that the next Naim awards photo will feature a fair proportion of French men and Chineese women.

Then, in about 10 years time, the Chineese women will be replaced by whichever imigrants to China take over the  production line processes required to produce the mu-so-5i. 

Interested logic, or lack there of. I forgot those kinds of issues have been all sorted out in Texas. A bastion of equal opportunity where they teach the biblical version of Creation side-by-side with Evolution in biology classes

OK I will break it down for you - Stepwise...it is logical.

1.) The "good old boys" network of the past to which you alluded was NOT a selection of the best person who was most qualified for the job. 

2.) I indicated that the policy in hiring should be the most qualified applicant, apart from demographic considerations. 

3.) You indicated by your sarcastic rejoinder that such was the means by which former discrimination was enacted. (In essence saying hiring the most qualified excludes diversity candidates.)

4.) I pointed out that the old  system wasn't meritorious, because the "old boys network" did not hire based on most qualified, but was based, to use your words, on "similar ethnological backgrounds"...thereby refuting your own point that hiring based on best qualifications was the M.O. of the "old way.".

5.) In fact, by inference, one of us (hint: not me) appears (by logical conclusion) that hiring the most qualified person will lead to less workforce diversity, whereas I think that it was this in the past that prevented many deserving minority candidates from getting positions for which they were eminently qualified. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now.  To posit otherwise is implying that minorities aren't likely to be the best candidates, and is obviously not the case.

Are you saying that hiring the most qualified person would exclude some minority candidates?  (Rhetorical...I know this is not your belief.)  Because I don't think that is true - there are quality workers of all demographics, and a policy of the best person for the job ensures that all have truly equal opportunity based on their abilities and fitness for the job, not because there are or aren't of a certain demographic group.

A very well presented retort, Mark. I can't argue. Still, it amazes me to look at the photo and not see a single Asian in a hi-tech workforce. Furthermore, when I look at the photos in Bert's great post "Visiting Naim - "A Statement", I see nothing but white males (and their hands). Maybe I'm the one being prejudicial thinking that Asians (or women, or non-Caucasians) would be present in the work force of a hi-tech industry. I don't know. It's just pabulum for the forum. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Joe, if you paid a visit to Salisbury (the town, not the factory itself) you would understand. Seattle it ain't. 

^ 

C.

My wife worked for Wiltshire Council (housing in Salisbury) "where everybody matters", that is their slogan. Her experience and memory of the figures is that non-european whites would make a tiny proportion of her offices case loads. Most non Brits would be indistinguishable in a group photo as they would be from Poland, Portugal and Eastern European countries. The nearby town of Trowbridge has a very large Polish community. I worked for a week there and never heard any English spoken. Even the postie was Polish!

Having worked extensively in the Avionics Industry in the Christchurch, Ringwood, Hurn, Salisbury area, I would say that the skilled and semi-skilled assemblers would be 50/50 split between the sexes. My own mother was a microscopic welder and coil former ( having worked previously for Rank laboratories retouching colour film negatives ) R&D, machine shops, Engineering would be virtually all-male apart from say Drawing Office, Print Room, CAD etc.

If Naim's workforce is mostly white male I would conclude that is because other companies (like Minesweeper detection tech. and missile guidance subcontractors, for instance) who do not publicise or announce their existence have the most skilled and experienced workers, and they of course may be ladies!

   I hope not,  I have a friday/monday away break this weekend in the new forest & a tour of Salisbury, olde world streets, houses & cathedral is on the itinerary on the way home monday.  High rise city scapes would spoil the views.  

I've visited Naim's factory probably a dozen or so times. I can assure you that a high proportion of the workforce, both shop-floor and admin, is female. I couldn't say whether it was 50/50 or not, it might well be, and it certainly never struck me as being 90% male.

In a similar vein, its virtually impossible to tell non-brit Europeans from Brits by appearance alone. Brits themselves can vary from near Nordic blue-eyed blondes to swarthy mediteranean types.

As for Asian or other ethnic minority groups, well Salisbury and the surrounding areas aren't exactly brimming with these minority groups either. I would expect Naim's workforce to reflect the local demographic, and it probably does, more-or-less.