What if….
…the progressive left completes its take-over of the Democratic Party. In the next election Democrats win the presidency and achieve majorities in both chambers of Congress. The new Congress passes a bunch of legislation to address “structural inequality and systemic racism”, including a law requiring large corporations to root out sexism and racism in the workplace. Specifically, the “Social Justice at Work Act” mandates that all corporations with at least 100 employees establish Social Justice Committees to deal with racist and sexist employees.
XYZ Corporation was on it. Their investors had already been clamoring for a no-tolerance company policy and XYZ certainly didn’t want to lose out on lucrative federal contracts by being soft on racists and sexists. But XYZ employees included plenty of libertarians, conservatives and traditional liberals who would have resisted the “denounce and purge” approach of hard-core progressives.
In an attempt to achieve a fair process for dealing with problem employees, as well as one acceptable to most workers and investors, XTZ management decided to model their social justice approach on criminal justice principles and guidelines long advocated by the ACLU, NAACP, and similar organizations. In particular, management looked to the Justice Collaborative Engagement Project (JCEP), an “independent, nonpartisan research and advocacy organization devoted to holding public officials accountable for reforming the justice system and building healthier and safer communities.” XYZ even used parts of JCEP’s own mission statement to explain their approach to achieving social justice within the workplace:
“People are more than their worst acts, and even people who commit the most serious offenses often change their lives profoundly over time. To recognize the worth and potential for growth in all people, it is important for the [Social Justice Committee] to provide individualized consideration to the character and background of each person and to the circumstances surrounding the commission of the offense. It also is critical for the [Committee] to …help remove barriers to reentering society [after punishment].” Justice Collaborative Engagement Project wording, except for XYZ Corporation’s bracketed and italicized substitutions.
Management figured if convicted murderers were entitled to such humane treatment, surely racists and sexists deserved no less. In line with these thoughts, XYZ Corporation developed the following process and guidelines for dealing with accused racists and sexists within the company:
XYZ’s Social Justice Committee will be composed of Human Resources staff and a smaller number of rotating employees chosen randomly. After case review, Committee discussion, and a hearing with the accused, the Committee will vote on whether the accused employee violated company policy and, if so, what the punishment will be. The Social Justice Committee process and decisions will be guided by the following considerations:
Punishment should be fair, consistent, parsimonious, proportionate and with the opportunity for rehabilitation.
All employees accused of an offense are to be informed of the exact offense they are accused of violating and how their behavior fit the offense definition.
Accused employees have a right to explain and justify their behavior and to request an advocate to assist them in their defense.
The company will observe parity in punishment: similar punishments will be imposed for similar offenses committed by offenders in similar circumstances.
Punishment will be proportionate to the gravity of the offending behaviour
Punishment will be parsimonious, that is, no more severe than is necessary to meet its purposes, such as deterring the offender or other people from committing offenses of the same or a similar character.
A continuum of punishment options will be available, based on the number and severity of offenses, from apologizing to mandatory training to volunteer work to time-limited suspension without pay to termination.
Offenders will be provided guidance to overcome offending behavior to reduce likelihood of future offending.
Human Resource records of the offense will be sealed after a period of time.
Punishment rationale will be clear and purposeful and related policies logical, understandable and transparent.
All XYZ employees will be provided with punishment rationale and policies, allowed to comment on proposed changes in rationale or policies, updated on any changes made, and have access to HR staff for clarification.
Offenses will be strictly defined with several examples of offenses, edge-cases, and similar behaviors that would not be considered offenses.
Employees will be notified of changes in offense definitions and examples and allowed a grace period to adjust to these changes. For example, if the definition of racism is expanded from “considering members of another race to be inferior” to include “blaming members of other races for their troubles”, employees must be provided with clear examples of cases, edge-cases, and non-cases (and explanations for why the examples were classified as such).
Do you think employees and investors would be satisfied with XYZ’s approach? Would they consider it too soft, too hard, absurd… or just plain scary?