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Ford becomes the latest company to scale back its diversity and inclusion policies:
Ford is changing some of its diversity and inclusion policies, joining a growing list of companies altering their approaches amid a changing legal and political environment and online pressure from the right.
Ford CEO Jim Farley said in an email to employees Wednesday that the company has changed some of its policies in the past year. It has shifted its employee resource groups' focus and ended participation in external culture surveys by the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group. In 2017, Ford boasted about its recognition from the organization as one of the best places to work for LGBTQ equality.
Right-wing activist Robby Starbuck posted a copy of the email on X and took credit, saying he had told the automaker he was looking into their policies. (Ford confirmed the accuracy of the email to CNN.)
"We are mindful that our employees and customers hold a wide range of beliefs," Farley wrote in the email. "The external and legal environment related to political and social issues continues to evolve."
Farley said that Ford remains committed to creating an "inclusive workspace and building a team that leverages diverse perspectives, backgrounds and thinking styles."
Ford joins Harley-Davidson, Tractor Supply Co., John Deere and other companies in revising or pulling back on their diversity, equity and inclusion programs (DEI), support for gay Pride marches and LGBTQ events, strategies to slow climate change and other social policies.
Some companies have backtracked more than Ford. Tractor Supply, for example, announced in June that it will withdraw its carbon emission reduction goals and eliminate jobs and goals focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. It will also stop sponsoring LGBTQ+ Pride festivals and voting campaigns
Starbuck, a former Hollywood music video director turned conservative activist, has claimed credit for these moves. But business experts have told CNN that Starbuck's activism alone does not fully explain these decisions, and some companies' commitments to diversity and inclusion were thin to start.
The Human Rights Campaign criticized Ford's announcement, saying the company was "abandoning inclusive employees policies and support" and "cowering" to Starbuck.
"Ford Motor Company's shortsighted decisions will have long-term consequences," Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said in a news release Wednesday. "Ford Motor Company is abandoning its financial duty to recruit and keep top talent from across the full talent pool. In making their purchasing decisions, consumers should take note that Ford Motor Company has abandoned its commitment to our communities."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Ox0000 on Monday September 02, @03:03AM (44 children)
Who here is against diversity? Who here is against inclusion? Who here is against equity? Who here wants less of any one of those, and why?
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/make-me-smart/what-happened-to-corporate-dei-efforts/ [marketplace.org] had an interesting take on this as well.
While I realize that a large part of the DEI(A) space (as a corporate-consumed service) is rife with charlatans, unqualified hucksters, and virtue signalers, there is something to be said for the cojones of an organization that is saying "we do not encourage diversity, inclusion, nor equity, we want less of all of those". For once, they're being clear about how little they care about anything and how everything is always about how much money they can forcibly extract from everyone and everything else, regardless of the consequences thereof.
This change in stance comes across as saying "we are not in favor of clean air, of healthy food, nor clean drinking water, and in fact, we want polluted air, food that may poison you, and water that will make you sick when you drink it".
There used to be a time where companies held their customers in at least some positive regard and would "do you a solid" from time to time. These days, companies don't even see you as a customer anymore, they just see you as a lemon and ask only one question: "how much can I squeeze that before I toss it away and go to the next one". That's not free market, that's not capitalism, it's predation and that's what these companies are: predators.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mykl on Monday September 02, @03:33AM (9 children)
I think there are very few people who are actively against working with diverse people. That's different to being against DEI programs though.
There are many (including myself) who believe that DEI programs, while well intentioned, are working against the goal of true equality and are instead sowing discord and resentment (from all sides). Setting different rules for people based on their birth characteristics (or other) is hardly a solid foundation for the end goal of NOT treating people differently for exactly those things.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, @05:04AM (8 children)
It's not complex, though you're trying to present it so. The only way you're going to have a workforce in the USA that reflects the actual population of the USA is to stop hiring qualified people because they're white. And because racist hirning policies have long been both formal and informal practice since forever, you're going to have to look closely at every white hire to be sure they're actually the best candidate instead of a good candidate who's white. And racist white people get real angry when they aren't shown automatic preference over non-whites.
