Using data to make the invisible visible
What happens when organisations collect authentic data is under discussion in this workshop between Shereen, Matt Phelan, co-founder and Head of Global Happiness at The Happiness Index, and Kevin Withane, a purpose-led senior lawyer, ethics and compliance executive.
Shereen
So, before we get into the data a quick word on terminology as a lot of corporate data collection is focused on ‘diversity’, ‘inclusion’ and the like. The data collected, and spoken of, here focuses on anti-racism.
Anti-racism concerns the collective and specific actions an organisation will take to tackle how racism shows up within its workplace. It is not diversity. It is not inclusion. It is racism. And the reason why I say that is because organisations just gloss over it. Inclusion is an output. Diversity is an output. It’s not an input. The racial equity piece recognises that we don’t have a level playing field. It’s not fair.
And the playing field will never be level until we get to a point where we do something meaningful and sustainable about racism. Acknowledge the fact that there are barriers that face different minorities. In my context, I focus on black people, but you can apply this to other minoritised individuals due to their ethnicity.
Now I don’t use terms such as ethnic minority or BAME unless I’m referring to someone else’s work and it’s the terms they’ve used. The global majority is my preferred phrase.
So what things do we put in place to make sure we have the same if not equitable opportunities to everyone else, those who does not have to overcome those particular barriers because of the colour of their skin, and possibly their other identities or characteristics? So before we get into it, I just want to just make sure that we’ve got some clarity there.
So coming straight to you Matt and Kevin, tell us what did the data measured first of all? What were we asking people to do and why? What was the purpose around it?
Kevin
Following the global Black Lives Matter resurgence and murder of George Floyd, the UK Government looked into systemic racism, producing a report that concluded that systemic racism wasn’t an issue for the nations, and are in fact global leaders when it comes to creating anti-racist societies.
To be honest, I don’t know who they spoke to in order to complete the report, but it wasn’t me! Categorically systemic racism is alive and well in this country!
Matt
We housed all the replies, the data, we received from the survey into an imaginary company of 200 people. So, while the UK government is telling us there is no systemic racism, we’ve created a model, this imaginary company, that we can ‘look into’ and corelate against the UK Government’s information.
But what we’ve collected isn’t normal, standard data. The stuff derived from the usual questions concerning diversity and inclusion. We’ve asked about racism. And in data The Happiness Index has previously collected we know that males in the workplace are generally happier than females.
White Europeans and white Americans are also happier than the Global Majority. Muslims are unhappier, and I think back to previous jobs I’ve had where most of the social events are held in pubs. If your religion is Islam then you’re automatically disqualified from such interactions. Now Kevin and myself are here as the voice of the data rather than to comment on what it represents, but we can give our personal comments too.
And in this vein, it comes down to two areas for corporate consideration, and of workplace concern: working on belonging and actively fighting racism.
Shereen
And let’s be clear from an organisational sense. The questions we’re used to seeing in engagement surveys etc don’t reflect reality. It’s not because the surveys are ‘bad’ per say, the questions chosen create specific outcomes. This is why our data here is different. You cannot create an engagement survey that is connected to equity, diversity and inclusion without asking about racial discrimination. Not asking about racial bullying for example, exclusion. How can you not ask these questions!
Because when you ignore these questions or ask a version of them to glean a specific response, you end up with a government concluding, ‘We don’t have an issue with racism!’ So that’s why we created the questions the way that we did. And what’s also really interesting is from the people who did complete it, we have lots of positive feedback, that people said, ‘Nobody’s ever asked these questions!’. So, if we’re not careful, we can perpetuate racism or perpetuate the way things are, because we deliberately choose not to ask the right questions.
Matt
And we’ve combined qualitative and quantitative data, so like the numbers and what people’s emotions are, and one thing that came out of it, and I’m speaking to CEOs really on this point, a frequent comment was, ‘I don’t feel safe!’. So, if you’re a CEO you know if your employees are happy and engaged at work your company performs better financially. But, if you’re a CEO and you don’t think safety, the safety of your employees is your job, you shouldn’t be a CEO!
To see that, the not feeling safe at work, come up in so much in the data is for me the most worrying bit, because safety is not something you can misunderstand. Is it? Someone saying they don’t feel safe?
