I often hear from gender and racially marginalized friends about how unhappy they are in their jobs. When interacting in team meetings or with supervisors, they find it hard to speak up, feel undermined, and are constantly afraid that they’ll make themselves look bad. In terms of the company culture, they feel undervalued and overworked, lack community, and can’t be entirely honest about cultural, mental, and emotional difficulties they may experience while on the job. While a certain degree of job displeasure is natural, the difficulties faced by gender and racial marginalized are unique. During the 2020 Black Lives Matters protests, many Black people did not know how to express their anguish and helplessness at the death of another unarmed Black man to their work peers and boss. It can be seen in the constant policing of women’s appearance in work settings and statistically lower earnings for the same job done.
Companies are shifting focus to hiring more diverse candidates but often fall behind on considering the cultural and environmental impacts that this integration has on both the new hire and the current company culture. Increasing diversity across the board is the morally upstanding thing to do, and it increases the company revenue and positively impacts a country’s GDP. However, an institution’s approach to increasing diversity is important. In sectors and companies that have historically under-hired certain groups, culture has to be redefined.
For example, when I first started my college journey, I had no idea what I was doing. I had never been around such higher-income people, and I had never been in an environment that was not, basically, homogeneously Black American. The way people communicated ideas was different from my previous experiences. Though I knew that my SAT scores were competitive and that I’d worked hard in high school, I often felt lonely and out of place. This experience is mirrored by people who are dropped into such environments.
Diversity is more than just numbers on paper; it is the intertwining of worlds to make a better one. It prioritizes inclusion and the well-being of the marginalized people in the organization.
Here are some tips that can help companies pursue DEI initiatives in a way that strives to be genuinely inclusive of the marginalized people they hire.
Companies must take accountability for DEI initiatives:
Though various companies, like Google and Facebook, have increased the number of diverse employees, low retention rates of diverse employees continue to be a problem area. While diverse employees are hired, many have reported that they feel unsupported by management, isolated on their team projects, and heavily ridiculed when they speak up about toxic workplace culture.
Companies must take full accountability for their DEI initiatives. Hiring more diverse groups is the easy part. The way employees experience the workplace, the support they receive, and how their voices are heard are unnegotiable for workplace inclusion.
When hiring, consider each candidate holistically:
It can be easy for management to over-focus on the statistics in an increasing number of diverse hiring, leaving diverse hires to wonder, “Am I actually appreciated and valued here?”
When hiring, it is important to think about each candidate holistically and imagine where they fit in the company’s future. Doing this forces companies to be intentional with their diverse hiring strategies. Rather than imagining diverse hires as tokens, it creates a vision for each person’s future that may help employees feel valued and empowered by their company.
Cultivate a culture of honesty and support:
Building community with and for diverse hires is a significant aspect of DEI work that often gets left behind. People from diverse backgrounds are more likely to experience difficulties outside of the workplace. Trying to carry the weight of personal life struggles while silently balancing work responsibilities can affect the employee and lead to burnout. Instead of forcing diverse employees to put on a brave face and pretend that their personal lives don’t exist, cultivate a culture of honesty and support. Employees should have space to speak freely about the struggles that they are encountering and have access to company support as they go through difficult times.