You are boring as fuck repeating this tired trope.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mykl on Monday September 02, @05:30AM (3 children)
Oh, if that were only the case. Sadly, we are instead doing the opposite - setting hard numbers of hires who are explicitly not white, or not male, or not straight.
I said:
Please tell me exactly how you managed to translate that into giving preference to white people?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, @05:48AM (2 children)
Different AC here. Now you're starting to see the irrationality of the brainwashed liberal. You're wasting your time and effort. They're never willing to open their minds and think about alternate points of view. They're always quick to argue, fight, and be defensive of their narrow view. They don't give themselves time to consider facts and do some rational thinking.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, @02:01PM (1 child)
Downmodding that "troll" proves my point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 04, @07:56AM
The reason it was modded "troll" is because you are denigrating a significant proportion of the US population with no evidence or justification; behaviour that is commonly regarded as trollish.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, @06:19AM
FTFY
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khallow on Monday September 02, @06:24AM (1 child)
You do realize the second sentence contradicts the first? "stop hiring qualified people because they're white" surely means one doesn't hire people who are merely "the best candidate" who's white. I get that probably wasn't your intent. But this isn't the first time such a defense has come out garbled.
"Preference" like a good candidate being tossed for a bad candidate merely because the former is white? Because that's what the real angry people think goes on.
I think what is most absurd about your post though is what is "white"? Back in the early 20th century, for example, "white" meant a much narrower ethnic grouping than it allegedly does now. For example, one of the amusing things about H. P. Lovecraft stories is their casual racism. Among other things, he makes a distinction between white ethnicity and the "swarthy" ethnicities of contemporary immigrants (Irish, Scots, Jews, and Eastern European for example) who often had a propensity for worship of particular gods like Dagon or Cthulhu. White means a growing blob of people many who happen to have ancestors who were routinely more disadvantaged than ethnic groups of today. If the political racism of today's ethnic categorization hadn't occurred, it is likely that most identifiable ethnicities of today would be part of the blob as well, particularly Hispanics who are no different than their counterparts of the days of Lovecraft (slightly different looking with the primary characteristics being poverty and habitually speaking a language other than English).
Then we get to ethnic mixing. Even with the limited mixed ethnicity of the past century, we still have (according to this study [cell.com]) around 6-7% of the US's total population are people with mixed White and African American genetics. With the increase in mixed race marriages and such, we'll get to the point where this stilted narrative of racism just won't make sense. The alleged oppressors will be of similar ethnic mix to the alleged oppressed.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, @11:44PM
> ... around 6-7% of the US's total population are people with mixed White and African American genetics.
That sounds like good news to me, the sooner we are all mutts the happier I'll be. It's the pure breeds that are high strung and cause trouble.
(Score: 2) by EEMac on Tuesday September 03, @02:10PM
> stop hiring qualified people because they're white.
This is why DEI policies destroy companies.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MadTinfoilHatter on Monday September 02, @04:03AM (6 children)
Probably no-one unless the diversity requires you to scrap meritocracy and hire less qualified people using competency-irrelevant metrics, such as race, gender or sexual orientation in the process.
That depends on what you mean by that word. If you mean equality of opportunity, then the answer is again probably no-one. If you mean equality of outcome, then the answer is anyone with half a brain.
The equality of outcome bullcrap is one of the reasons communism has never worked and never will. If you guarantee that the outcomes will always be equal, you remove any incentives to work hard. If you remove the incentive to work hard, no-one will, because hard work sucks and the only reason anyone does is the hope the it will pay off in the future. If no-one works hard society will bellyflop into poverty where the little resources that actually get produced are (in theory if not in practice) distrubuted equally, and everyone will be equally miserable.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Samantha Wright on Monday September 02, @06:34AM (4 children)
In practice hiring rarely comes down to pure meritocracy. There are many criteria relevant to workplace success that are not purely matters of competency, such as goodness of fit with the rest of the team, asking salary, relocation costs, and, perhaps most important of all, being related to the boss or the boss's family. Only after carefully considering all of these attributes does a good manager make hiring decisions. The majority of jobs do not really need the best possible candidate, and it is entirely possible to waste a good employee on a mediocre position, which is bad for the economy as a whole.
