Advancing Racial Equity 4.0 – Taking meaningful action without a hint of tokenism
Feb 17 2021, Shereen Daniels
Irrespective of who you are within the workplace – CEO, HR colleague or consultant, DI lead – start here, right now, by considering what action you’ve taken so far in relation to racial equity, as this summary will assist recalibrate your action to date. If you have a racial equity plan or specific work regarding racial equity (rather than a broader diversity and inclusion policy) how confident are you that it’s credible?
Hold these thoughts in your mind.
The fear of saying and doing the wrong thing…
There is deep discomfort about race, about talking about racism. And this is across the board. It has nothing to do with skin colour. But what we’re seeing in the workplace now, is an increasing societal backlash against organisations that look and stay the same that are not moving towards racial equity. Particularly when senior people are majority white. Even more so when they are majority white men. A vitally important dynamic when considering racism.
And, of course, there are many who hoped racial equity and anti-racism were a passing fad. That after the summer of 2020 momentum would die down, the murder tally of Black people including George Floyd and Brionna Taylor would fade into a distant collective memory, and people would forget the footage of Amy Cooper threatening Christian Cooper’s life in Central Park. But how companies face systemic racism in the workplace will be their greatest challenge this coming decade.
We live in a racialised society…
We will never have inclusion if we don’t talk about one of the greatest barriers to its attainment – how people are treated according to their skin colour. How they’re treated according to their proximity to whiteness (as I call it), and in particular their proximity to white cisgendered male. Now, while we talk about racism we often think about behaviour or individuals, and you know the phrases – the ‘it’s about white people being bad’, ‘she’s racist’, ‘he’s not racist’ etc. White supremacy has become a casual label in conversation and we forget that we live in a racialised society with perpetuating systems of policies, approaches, rights and normalcy that creates favourable outcomes to individuals who don’t look like me. The most favoured being white cisgendered men. And there’s a historical reason for this. But for now, in saying this, I’m making the point that when we talk about racism it is more than just an individual problem, it’s about whiteness existing as a societal construct. So a defence of – ‘I’m not privileged’, ‘I’ve had a hard life and none of this is my fault’, ‘I was born into this’, ‘I didn’t create the systems’ doesn’t wash. The very systems that house the formal and informal ways we do things perpetuate racism, and we’ve never intentionally stepped back and questioned how do we deconstruct this? How can we look at a system that time and time again favours white people by default?
A favouritism that is apparent in the data.
By way of example, simply, from the visuals on corporate websites it’s relatively easy to workout the makeup of workplaces. Take London as an example where almost 50% of the population is made up of ‘ethic minorities’, yet enter a London-based head office and you’ll rarely see Black people, or only see them in frontline operational roles. This is a consequence of a systemic racialised system. It’s baked in. In our legal system, our education system and it’s perpetuated because it’s not being talked about. And that’s the broad context here.
If this is you, challenge yourself to understand whether you want your stance to be from a place of fear and therefore driven by what’s comfortable, or curiosity and guided by what’s right. If you default to what’s comfortable but looks good external, rather than what’s challenging, you and your colleagues will never set foot on the right path to dismantling racism in your workplace.
The data…
Collectively I’ve unlocked 50,000 global conversations about race. From June 2020 when I had 3,000 followers on LinkedIn, I’ve since amassed 36,000. And this is important as I’ve kept consistency in my messaging and the increase in followers is telling me more people are leaning in to have these conversations. I’ve had over 2,000 DMs across LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and through emails on both my personal and business pages. As a team we’ve reviewed over 1,000 Black Lives Matter statements, anti-racist commitments and DI reports. I’ve recorded over 131 videos – 100 of which were consecutive and commenced on 31st May 2020. Number of live conversations about racism have amounted to 33, and we’ve supported and partnered with 24 organisations on the way to get them started. From this alone I can tell you, racial equity isn’t a fad, organisations want to be doing something and their clients, suppliers and employees want them to be doing something too.
Evolving work culture…
PreCovid-19 we all spoke about companies ‘representing the communities they serve’, yet in the past year we’ve learnt that workplaces need to represent the global community, because a world that once felt very big, became very small, very quickly. And one of the things we’ve recognised is that there isn’t an understanding of where individual companies are starting from on their journey towards equity, anti-racism and kindness. Consider, by way of example, how your workplace historically treated issues of racism, racial discrimination, and racial harassment? How about racial literacy – how often do you talk about race at work?
This is important as it indicates where you are, and what the appetite for change within the organisation is likely to be. Every company has a different perspective. A perspective reliant on the CEO, the board, the non-executive directors, the investors, and key stakeholders.
Start where you stand
This is why we created our Maturity Model for Advancing Racial Equity to help you recognise your company’s starting point. It does so by taking you through significant questions concerning racial equity and fairness in your workplace, your answers determining where your organisation sits within a four level hierarchical structure that highlights your current stance to anti-racism, i.e. your starting point. Here are four levels:
Level One: A Compliance Issue
So no-one wants to be in the bottom level, however this is where you’ll find companies that address racism and racial equity as a compliance issue. Purely concerned with reputational risk, it’s about what can be demonstrated, like a tick-box approach, e.g. employees have done unconscious bias training – tick, they do it every two years – tick, policy statements are in place – tick, policy statements are updated – tick.
