What’s holding organisations back from ending racism at work?

Breaking through trust barriers is essential

Since the start of lockdown in March 2020, Black employees in the UK were more likely than any other ethnic group to feel their manager didn’t trust them to undertake their job role, according to the CMI’s Management Transformed report.

Without trust, marginalised employees are likely to feel that they cannot truly express their true selves at work or feel suspicious about the authenticity of their employer’s equality, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) efforts.

To solve this, David says leaders should be clear, transparent and make a long-term commitment to all stakeholders to actively support anti-racism.

“It’s not just a message from the leadership in the organisation to say this is important for us. We really need to see that an organisation is living out [their promises],” he says.

He adds: “If people can bring themselves to work as a whole person, feel welcomed and included, then that trust [can be built]. In the US, [Parexel] has more clinical research associates from Black and ethnic minorities than we do from the White community. They’re the people that directly interface with our hospital clinicians and it’s so important [for them] to see people that look like them participating as well.”

More accountability for leadership

Beyond the growing debate about whether common training procedures, such as unconscious bias training, are actually working, Maggie is disappointed that many companies use training as a “box-ticking” compliance exercise.

In fact, nearly one in four managers told the CMI that they do not have any equality, diversity and inclusion training in place yet.

Maggie – who leads the Black British Voices Project (BBVP), an anonymous national survey sharing Black people’s experiences in the UK – believes specific skills training is needed and should be tied to how a manager’s performance is judged.

She says: “There are leaders who not only need to see other leaders doing the training, understanding and living it, but they need to be convinced that they should be equally involved. Unfortunately for some, the only way that people will really take this seriously is when it affects them personally.”

“Their end-of-year discussion should have in it a very detailed question about the training that they've undertaken themselves, that they've managed and enabled their teams to undertake.”

We need a full-scale approach

Ultimately, the challenge of effectively raising awareness and skills about race equity at work should be undertaken by the entire organisation, rather than sidelined to the diversity or human resources teams, says Naeema.

“We have to understand the importance of this as a strategic, embedded goal and that should go across the whole organisation. [It should be] owned by the chief executive officer and senior leadership team, [as well as having] a grassroots aspect to it.”

Going one step further, David says Parexel International operates diversity initiatives with its suppliers, enabling the company to improve equity and inclusion alongside other companies.

“[Employers should not] just think in a very small, channelled way,” he says. “The more we start making demands of the whole ecosystem around which we operate, the more influence we're going to have. You're going to show your colours and people will expect that that's how they're going to behave, so the ecosystem is important.”

He adds: “You know what training you’re doing but what training are other organisations doing? How do we share that best practice? I think managers have a responsibility, not just for our own people but for the broader industry.”

Image: Shutterstock/fizkes

More resources

• How to start talking about workplace racism
• Getting the terminology right
• Six vital best practices from CMI’s Anti-Racism at Work Guide
• How to detect if racism may be an issue in your organisation and spot it in the workplace
• Drive change in your own organisation by completing the two CMI qualifications on equality, diversity & inclusion: Managing ED&I and Strategic Approaches to ED&I