Besides, it's not like anyone else is going to hire the boss's nephew Kyle—certainly not after he crashed his Lambo while doing 85 in a 35 mph zone and drunk as a skunk. Please, consider Kyle's feelings.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Monday September 02, @02:50PM (2 children)
In general I've been underemployed all my life. Many, including co-workers and even higher-ups have commented that, including shaking their heads about the wasted potential. So it's always frustrated me that hiring is based on the many factors you allude to.
I've gone to many jobsearch workshops, including ones that teach about behavioral hiring, testing, etc. I learned a ton, but have never been happy about the situation.
But, more and more I get it. It's much easier to train someone job stuff. Difficult personalities, not so much. At my current job there are some pretty difficult people, and sadly, as is too often the case, the top boss / owner is a very seriously hard mean person. It's not that bad of a place, but a bit too rough for my liking, so I'm back to jobsearch / resumes. And much like the HR person, I'm looking more for a more pleasant work environment- meaning nicer people- and I care less about exactly what I do. So it works both ways, and I'm learning. :)
The only thing I'd like to strongly emphasize to HR people: when I'm on an interview, I'm not myself. I'm nervous, worrying about how the person is perceiving me, my words, trying to read my mind, body language, extrapolate, etc. Even if you give me personality / behavioral tests, I know how to answer them (taken many dozen classes on it), so it's all kind of silly.
My wish: that it would be much less of a monumental decision process. That it would be much easier to move from job to job to find a good fit. Get rid of the phrase "job hopper".
(Score: 2) by Samantha Wright on Monday September 02, @04:32PM (1 child)
There are upsides to being underemployed, as long as you can make ends meet. If you have both free time and mental energy, you can seriously devote some or all of it to a hobby, or even a startup. This is the favoured environment of aspiring writers, for example, while they work on their books, and of many key parts of the open source movement. Sometimes the solution isn't to find a job that fills you up, but rather to find a job where you're allowed to get all your work done in the mornings and then go home to work on the important stuff.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday September 02, @04:45PM
Yes, thank you, much agreed. That was the plan when I took my current job 6 months ago. It has turned into stress that leaves me tired outside of work and barely keeping up with chores. Those hobbies, interests, and even some very useful projects / ideas / potentially patent-able or at least sell-able ideas / projects are collecting dust. Yet another undone chore: dusting!
So I'm considering a horizontal move to a simpler job, or just push upward, meaning selling myself into a higher-paying job that would allow me to buy a newer car (less time spent fixing daily driver), pay lawn service, maybe house cleaner, etc.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday September 02, @04:44PM
Yes, arguably the worst of it comes from how the jobs are even advertised in the first place where you have to have an internal recommendation to have any real hope of getting employment and certain people just don't have those connections.
In a lot of cases, diverse people don't even see the job openings.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday September 04, @07:59AM
Note at my organisation we have an EDI policy but not positive discrimination. The two are separate concepts and should not be confused. TFA is about the former - EDI policy - but not the latter - positive discrimination.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by deimios on Monday September 02, @04:04AM (5 children)
I am against forced diversity, diversity of skin color or any other inborn characteristic. I am for unity of purpose and diversity of thought and approach.
I am against forced inclusion, participation trophies and bringing people into groups where they do not belong. I am for excluding the weak and incompetent, I am for having exclusively the best people for the job.
I am against forced equity, unfair redistribution of results, hindering of the top achievers. I am for equality of opportunity and ensuring people keep what they've earned through blood, sweat and tears.
I am but one man, but natural selection will prove my ideas right in the long run.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Gaaark on Monday September 02, @01:00PM (3 children)
Yeah... i must be missing something in this whole thing.
