| LEARNING TO TRUST YOURSELF...
is a process of unlearning a whole host of rules handed down to you - by society, by your loved ones, by the cultures and institutions you came up under and within.
Reading Gabor Maté's Myth of Normal this week, I came across this sentence...
"The intellect becomes a far more intelligent tool when it allows the heart to speak; when it opens itself to that within us that resonates with the truth, rather than trying to reason with it.”
It struck me as the summation of why we do the work of culture change at GFJ. And why, although it takes far more time, emotional energy, and discomfort, we work daily to reiterate our commitment to equity within each job post.
We believe that the language in each post - and the actions associated with those words - are inextricably linked, and can therefore hold the power to disrupt the status quo in which our industry operates, and help to reimagine a better and brighter future for all.
Last week we delved into the commonly seen requirement of 'reliable transportation' - and we learned a lot from reader responses that we look forward to sharing. But first, we have a bit more work to do in examining the other two requirements that often ride alongside the former one: 'valid driver's license' and 'clean driving record' (which we'll look at more closely next week).
While a valid driver's license is indeed necessary for certain jobs - particularly those in which driving IS the job (for example, a Delivery Driver) - it shows up all too often in job descriptions where the relationship between this form of ID and the job duties is murky at best.
As with 'reliable transportation', the key is context. Here are our guidelines:
- If you must include this as a requirement, refer back to the area in the job duties where driving is essential to daily work, i.e. "Driver's license required to fulfill job duties."
- Better yet, merge the two so it's crystal clear for the person reading your job post, i.e. "Travel between work sites on a biweekly basis (valid driver's license required)."
- Last...but perhaps it should be first...we invite you to consider whether the requirement is even necessary to state. Isn't the need for a driver's license a well-known legal requirement for driving a vehicle? One can conclude that driving as a job duty would in and of itself confer the need for a license. What would happen if you allowed the duties to speak for themselves, and extended trust to your future team members, right from the start?
If it seems like an unnecessary burden on job posters to look this closely at a seemingly simple requirement, we find ourselves pointing to the origin of such a phrase. Where did it come from and why is it so commonplace as to be copy/pasted from job post to job post, often unnoticed?
In many cases, language like this is a stand-in for discriminatory hiring practices that have been deemed illegal, but - like so many aspects of inequity and oppression - have found a way to persist.
That's why we're updating our policies to require that all employers refrain from using the phrase 'valid driver's license' (and similar phrasing) as a stand-alone job requirement in all future job posts.
To continued progress,
Tay + Dor
photo by Christine Han
|
