Tackling the corporate “poshness test” in the Covid19 and BLM era
There will not be a “great reset” of capitalism if we do not address the subtle mechanisms of socio-economic exclusion in the workplace
Someone recently told me a story about a brilliant young lawyer of Indian descent who joined an old British law firm. The firm had been chasing after him from the benches of Oxford to reach its diversity targets. On his first day on the job, he is standing at the urinal next to a firm’s partner. His new boss looks down at his shoes and says: “uh, uh, no brown in town Monday to Thursday”. The stories goes that the brilliant lawyer resigned immediately after.
The “poshness test”*, a system in which senior executives in British law and financial firms use subtle criteria such as travel experience on resume, people’s accents in interviews or in this case obscure fashion etiquette to weed out people that are not in their own image, is not unique to the UK.
In France, large companies have had the long-held habit of favoring interns from fee-paying business schools (HEC, ESCP or ESSEC) rather than the excellent public university system in order to recruit executives from the “right” social class. More than two third of all students at HEC have parents in upper socio-professional categories with working class children representing less than 7% of students. Proportions that are similar to that of another elite school, Polytechnique or “X”. This is not insignificant as a 2010 study found that in France three schools only (X, ENA and HEC) alone provide 46% of French leaders, an infallible system of elite reproduction which nobody attempts to tackle**.
As a side note, France seems to continue to refine the art of elitism even in the digital world. It is the only country I know that developed an exclusive and very successful AirBNB equivalent for chic people aptly named “gens de confiance” (trusted people). The name of the app itself makes clear that people different from “us” can never be trusted.
I myself benefited from this system many times myself as I describe in a recent video: educated in a private catholic school and benefiting from everything that went with being born a white man from an affluent family in the 80s. I believe I would never have gotten my jobs at the World Bank or the United Nations without being able to pass as a member of the dominant class.
In the United States, where social mobility is supposed to be a national value, socio-economic diversity in elite universities is improving. Yet, people of color and other minorities remain systematically locked out of top jobs — with a clear exception for diversity and inclusion jobs which is problematic in its own right — based on the complex rules of “networking” another strong-held American value. Because of structural barriers such as residential segregation (think about non-Caucasian in the Cape this summer) or the “White” and masculine format of networking event in terms of dress codes, conversation codes or locations (such as ball games), networking mostly benefits white men. Progress is taking place in Board representation of women and minorities but the pace remains slow as illustrated by this article by the Alliance for Board Diversity.
I paid close attention when Professor Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, announced the “great reset” of capitalism this month. Schwab designed the WEF as an “exclusive” event for powerful white men to perpetuate their dominance. Beth Brooke-Marciniak formerly of EY describes in an article being pushed in banks of snow by hordes of men who could not imagine a woman at Davos to be anybody but some man’s assistant. Similarly, I had a falling out with the head of the newly created WEF LGBT project, which we had until then jointly designed, last year when he bluntly told me he did not want the civil society partners I had in mind for the project lest they would want to attend Davos. God forbid one of these non-tie wearing humanist type disturb the elitist meeting and its posh après-ski parties.
Yet Klaus’ volte-face might be a sign, that even the WEF understands that diversity is now about survival of capitalism. Dominant actors have gone overboard in influencing the rules of the game, accumulating power and detaching themselves gradually from “common good” ideals. Movements like, #GiletsJaunes, #MeToo, #BLM or Pride are demanding change with increasing force. Covid19 has also illustrated for many the horrendous economic inequalities. Inclusion is no longer about compassion or even the economic interest of firms, it is now about the survival of capitalism.
The WEF describes the ”Great Reset” initiative on its website as designed “to build a new social contract that honors the dignity of every human being”. However, we will not be able to address inclusion without talking about the many invisible non-educational barriers to success in the workplace. Social exclusion based on class origins, gender, race or sexual orientation takes place in increasingly subtle manners because in the words of Frederick Douglass “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
If you any doubt that this needs to change, then you just need to glance at this slide from the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer: 1 in 5 in the World believe the system is working for them. This is the stuff revolutions are made of.
It is time not only to talk about the many forms of the “poshness test” but also time to take collective and individual action. Concretely, if we are in a situation of power, it means realizing that it is luck and privilege rather than genius that placed us there. It also means using our network for and providing mentorship to people that do not look like us, that we might not be comfortable with and challenging our own prejudice of what a decision-maker must look and sound like.
*Expression taken from a 2015 The Guardian article: “‘Poshness tests’ block working-class applicants at top companies”
** Also read: Will Macron’s move against his alma mater make France’s HE system fairer?, September 2019