Library of Congress recently did a study of employee productivity and used race...

[Captain Hilts]

as a factor in the study.

WHY on God's Green Earth do they think 'race' or 'sex' would affect performance at office work?

Anybody know whose idea this was?

Any other field grade employee performance and examine it by race?

[jody]

1. Would not racial bigotry create a hostile work environment reducing productivity? n/t

[Captain Hilts]

2. It was purely a performance study...

they're trying to ratchet up performance standards.

They used sex, race and age, and, to my knowledge, not professional experience, years in the position or educational attainment.

[jobycom]

3. Any more info on that?

I can't think of a positive reason for doing so. It also seems like it contradicts the disclaimers on applications and other documents that ask about the applicant's race, then say the information won't be used for anything other than statistical purposes (or whatever it says, that's what it implies). Any survey finding or creating a difference in productivity between different groups--race, gender or otherwise--isn't likely to be used for good intentions. Will it be used to discirminate in hiring, or to undermine arguments supporting equality programs? And no results could be objective, anyway. How do you define "productivity?" Too much room for interpretation, which means too much room to find results you want, which means someone has an agenda.

I'll never fill out that section of a form again.

[Captain Hilts]

4. I can't think of a reason either. The memo's bouncing around DC right now....nt

[hughee99]

5. The only thing I could think of (in a "positive" way)

was that it was intended to disprove some preconceived notion that people have.

[MullenBank]

6. please

provide additional details with respect to the study. who what when .... perhaps a link to the study or a link to a link...

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. What this would show is correlation, not causation.

And while it wouldn't surprise me if neither race nor sex correlated with performance at work, it also wouldn't surprise me at all - given how much else they both correlate with - if one or both of them did.

It strikes me as an interesting thing to look at, and I'd be interested to know the results.