I'd hire the best person: i don't care if your gay, black, turquoise. If you're the best, you're hired.
What is it with Americans that they don't want the best candidate working for them? "Oh, you're white and useless? Yes! You're hired because i don't hire great, hard working black, gay people!" WTF?
Hire who is the best fit for your company... why hire less than the best? And don't force me to hire someone useless just because they're black, gay, turquoise either. Homey don't do that.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 02, @02:37PM
That has been demonstrated for most, if not all of my lifetime. The boss is going to hire the guy he thinks is going to make him the most money. Even if he is prejudiced, he'll most likely hire the most qualified person, even if the most qualified is the demographic he dislikes. And, the lazy, ignorant, incompetent fool eventually gets fired, even when that fool is of the preferred demographic. And, strangely, we see the same thing happening in Europe, in Africa, in Arabia, Asia, and wherever people live. There are exceptions to that rule, of course. The top paying management jobs tend to go to the boss's offspring, nephews and nieces, and in-laws. When a company advertises itself as a 'Family Owned Business', you expect to see the family getting promoted ahead of everyone. For the most part, we can accept and tolerate that in larger businesses, provided those family members are minimally competent. That still leaves room for the best to advance into good jobs, and even cushy jobs when the company is big enough. If you really, really, really want a top job in a family owned business, you should marry into the family. That's just the way things are, and the way they alwasy will be.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by EEMac on Tuesday September 03, @02:18PM (1 child)
> "Oh, you're white and useless? Yes! You're hired because i don't hire great, hard working black, gay people!"
That's the fiction. I have never seen this in my 50+ year lifetime as an American. I've seen the opposite in practice, multiple times.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday September 03, @11:34PM
That's because some people (I guess not just Americans) are DUMB-ASSES!
Some people see "all black people are...", whereas smart people see "some black people are...., but some white people are....as well".
I've known some wonderful 'people of colour' and some shithead whites; there's no way i can make a blanket statement that "All ... people are ...". Some people are shite, others aren't, whether you're black, gay, white, male, female....
Americans (and loads of other people) who are prejudiced are just plain dumb and missing out on meeting good people.
I'll hire for excellence and fit and willingness to learn anytime over some prejudice.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03, @03:44PM
Eugenics much, bro?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 02, @04:40AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iw4c1fTJqo [youtube.com] It's an hour and 49 minutes if you watch the entire video. TBH, I haven't finished watching it yet. But, you learn a lot just from the first ten or fifteen minutes. He quotes part of Malcolm X's speech, 'The American liberal is the Negro's worst enemy'.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Monday September 02, @06:29AM
That company wouldn't be Ford. Equating some empty rituals with DEI, doesn't make them the same.
When the narrative is more important than reality. So now that we have stereotyped a business as "predators", morally is there any punishment too harsh for predators?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DadaDoofy on Monday September 02, @11:05AM (15 children)
There is nothing wrong with diversity and inclusion, except that to the people peddling this it means diversity and inclusion of "all", with the exception of white, straight or conservative people, of course.
Unlike equality, which is a noble goal that we should always strive for, "equity" is something altogether different. Equity is racism, plain and simple. It's based on the idea that preferences based on skin color are just fine as long as that skin color isn't white. They even picked a name similar to equality to confuse low information folks into thinking it's the same thing. Shame on them!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by pTamok on Monday September 02, @12:32PM (4 children)
[devils_advocate]
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture has its tendrils in many places, and one area is the idea of the (Puritan) work-ethic. Diversity includes understanding alternative cultures' approach to work.
For instance, in Greenland, when the whales arrive, it is not unusual for people to leave whatever job they are employed to do and go out to hunt. It's normal. If you expect the bank to be staffed while the whale hunt is on, you'll be disappointed, unless there are sufficient non-Greenlandic staff about.
Other cultures regarded doing more than the minimum necessary to cover your immediate needs as crazy.
