This was an interesting conversation I was hearing about how in the US the FAA has a description on its site expressing how they diversity and inclusion is an integral part to their operation. Now the reason why this generated so much attention is because of the recent news of aircrafts malfunctioning to the point where the public would want to prioritize hiring people with the actual skills and qualification for such an important job where thousands of people’s lives are in your hands when they fly. This topic is a major talking point for a lot of businesses as well in terms of what direction to go with.
On the site too they talk about the types of people that would fall into this group such as people with disabilities. As they say here “Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring. They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.”
Again, the reaction from a lot of people were negative considering the nature of the service. But it makes you think as a business in these cases would you prioritize hiring people to make your organization more diverse or would you focus on the skills and experiences of the applications even if that means or having a diverse organization? I think professional sports teams are usually the examples people use where universally an owner isn’t going to bring in a person with dwarfism to compete in the NBA as an example over some person that is over 7ft tall.
I mean, if that person with dwarfism could jump just as high as the taller guy and score just as well then you could argue there is no reason not to hire them for the team. But I would imagine there it was purely about skill in the hiring process. Should a business environment be the same or is it different?