Raise Your Hand If You Ever Look the Other Way When You See Inequity in the Workplace!

When injustice is caught on camera, most people are quick to condemn it immediately on social media and to members of the groups affected. However, in honesty, many individuals would have looked the other way if the cameras were off.  Why is that?  These days, people in our society grow conscious through the lenses of their cameras.  Discrimination, segregation, and inequality of groups of people have been part of society since the beginning.  Will there ever be a time when there is justice for all?  

Marginalized behaviors follow us everywhere, including at work. In 2020, many will deny its existence in the workplace, but in actuality, it’s happening as we read this!  To remedy systemic racism, laws were implemented to protect against unfairness in the workplace.  We have equal employment opportunities, anti-discrimination, and workplace harassment laws, to name a few.  Are these laws effective? If we have laws to protect people at work, then why is implicit bias a significant issue in the office?  

Why Do we allow PERPETUAL injustice to continue in the workplace? 

Years ago, one of my HR mentors made a statement that I still cling to today.  In so many words, she said, HR is the backbone of organizations. If we are to be effective in our role, we need to be able to speak up when employment laws or company policies are not being followed regardless of the offender. HR professionals, managers and business leaders, know their job.  They know what is to be done to protect their company and its assets.  However, many allows fear of losing their position or getting out of grace with leadership and work friends deter them from protecting the workforce.   Have you ever pretended not to know off or see any of the items listed below in your workplace?   

1. Co-workers’ complaint of adverse treatment from their manager due to race, color, or national origin?
2. Have you witnessed candidates with less or no experience being hired for jobs when qualified candidates are virtually begging for an opportunity to prove their worth but are not given considerations due to race? 
3. Have you been in a meeting with a manager and employee and witnessing the supervisor verbally mistreating his subordinate, but because you are afraid for your job security, you allow injustice to go on?
4. Have you ever been part of a termination discussion and you know the supporting document is falsified but you look the other way due to fear?
5. Have you ever observed your boss/leadership give preferable treatment to non-minority groups but dismiss minorities?
6. Have you been in the room when you hear inappropriate comments made to generalize a group of people? 
7. Take a look at your organization; does what you see, know, and experience as an internal employee support the data that your company is publishing, indicating that your company has a diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture?
8. Have you silently watched projects with high visibility and coaching opportunities being given to less talented employees because they belong to a particular group and not to more qualified individuals due to race, ethnicity, or gender?

Some might read this list and feel the statements above do not represent their organizations.  If that is true, then, congratulations on a job well done.  Your organization should continue its excellent work, and please share your strategies with others.  Others might have read the list and shaken their heads because the items above described their current situation perfectly. As a minority female who has been in the workforce for over 30 years, and based on conversations with other HR professionals and employees, I know too well that the above statements are true.  

Regardless of which group you are in, it’s not enough to raise your hand to say you experienced or seen implicit biases in the workplace. Each of us has an obligation to SPEAK UP when systematic oppression is threatening our mental health or the wellbeing and safety of others, regardless who the offender is! Speak up to HR, speak up to your manager, speak up to your leadership team, speak to a board member if you must, call the EEOC hotline, speak to whoever will listen, because we can no longer allow fear to reign in the workplace.

Remember, our silence is complicity to mistreatments of ourselves and co-workers - RECLAIM your consent.  Awareness is great; however, one must go beyond identifying the problem to solve it. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “if a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry” (1).  My question to you is, what were you called to do at work? How will you contribute to solving the issues surrounding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in your workplace?

How do we move forward?

I am hopeful that change will come, and by the time my elementary school-aged children enter the workforce, we will have a handle on diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace.  In a 2017 Deloitte survey, 69% of CEOs who participated in the study acknowledged that diversity and inclusion are issues to be addressed at the workplace (2).  Recently, many CEOs and Diversity Officers made statements that their companies will not stand for racial injustice. In addition, I recently saw a list of top 50 companies for Diversity (2); to name a few, Disney, EY, and Accenture (3). As I see it, those companies are asking their employees and communities to hold them accountable.  These companies are saying that they will not only decorate their websites with equal opportunity and other employment law statements, but they will start to live by what the law intended. They are confessing to what minorities like me have felt for years.  So now, I would like to say thank you for owning up to what I knew all along.  My question is, what’s next? What actions are being taken to ensure we don’t let this moment go by?  When will we start to incorporate these acknowledgments into a strategic plan for the workplace to be an excellent place for all of us to feel safe in?   

I like the quote by Jane Goodall that says, “I like to envision the whole world as a jigsaw puzzle … If you look at the whole picture, it is overwhelming and terrifying, but if you work on your little part of the jigsaw and know that people all over the world are working on their little bits, that’s what will give you hope” (4).   Moving forward, are you willing to do your part? Will you speak up when you see injustice being done in the workplace, regardless of the person's race or sex? Will you have the courage to motivate others to do the same? Each of us needs to open our eyes, acknowledge the truth in front of us, and demand better actions.  Only then will we experience real transformation in the workplace that encompasses equity and inclusion.

References:

1. Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes -  https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/21045-if-a-man-is-called-to-be-a-street-sweeper
2. Diversity and Inclusion: The reality Gap – 2017 Global Human Capital Trends - https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/human-capital-trends/2017/diversity-and-inclusion-at-the-workplace.html
3. The 2020 Diversityinc Top 50 Companies For Diversity - https://www.diversityinc.com/the-2020-top-50-diversityinc/
4. Brandon Specktor, “10 Jane Goodall Quotes that will Restore Your Faith in Humanity,” The Reader’s Digest, June 2015, https://www.rd.com/culture/jane-goodall-quotes/