If you favour people who have a strong 'work ethic' over people from a different culture who don't, you are being discriminatory. Privileging WASP-culture over others is not allowed. If you think a strong work-ethic is objectively better, then you need to learn more about cultural relativism, and how easy it is to subconsciously privilege your own culture.
[/devils_advocate]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Monday September 02, @01:07PM (3 children)
Then i'll discriminate.
If you are willing to let the team down when you "don't feel well *cough cough*, then i don't want you. I want team members. If you're black, fine. White, fine. Gay, fine.
Lazy? Uh-uh. Go away.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Monday September 02, @01:21PM (2 children)
So the assistant comes in, and 40% of the team get a nasty respiratory disease.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday September 02, @02:59PM (1 child)
You can't get a respiratory disease from a lazy person who just wanted to stay home and drink and then post the pics on social media where the friends they let down can see...
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Samantha Wright on Monday September 02, @04:34PM
With back-to-the-office mandates, anything is possible.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, @01:27PM (1 child)
No one in the history of histories have been as hard put upon as the white male! Talk about peddling crap. This "they're all out to get you" Fox News propaganda is why you have poor rural people voting to have their social security and medicare slashed so that billionaires don't have to pay taxes. But keep crying about a hypothetical black woman who might get a promotion in some company somewhere (over, we of course naturally assume is a much better qualified white male) so as long as you keep voting against issues that would directly improve your own life (and for those sweet sweet tax breaks and loopholes for rich people, of course, because if we don't get yet another round of tax cuts for the rich, er, ah, SOCIALISM!).
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, @02:19PM
You mock the conspiracy theory, and yet, progressives are funding millions and millions of dollars to peddle their own conspiracy theory. "Whitey is out to hold you down! Whitey is killin' yo chilluns! Whitey won't pay what you're worth! Defund da PO-leees!"
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Monday September 02, @07:26PM (7 children)
How am I supposed to tell if a prospective candidate is a conservative?
(Score: 1, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Tuesday September 03, @08:06PM (6 children)
That's a very valid question. Most conservatives these days find it necessary to conceal that aspect of their identity, much like the Jews when the National Socialist ruled Germany.
(Score: 1, Troll) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday September 03, @09:29PM (5 children)
Equating modern conservatives with Jews in 1930's Germany is the epitome of false equivalency. NO ONE is rounding up conservatives for concentration camps and execution by gas chamber.
You should be ashamed of making a statement that stupid and asinine. But that's par for the course for the modern conservative now, isn't it?
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday September 04, @02:33PM (4 children)
"Equating modern conservatives with Jews in 1930's Germany is the epitome of false equivalency. NO ONE is rounding up conservatives for concentration camps and execution by gas chamber."
But the "false equivalency" the left makes on a daily basis about our former president and his supporters - who have never rounded up anyone for concentration camps or gassed anyone - and Nazis, in between their hysterical chants of "From the river to the sea!", is just fine with you, right?
Who should be ashamed?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday September 04, @03:30PM (2 children)
Nah, they are not Nazis are they?
https://wvpublic.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Patriot-Front-March_anonymoous-1024x731.jpg [wvpublic.org]
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/assets/usa-election-proudboys/trump-rally.jpg?v=071923040624 [reuters.com]
https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/still-20769531-14236-485-still.jpg?c=16x9&q=h_653,w_1160,c_fill/f_webp [cnn.com]
Chanting "Sieg Heil"? On second thoughts - yes, they probably are.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday September 04, @04:15PM (1 child)
Nah, more like feds playing dress-up. Ever wonder why most of them are wearing masks and they run away when confronted?
Try harder.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday September 04, @04:59PM
I don't believe that, and I don't think you do either.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Wednesday September 04, @07:03PM
Whatabout, whatabout. The actions of the left does not excuse the actions of the right (or yours for that matter). Besides, if the Florida Orange Man and his cult act like fascists and talk like fascists, they shouldn't be surprised when they are called fascists.
Yet. I'd rather not give them the opportunity.
More whatabout, and ad hominem to boot. Bravo, well done!