If this is your company, then it’s likely there is no proactive approach to racial equity, the board is risk adverse, which probably means the organisation is not 100% sold on the true power of inclusion, equity and difference.
Level Two: Intent to be Inclusive
In level two there is intent to be inclusive. However this intent is driven mainly by HR. It’s an ‘HR thing’, probably an individual within the team, or the HR team in entirety, talking about racial equity the most, but with radio silence from the board except perhaps around annual statement time when reports need published and engagement surveys need added. So racial equity is still driven by process, and with the HR team as custodians rather than the board it’s likely that no overarching strategy exists. Further, even with a certain amount of intent, a level two organisation uses very generic language. Language so we ‘all feel nice’ – inclusion and belonging, ethnic minorities etc.
Level Three: Strategic Focus + Specific Commitment
This is where things become tangible. There is a strategic focus on specific commitments to racial equity. The agenda is being driven at board level. Here companies are likely to have a CEO who is vocal about anti-racism, even just internally – ‘this is what I want us to commit to’, ‘this is how I want us to show what anti-racism means to the company’ etc. There’s a lot of ‘I’ statements from the CEO rather than ‘we’. The language is specific. And although the company is getting into its rhythms and routines with a racial equity plan, it’s not 100% confident of its contents. The company is likely to struggle with external communication and what it should look like. But they are committed, very specific and have made racial equity a strategic focus.
Level Four: Public + Private Accountability
Level four is the holy grail, right! But not every company wants to be here as level four requires public and private accountability. Here the push for advancing racial equity is a business-led strategy. A strategic imperative. There is specific language about race, racial equity and racism. There is commitment to inclusion and the different aspects involved. The company applies positive pressure on their suppliers and partners to do the same, i.e. for us to work with you we need to know your racial equity plan, your plan for gender representation. They get into specifics, and make decisions based on advancing racial equity. There is frequent, authentic internal and external communication. This is not tokenism akin to a ‘couple of Black faces on a brochure’ but an acknowledgement that there is distance to travel, hard work to be done but a strategic plan is being baked into the corporate culture, one that is measurable, decisive and open to being publicly challenged.
Which companies have attained level four status? No-one has truly nailed it, but the key word here is ‘authentic’. Level four companies are those making pro-active, authentic decisions: planning for systemic racial equity within their walls and with their supplies and external stakeholders.
To summarise…
Level One is where you’re treating racism as a compliance issue.
Level Two is where there is intent to be inclusive. It’s driven by HR with some pro-activity but conversations are generic, and language is focused on diversity and inclusion rather than racial equity, racism, Black colleagues etc.
Level Three is where there is strategic focus and specific commitment. Language is intentional and very clear. There is internal communication driven by the business or the board with a senior leader champion.
Level Four takes level three and adds accountability, both public and private.
The Advancing Equity Model 4.0
Once you have an understanding of where your company sits within the Maturity Model, you can begin to consider how to advance racial equity within your organisation. The Advancing Equity Model 4.0 is codified from all the work I’ve done with the team here at HR rewired, and the organisations we’ve worked with. It is broken down into four simple steps: R.A.C.E.
R: Recognise the Problem
You can’t fix what you don’t understand, and we can’t solve what we don’t talk about. The degree of introspection you and your leadership teams are doing will determine how prepared the company is to progress through the Maturity Model. In this you need to understand the strategic imperative for change, e.g. amplifying voices of Black colleagues, committing to measurable action, understanding the language of what racism is, and what white privilege, white fragility and white supremacy mean. Without introspection, your effort becomes tokenistic and can do more harm to your Black colleagues than good. Do not just jump into action. Take some time. Think about racism from your company’s perspective – where’s the pressure coming from, the influencing factors, is it financially driven through growth into new markets, from investors or employees, or indeed has the organisation been too quiet for too long and wants to catch up. The deeper you can take this pushing past the discomfort, the greater sustainable future change will be. If you don’t delve beyond the shallows for this first stage then nothing will change.
So spend the time, turn the mirror not just on the company but on yourself and consider your belief systems, the values that you need to question, because if you’re going to lead others to be introspective, then you’ve got to do the work yourself. If your company is to have real conversations, and create safe spaces to hear truth from Black colleagues about their life within your organisation (and not just from the one or two Black colleagues whose stories are not particularly challenging to hear for their own personal reasons) then honesty is required. What authentic reflections have you shared? Whose voices are you paying the most attention to? What stories do employers tell about the way their Black colleagues have been treated? If you don’t have employees, then look to your parent company, supply chain, partners, investors or subsidiary companies. It’s the same principle, you’re just broadening out.
Essentially, if this introspective work isn’t done, then your plan towards racial equity is in performative territory. You, and your organisation, have to move beyond the discomfort and recognise the problem.
