Starting September 1, 2020, a policy put in place has changed how the city of Framingham hires all employees. Policy #44 was introduced with no fanfare, and aimed to increase the likelihood of hiring diverse candidates. The text of the policy is pretty standard. It’s what you would expect to see in such a policy and can be seen below:
POLICY #44: https://www.framinghamma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/39552/Diversity-in-Hiring-Policy-44
However – the training for hiring managers was in depth and controversial. Via public records requests we obtained the first of several video trainings.
If you are considering applying for any jobs offered by the City of Framingham, please watch this video. If you ware a white-male, this video should dissuade you from applying in the near term.
If you want a highlight reel…
This portion about 40 minutes in covered the rules for each round of interviews. A short list needed to be created and submitted to Human resources from the candidate pool – pretty standard. However, in each round of interviews, there would be a required diversity requirement. In each round, there would need to be someone who met a percentage metric or at least one person of color and one female.
If this candidate pool was not met for any round of interview, the hiring manager would need to reach out to the Diversitiy Equity and Inclusion officer for specific permission to continue the hiring process, to determine the job search failed, or to find ways to put a hold on the process to find diverse candidates to bring in.
In selecting the candidate to hire, is described in the text below…
The candidate to be hired will be the most diverse candidate who has met the minimum qualifications. This means that in some cases, the most qualified candidate will not be hired, As long as all candidates in the final round of interviews meet the minimum qualifications, the one picked per policy, regardless of how well they did on the interview, will be the most diverse.
When the most diverse candidate is the most qualified, Framingham wins… but if not, Framingham will lose each and every time.
We ask the current administration to halt all current job searches, and ask the incoming administration to re-evaluate policy 44, and the training and rules surrounding that policy, to create a new policy which will still encourage the inclusion of a diverse candidate pool, but will allow the city to hire the best candidate 100% of the time, and not only some of the time.
Framingham cannot afford any more mediocrity, We need to power ahead, as we are starting 4 years behind.