That would be you, for making such an asinine statement to begin with, but I suppose most RWNJs are more or less shameless. Oh well.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Monday September 02, @03:08PM
Who here is against diversity? Who here is against inclusion? Who here is against equity? Who here wants less of any one of those, and why?
Redneck bigots, Trump voters, FASCISTS.
Fascism is back in style, kids. My uncles fought a world war against people like Trump and Musk, my dad was too young.
These days, companies don't even see you as a customer anymore, they just see you as a lemon and ask only one question: "how much can I squeeze that before I toss it away and go to the next one".
It started with Nixon (who I actually voted for. Everybody makes mistakes...) and was supercharged under Reagan. In his book Saving Capitalism, Robert Reich points out that before the '80s, the CEOs and boards saw themselves beholden to the customers, the workers, the city they operated in, and the stockholders. These days, only the stockholder matters. I blame cocaine.
Kind of like the 1920s. Grandma McGrew, born in 1903, told me that the roaring twenties only roared for the rich. Like the 2020s. And the rich say "but the economy is great!"
Yeah, for YOU. When I was young, the minimum wage was a living wage.
"Nobody knows everything about anything." — Dr Jerry Morton, Journey to Madness
(Score: 3, Insightful) by BlueCoffee on Monday September 02, @04:58PM
Who here is against diversity? Who here is against inclusion? Who here is against equity? Who here wants less of any one of those, and why?
I AM! Forced diversity & inclusion brings nothing to a company (let alone a country) other than a chance to proudly and loudly display their invalid righteous virtue to everyone else in their homogenous & undiverse echo-chambers of virtue purity.
DEI is just a soft term for racism against whites (and often Asians), discrimination against men , and bigotry towards straight people by discriminatory groups who don't want to be called racists and bigots. It's incredible and incredulous that those people who delibertly disregard an entire race, an entire sex, and an entire sexual orientation believe they are engaging in diverse and inclusive behavior. The mental gymnastics and though processes these people engage in to make their discriminatory behavior seem moral and honorable in their mind is amazing.
DEI is better called something else: Didn't Earn It!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by weirsbaski on Tuesday September 03, @04:33AM
This happens more than people would like to admit, but it's normally quiet and subtle so it's hard to prove. But once in a while you get confirmation, like this:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/resume-name-discrimination-hotel-lawsuit-dwight-jackson-rcna161219 [nbcnews.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, @08:31AM
More knee-jerk politics that has nothing to do with technology, science, or anything interesting at all.
But hey it sure gets a lot of comments! More clicks, more ad revenue, that's where it's at, right?! Quality of posts, community of the site be damned! Make people *react*!
(did you catch the sarcasm about ad revenue? Sorry, felt I needed to point it out.)
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday September 02, @11:32AM (7 children)
So these companies finally found out that the people that call for diversity, DEI or whatever terminology is the correct one at this point in time are not their customer base. People walking in PRIDE parades and such events are not the core customers of companies such as Harley-Davidson, Tractor Supply Co. and John Deere. These people that do walk in the parades and such might want these companies to cater to and acknowledge them and their believes but they are never, or rarely, going to be customers of them.
So they want the attention but they will not engage in some kind of reciprocity and actually buy these products in a sufficient amount to cover the costs. So why would the companies support them again? It's odd cause what they are doing is pissing of a large part of their actual core customer market in doing this. People that would never get into the PRIDE and diversity ideals for one reason or another. They tried to cater to a market that just didn't exists except in fantasy-land.
They should cater to the market that actually supports you and buys your products or you cater not to a market that doesn't buy your products and never will. It's sort of amazing that it has taken these companies this long to sort of get it. In lack of a better description the liberal urban elite isn't the core market for these products, never have and never will. Blue-haired-lesbian-bikers just isn't a sufficiently large demographic for Harley. Middle aged dudes with biker fantasies are. No matter how much you spend on PR and HR and whatever that just isn't going to change. I'm sure they got it before, but they didn't want to get hung in the media. The pendulum have swung a bit again. It's ok to not engage in this media fantasy without an actual customer base.