A: Analyse the Impact
Now everyone always assumes when I say analyse the impact, your data, the resulting answer is going to be ‘racism’. Well it could be. It could be an ethnicity pay gap, promotion and/or attrition rates. But that’s too simple an answer. With data you can use the ‘five-times root cause’ analysis to assess trends and patterns that might otherwise not be visible. So with post-it notes at hand (I’m a very visual person) ask yourself five times why the data is pulling something up, and you’ll start to understand why the problem is manifesting itself in your workplace. This analysis brings your company into its own space of where it is starting from, not where companies or society in general stand, but very specifically where your company stands. Racism is going to manifest itself in different ways, as everyone has slightly different ways of doing things, of creating systems. So for single trends, the work has to be specific.
C: Commit to Action
Beyond knowledge is clarity of purpose. It’s committing to meaningful action.
Once you have your ‘whys’ from your qualitative data, you need to analyse the impacts. Here you want to challenge yourself hard, and I mean really hard, about what equitable initiatives you have in your plan, i.e. what fundamentally is going to reduce the barriers that Black people face in your company? Those that Black talent face if they join? Or for those clients, who identify as Black, accessing your products or services? How do you treat them? How do you acknowledge their experience of engaging with your product or service being different because of their skin colour?
You never thought about it? Because you never asked the question. So you’ve got to think about it. Is this a process to create a list to say ‘we’re doing it, we’re analysing the data’ or are you preparing to make impact? And how do you measure for impact rather than intent? Because if you’re not careful, you get lollipops for ticking things off for just doing them, and nobody considers what the affect these change may have to the company’s genes.
So you measure the impact your action is having. This enables the impact to be communicated externally to your investors, your partners, to everyone. It makes sure that action takes place within the language corporate investors, and the like, understand: that it can be committed to and progressed in a meaningful way. This is the bit that many, many, many companies fall down on. Measurement. And measurement is what is going to change your plan, or your approach to racial equity, from being a charity cause to a strategic business imperative. It’s the difference. It’s all about measurement.
E: Empower for Change
So how are you up-skilling your entire workforce? Challenge yourself to consider whether the things that you are doing are because they are comfortable, e.g. a video or a workshop without the introspection. In these cases maybe everyone wants to be an ally but if you haven’t done the hard work, the introspection and don’t know what racism is, you can’t be. So every time you create a version of your plan, your action points etc, challenge yourself, think ‘does this feels comfortable and palatable’, because if it does it’s probably not the right actions or plan. If the conversations had are all agreed with, and people don’t need ‘a minute’ to think then you probably haven’t gone deep enough. This is the same with the actions on your plan.
With this is the consideration of how you let your employees become part of the solution. And by that I mean knowledge through choice, not by force, which in my mind never works as it just brings you back down to being a level one compliance organisation. Remember, if employee input doesn’t equate to impact then it doesn’t equate to quality.
Now a degree of safety net support is required here as colleagues will not magically become anti-racist overnight. They will not know everything and say all the right things immediately. So just like with someone who’s learning to ride a bike, our job is to help people get back on the saddle. Just to be clear this is not a pass for racism, there is a scale of mistakes with this. But make it easy for people to do the right thing rather than put in a load of interventions to catch them out when they’ve done something wrong.
Also consider how to help move people from being bystanders who feel disempowered – who accept certain things, outcomes, behaviours and approaches, that have a disproportionately unfair impact on their Black colleagues – to active allies. It’s not just about sponsorship, mentorship and all the good things that are focused on anti-racism. The solution is also about what the company is consciously doing to dismantle racism, challenging inherent belief systems. This is why introspection, the R within the model, is vitally important. The hard work begins with your relationship with racism.
In closing
My wish for you, in adopting this lens, is to be intentional – not knee jerk or ‘let’s chalk some things on a to-do list’. Through this approach I aim for you to have increased knowledge and confidence, so that ‘all of a sudden’ everything you do is intentional. You’ll have clarity of purpose. You’ll be having the right conversations, and challenging yourself every step of the way. In essence, you’ll be taking meaningful action without tokenism.
Put yourself under the microscope.
This work is about gaining insights into personal experience. It is not a platform for white fragility and self-sensitivity surrounding how you treat Black colleagues. You are putting your experiences under a microscope and challenging yourself as to how those experiences came about. You ask the questions and at the back of your mind always keep thinking about your current workplace culture. What your workplace culture represents, and forever ask yourself why does your culture works so well for people who look like you.
How do you respond when you say or do the wrong thing
Such moments require you to step back and listen with grace and humility. Recognise that advancing racial equity requires you to acknowledge that you will make space for when other people call you out. That no matter how much you care about issues affecting Black colleagues, it doesn’t absolve you from taking accountability and responsibility for your own transgressions. In this space centre the person/people impacted by your wrong step. Listen and learn from them. Rather than attempt to excuse yourself with an explanation of your intent apologise for the impact caused. Stop the instance reminding yourself that you are not the injured party. And stop the pattern so this instance doesn’t happen again.
Remember you may not know the perfect thing to say and do, but you know all the things not to say. Start there because whatever your fear based intentions are they are a hindrance to dismantling racism within your organisation. Ask yourself why this fear exists for you. Analysis it. Take it apart. Find your solution. Only then will your input into advancing racial equity for your Black colleagues move from tokenism to transformative change.