HR’s Robby Starbuck Longhouse Meltdown

Business Insider recently published an “as-told-to essay” from human resources executive Dave Greenlaw regarding his plans to attend a Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) conference where conservative activist and frequent diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) critic Robby Starbuck will be attending. In the essay, Greenlaw is quoted as saying:

“I completely disagree with Robby Starbuck's views. But my personal take is that HR leaders need to understand the full landscape of the workforce and the workplace, even when it might be uncomfortable.”

This is in response to SHRM facing a public backlash over the decision to host Starbuck, even though, to make his presence at the conference more palatable, he will be joined by Van Jones, with SHRM's CEO, Johnny C. Taylor moderating the discussion between them. Despite this arrangement, some HR professionals still managed to react negatively to the news by loudly complaining on social media, withdrawing from the conference and/or cancelling their SHRM memberships.

To his credit, Taylor defended the decision, saying in part:

“Viewpoint diversity is one of the major, but often under-discussed, dimensions of workplace diversity.”

Under-discussed, and in too many workplaces frequently and willfully ignored, with three cultural forces driving intolerance. First, as a profession, human resources is predominantly female (74.5% female to 25.5% male), and furthermore it is much more of a liberal one, with data from the Federal Election Commission showing Democrat to Republican support within the profession at a 2:1 ratio. Women also make up 76% of HR management roles. These become multiplier effects to produce ‘Longhouse’ culture, a matriarchal, conformity-driven workplace, where the ‘den mother’ strictly enforces a more progressive, female-centric, rules-based environment.

This Longhouse culture serves to amplify the more recent phenomenon of employees who insist upon forcing their politics into the workplace. They are typically millennials and Gen Z, who are oftentimes considerably more intolerant of opposing viewpoints. According to a survey by Indeed, nearly 40% of workers between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four would quit a job over political differences at work, with 40% willing to leave if they disagreed with the CEO’s political views. They are also significantly more likely to raise concerns about toxic work environments, microaggressions, feeling unsafe, or other related grievances because of their inability to cope with hearing things they don’t like.

Lastly, while aimed at inclusion, DEI oftentimes fuels divisions by pitting races against each other, outright racial discrimination against unfavored groups through race-based quotas, overly onerous speech codes, and a self-perpetuating bureaucracy creating fear-based environments as they go about enforcing DEI dictates. Pronouns in e-mail signatures and online bios are as much about social pressure and concerns about reprisal as they are public virtue-signaling.

The dual role of human resources is to support both the organization and its employees, and oftentimes those who work in HR are tasked (sometimes through significant challenges) with balancing the needs of the company against those who work there. In all disputes and at all times, they are expected to be neutral arbiters in helping to resolve issues within the workplace, putting aside their personal viewpoints and opinions as they work to solve the problems before them.

Those working in human resources, particularly in managerial roles, who cannot tolerate hearing dissenting viewpoints are ill-suited for the profession’s demands. This only serves to further denigrate an all too familiar credibility gap within the profession. According to a 2024 MyPerfectResume HR Perception Survey, 86% of employees fear HR, with 85% hesitant to go to HR to discuss work-related issues. This latest uproar does them no favors.