In some regard I am wondering if this have not actually damaged their existing market. By turning customers away to other brands that didn't engage in this sort of thing. That these policies have removed both customers and potential employees for feel good costs and a perceived value that would never materialize.
Robby Starbuck (was he named after BSG?) is just trying to ride the pendulum in the other direction trying to take credit for something he probably can't even have a significant influence over anyway. Trying to the the posterboy for some other fantasy movement.
(Score: 2) by helel on Monday September 02, @09:48PM (1 child)
So you're saying the core customer base of these companies are bigots?
I honestly don't understand the kind of person you're describing. If I'm in the market for something the thing I care about is who has the best design and engineering. Worrying about the sex, gender, skin color, or imaginary friends of the people that make it is just so foreign. To think somebody might choose a different tractor just because they're worried a brown person might have built it? It's beyond insane.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Tuesday September 03, @05:18AM
This isn't about design and engineering, it's about marketing. Do you really think McDonalds have the best burgers in the world, or even the best cost-benefit for burgers in the world?
We are _all_ more susceptible to marketing that we'd like to think we are. And if the right marketing can draw in an audience of customers, the wrong marketing can just as easily drive them away, product quality be damned.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday September 03, @12:18AM (1 child)
That strategy is a long term dead end. If you want to continually increase sales, you need to increase the market to whom you are able to sell. That means selling to a more diverse market. The easiest way to attract a more diverse market is to make them feel they are not some sort of outlier in their community if they buy your product.
The current backlash against DEI is simply pandering to a vocal political minority. Hopefully, in the long run, it costs the cowards who fall for this a great deal.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday September 03, @03:21PM
The problem is eternal growth isn't sustainable either. Eventually you'll run out of customers. Or well not everyone wants to be a customer of the product you sell. This isn't about the product in itself, this is just marketing in that regard.
They don't like the image or ideals or the product you want to sell. If you look at say Harley Davidsson, who is their core customer? You can just look at the images in on their website. It's not people in PRIDE-parades. They want to sell bikes to "Men", they want to sell some image of freedom, modern cowboys, bikers or whatever it is they are trying to associate their bike with. It is for a lack of better terms middle aged men with biker fantasies and to much money. That really shouldn't have anything to do with DEI or Diversity or PRIDE or whatever. But they decided to jump on that bandwagon and it has clearly backfired cause their previous audience couldn't be taken for granted and they didn't like the DEI message.
So if they had continued down that path with the imaginary customer that like those things they wouldn't have sold a lot of bikes anymore. But by catering to them they are, or would have, destroying part of the market that used to or are their core audience. Cause those people don't want to ride a dyke-bike or be associated with it. If HD had started to sell large amount of pink bikes catering to women or whatnot a lot of their core audience would start buying Indian or some other brand.
The current backlash about DEI is that they, or companies in general, drank the coolaid are trying to sell other values that are clashing with some peoples believes and ideas so they want no part of it and I guess they are tired about being quiet and just swallowing. You can't have all the cake. It's one bite or the other.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday September 03, @09:37PM (1 child)
It's not about catering to your existing customers. It's about seeking new customers.
Most corporations don't actually give two hoots about DEI. They see it as a way to expand their customer base. It would likely work fine if you didn't have bigoted assholes like Robby Starbuck stirring shit up.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Tuesday September 03, @10:55PM
Yes. But those new customers comes at a cost. That cost is their old customers that might not want to be associated with their new DEI propaganda. So gain some, lose some. If they thought they would have gained more new customers they would have continued down the DEI-path. By stopping it's a fair conclusion they have concluded the shitstorm was not worth the trouble and it did not make business sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 04, @08:02AM
Someone didn't watch Brokeback Mountain...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Monday September 02, @02:58PM
"The external and legal environment related to political and social issues continues to evolve."
True, but right and wrong never do. If it's an honest, competent person, discriminating against them is just wrong. Period.
"Nobody knows everything about anything." — Dr Jerry Morton, Journey to Madness