What White Employees Need From Their Leaders Right Now

Many of your White employees have had enough! After witnessing recent events concerning racial injustice and inequality, they are burning with passion to see this injustice subside and they need your help. They are looking to their organizations to assist in being a part of the solution rather than the problem.

These same employees have read your corporate messaging conveying your stance against racial injustice. Although they are proud of your company’s stance, many desire more than messaging. What they require is action and they want to be a part of the action.

Some of your White employees have joined their local protests or have supported the engagement of others. They also find themselves trying to convince family, friends and neighbors of the reality of the Black experience only to be met with counter-arguments that leave them stunned. They are frustrated and want to see and be a part of the needed change.

My business partner and I have been quite busy having discussions with CEOs and moderating multiple small group discussions with employees. Engaging in a plethora of Zoom calls with small diverse groups, we have been moved by the pain, anger, hurt and empathy we are seeing from White and other non-black employees.

I’ve witnessed many of these teary-eyed employees express the feeling of "being compelled" to play a personal role in fighting racial injustice. They're not leaving it up to their Black colleagues.

Like many of the CEOs and leaders I've been speaking with, you may be grappling with how best to provide leadership during these times. I encourage you to consider the following recommendations:

Leading Through Racial Injustice and Inequality

1. Leadership must recognize the needed change and be willing to lead the charge. Don’t wait for your D&I team to implement an initiative. For real sustainable change, leadership needs to own the work. Certainly, leverage your internal resources to assist you, yet you should be at the helm. As the leader goes, so goes the culture.
2. Set up avenues to hear from your employees. We partner with organizations to create safe spaces for employees to share their experiences, engage in the uncomfortable dialogue concerning race and brainstorm solutions. We capture the themes of the groups, summarize them, and communicate these to senior leadership to inform diversity and inclusion initiatives. Whether you do this internally or hire an outside firm, it’s imperative that you hear from your employees.
3. Consider your employee recommendations and make them happen in alignment with your business strategy. Your employees will tell you ways in which they want to help counteract racial injustice and inequality in partnership with their organization. They will need your support to make it happen. The following are examples of what I have heard.

Examples of Employee Recommendations

• Approved time off to volunteer for causes that support the Black Live’s Matter movement.
• Company matched contributions to non-profit organizations supporting the Black community. 
• Provide pro-bono services or product offerings to Black underserved communities.
• Implement company-sponsored initiatives to engage (virtually or face to face) in Black underserved communities. Examples include field trips for Black students to your office, visits to primarily Black k-12 schools to speak, periodically host after school programs, and/or engage in other opportunities to inspire hope in young Black students.
• Assist in recruiting efforts for Black talent from HBC’s (Historically Black Colleges), minority programs in traditional universities and colleges and other avenues to hire more qualified Black personnel.
• Recognition of MLK day and Juneteenth as paid company holidays.
• Recommended: Engage an outside consultant to facilitate a panel of Black employees to share their experiences with your employee base to provide education related to the Black experience. Non-black employees want to learn more and hear from their Black colleagues.

There are unquestionably many more examples of what you might hear from your employees. What is certain is that they have a bias toward action and will not settle for company statements that sit in isolation from the organizational business strategy. Your leadership is needed, and it is needed now.

If you need assistance or have questions, feel free to message me via Linkedin or email me at [email protected]. We specialize in leadership development, culture work and diversity and inclusion.

Note: I have intentionally focused solely on the White employee experience for the sake of this article. Much has already been written on the minority experience and I didn't feel a need to add to it.

#leadership, #equality, #injustice, #race, #diversity and inclusion, #focus groups