“Why Don’t We Just Google Diversity Calendar?”
We recently had a follow-up meeting with a major company in the healthcare industry. Our contact, who is eager to subscribe, told us management questioned the need for our subscription Diversity Calendar. “Why don’t we just Google it?” they asked.
Great question. Google is a fantastic product, but here’s why relying on Google for your inclusive scheduling is a bad idea.
1) What will you Google? First, you need to know what to Google. How will your team know – for example – that Eid al-Fitr is important, and when to Google it? We’re the world’s leading Diversity Calendar experts: we collate nearly 2,000 different events, and then create a custom calendar for you.
2) Fact errors, wrong dates and more – Let’s say you Google “Diversity Calendar.” Google is a great product, but free blog posts are not, and you get what you pay for. Recently, I Googled the event below. The date is wrong (it’s September 22, not August). Bloggers tend to plagiarize each other, so when one free blog post has the wrong date, so do others. If your senior management doesn’t mind embarrassing themselves with your female employees, this free blog post will do fine. This free website also had all the dates for the Easter cycle wrong; Easter happens to be the most important event in the world’s #1 religion.
3) What Do You Say? Let’s say you find out the correct date for say, Yom Kippur. Now what? What is Yom Kippur? And what will you say to your Jewish colleagues or customers? Here’s a hint: don’t say happy Yom Kippur, unless you wish to embarrass yourself and your associates.
4. And more fact errors – Another website is very popular and ranks well, sometimes #1 in Google. Yet it’s full of mistakes. Below you’ll see the same event, listed two different ways, on two different dates, and both dates are wrong.
This expert blogger – and #1 Google hit – does not realize that Muslim and Islamic are the same thing, and has no clue that Hijri is the Muslim lunar calendar system. Islam is the world’s 2nd largest religion. If your senior leadership doesn’t mind wishing Muslims a Happy New Year roughly 11 or 21 days late (or both!), there’s no need for our product.
Conclusion
Amazon recently subscribed to our Diversity Calendar for all 1.5 million employees. Their subscription cost is high, much higher than yours. They could easily afford to hire an entire department to do this work. But they rely on us, because we are the world’s #1 experts on this topic.
If your leadership team has an abundance of time, they know what to Google, can afford spending all day Googling various diversity events, and don’t mind getting dates/facts/greetings wrong, great. You’ll save some money, perhaps equal to the cost of typical business lunch for your leadership. #Winning.
But if your leadership team has higher priority work, and is interested in accuracy and saying the right thing at the right time, to people of different religion and cultures, we’re here to help. Enjoy a free trial of our Diversity Calendar suite.