Kevin
I’d say so. I work within manufacturing, so safety is our number one priority but there’s a huge difference between physical safety and psychological safety. Psychological safety is a term that five years ago people had never even heard. And when I started researching it, as a lawyer, I was looking at it from an ethics line. Like we have codes of conduct. Like we have procedures to tell people what to do, i.e. don’t put your hand in a machine. But now ‘psychological safety’ is in everyone’s lexicon, but I don’t think people fully understand it. Because when you are CEO, you don’t go to these types of courses. You don’t take the time to self-reflect, and continue to learn, because there’s so many other pressures on you. And so, it’s people like me talking about these things. Talking about race.
And I can tell you I’ve done so many engagement surveys in different organisations. Only once has there been a question about race and it went, ‘How do I feel about racial equity in the organisation? How happy I am?’ But this is a subjective question in a sense that it’s not really asking about how I feel about my happiness. So asking, ‘Are you happy?’, is a bit like asking, ‘What did I have for breakfast?’ So I think you’re right. CEOs need to take both psychological safety and physical safety seriously.
Kevin
I’d say so. I work within manufacturing, so safety is our number one priority but there’s a huge difference between physical safety and psychological safety. Psychological safety is a term that five years ago people had never even heard. And when I started researching it, as a lawyer, I was looking at it from an ethics line. Like we have codes of conduct. Like we have procedures to tell people what to do, i.e. don’t put your hand in a machine. But now ‘psychological safety’ is in everyone’s lexicon, but I don’t think people fully understand it. Because when you are CEO, you don’t go to these types of courses. You don’t take the time to self-reflect, and continue to learn, because there’s so many other pressures on you. And so, it’s people like me talking about these things. Talking about race.
And I can tell you I’ve done so many engagement surveys in different organisations. Only once has there been a question about race and it went, ‘How do I feel about racial equity in the organisation? How happy I am?’ But this is a subjective question in a sense that it’s not really asking about how I feel about my happiness. So asking, ‘Are you happy?’, is a bit like asking, ‘What did I have for breakfast?’ So I think you’re right. CEOs need to take both psychological safety and physical safety seriously.
Matt
A neuroscientist was also involved in putting together this survey and he mentioned that phrase, ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones…’ and that from a neuroscientific perspective it’s total rubbish. That psychological damage is as bad as physical damage. Whereas with physical damage the body knows how to isolate it to say, for example, a bruised arm if you fall over, but it can’t isolate psychological pain so it goes everywhere. Which is why there is a link to mental health and physical health. Everything that needs to come out.
There’s one other bit of data to share with you, which I think we should definitely bring out to the audience, is age. Because if you read the press, everyone blames Millennials for everything. And what we see in the data is that the younger you are the effect of systemic increases. And I suppose as a question back to the audience is, “Why do you think this is.’ Is it because younger generations are more enlightened? Is it through our now connectivity through social media? There’s more to be looked into here.
Kevin
Now even though I didn’t count my experiences at the time, racism was just part of living in England. Yeah, it was just part and parcel of life. My dad didn’t even want me to be a lawyer because he said, nobody is going to want to go to you rather than a white lawyer, but social media has taken control of news, whole news networks (except for a specific few) are white owned.
So I agree social media has had a part to play with what we’re seeing in the data. But also look who’s made these young people. It’s the older generation. They empower these young people. They want their kids to be more enlightened. My dad always said like, the proudest thing is that we can achieve more than he does.
And I think so, you know, we’re a product of the older generation, and my kids are going to be a product of ours and I want them to be more enlightened, more woke, more challenging of the world. I remember I had this one teacher who used to say, ‘I’m teaching this stuff but don’t take my word for it, challenge me asked me questions’, and that stuck with me.
Shereen
So, based on some of the surprising things that have come out of the survey if you were to advise people in organisations on three things we’ve uncovered in the data what would they be?
Matt
For me, it’s the emotional part, right? So, a lot of us have been taught and raised that we shouldn’t be too emotional. From a neuroscience perspective that’s impossible. And what I’m seeing in the data is if you don’t allow people to be emotional at work, it reduces their productivity. It reduces their creativity. What I’ve seen in the data is people sharing their emotions, but they’re only sharing them because we did the research anonymously. Right!
And again, going back to the safety bit, which is, ‘I don’t feel safe to share these emotions’ which negatively impacts performance at work. So, my number one thing is, you need to listen, but how are you going to listen to people’s emotions and going back to Kevin’s point, how are you going to make people safe? And this rolls back to something you’ve been doing Shereen in your workshops about creating safe spaces for people to share emotions. Businesses do say they want to hire rational thinkers, which is important for certain roles, but creativity is what stands out, and we are holding back people’s creativity, if we’re not allowing them to do emotional work. Then we’ve got major problems in our organisations.
Kevin
And ask questions about race! Then when you’ve got the answers, do something!