Consider two employees in a department at a large corporation. One is a single mother raising two children. The other is a single male or female, same age, no children.
The single mother has her children in daycare. She walks in the door at the office at 9:00 am and leaves at exactly five in order to take care of her children. When there is a critical issue in the office late in the day (key customer needs immediate attention for example), the assignment is always given to the employee without children who usually works late into the evening, cancelling any personal plans, to resolve the issue.
The single mother will not travel overnight. Periodically it is necessary for an employee in the department to travel for 2-3 days to visit factories or customers. The single employee always gets the assignment in order to accommodate the constraints of the single mother.
Both employees do excellent work and are ambitious. The single childless employee produces more because he/she is able to work more hours. Both employees receive excellent performance appraisals.
A promotional opportunity occurs at the company, for which both are fully qualified. The childless employee feels he/she deserves the promotion more because he/she has contributed more to the success of the organization. The single mother understands the company accommodates her schedule, but feels she deserves the promotion because her performance has been excellent and the company’s HR policies champion diversity. HR is recommending the job be given to the single mother and the VP of HR has brought this particular situation to the attention of the CEO.
You are the director to whom the newly promoted manager will report. You are also ambitious. The position requires about 25% travel. The HR VP has advised you if the single mother is hired, someone else in the department will have to take on the travel in order to accommodate her special needs. Likely you personally will be that person. You know if you promote the single mother your superiors will smile upon you. You also know though that your superiors will accept no decrease in performance from your department due to the work restrictions of the single mother. If productivity in the department drops, or there is a significant customer problem because the promoted manager cannot be on site at the customer, you will be held responsible.
Who do you promote? Is your answer the same if the single mother is a person of color and the single employee is white (male or female)?
This happens every day in large corporations.
If you’re the manager, you figure out how to do the job without requiring so much travel.
The HR VP has advised you if the single mother is hired, someone else in the department will have to take on the travel in order to accommodate her special needs.
That right there is the problem. HR is recommending a candidate for a job even though that person can’t fulfill a key responsibility of the job.
I’m sure this DOES happen every day in large corporations. That’s why I don’t work for them anymore.
Any company that allows HR to have any role in making recommendations for hiring decisions is asking for trouble. The manager(s) who will he managing the staff should be the only ones who make these decisions.