What is meant by equitable representation?
Basically that your employee roster reflects the composition of the community you serve and the one from which you draw candidates, but of course you have to consider qualifications for positions–skills and knowledge. Also depending on the enterprise—Magazines and Universities for example serve a broader community than the local utility company or retail store and draw from a broader base of candidates. Educational institutions and government agencies are expected to set an example on meeting the standards for equitable representation.
It is important to consider the difference between equal and equitable. Equal means ‘the same’, equitable means fair, just and reasonable. Achieving equity can in some ways be easier than achieving equal representation, especially in small companies with few employees. Think about it this way—your business requires 12 employees—equal would imply having the same amount of men as women; Same number of Black, Hispanic, Asian and White employees; equal numbers of disabled peopled as not disabled. Equitable on the other hand says your employee roster reflects the composition of the community more in terms of the statistical demographic make of that community.It acknowledges that you have to or are allowed to consider the fitness, in all ways, for the job that’s where the reasonable part of the definition applies. Really large institutions often have consultants well versed in current Economic Opportunity laws on hand to advise hiring committees on what they can and cannot use as criteria for specific positions.
Laws requiring equitable representation may sometimes seem unfair to ‘majority’ populations, but actually they can greatly benefit employers by helping them learn that candidates from varied backgrounds can be as well if not better qualified than that standard candidate pool. It also encourages any business that engages in any job training to consider ‘minority’ candidates for those training programs based on the same aptitude and existing skill sets required of ‘majority’ candidates to be considered–but demographic factors like gender, race/ethnicity and disabilities that can be easily accommodated should not be factors used to screen out candidates. Back in the 70’s despite being the highest scorer on the ‘logic’ test to rank candidates for a national computerized business machines training program i wasn’t nominated by the local outlet that i had been working for in another capacity because they had already sent one woman to the school and fulfilled their ‘quota’ for the year. In today’s world that wouldn’t fly, i’d have a legal case. Which sadly is the main reason a lot of employers comply—but some realize after a while that equitable representation is often good for their organization.
