My Reflections from Race Equality Week
My reflections this week come from Race Equality Week. It’s a powerful movement calling to address barriers to race equality in the workplace.
Before we can address barriers, first we need to acknowledge that those barriers exist. Often, not everyone believes that there is a problem in their organisation.
- They will sit comfortably in an office in a London borough where over 50% of its population are from Black, Asian and ethnic minority groups. These include White minorities. They do no question why fewer than 10% of their staff and trustees represent those people.
- All of their employees representing those communities are in the lowest paid jobs.
- Or why not one person from those ethnic groups even applied for those jobs.
What My Experience Tells Me
In my experience, barriers to race equality are not usually a result of a deliberate attempt to oppress, other, discrimination. Or prejudice a person or group of people for their race or ethnic group. But even innocent ways of working, processes and race neutral policies can enable discrimination. This is where we all have to sit up and step up.
We have to put aside being well intending and, instead, take an evidenced based approach to the question. Can we assure ourselves that all people of all races are able to access, thrive and progress in our organisation?
If the answer is no, the next job is to find out and understand the root cause of the problem. So that the solution is appropriate. Here are some.
- It could be that no one is applying so review use of language. So where you are advertising, whether you could specifically highlight the groups who are underrepresented that you would like to hear from
- What about the recruitment process? Is the process stacked against them? There are lots of support for diverse recruitment and best practice. These can include having a diverse panel of interviewers and anonymising applications.
- Or that there are trends amongst those low staff retention. Do you conduct exit interviews, and are they conducted by someone who can be objective and who is not their line manager? What are you asking them? What are they telling you?
- Or that your employees of Black, Asian and minority ethnic heritage are not applying for promotions. Nor are they asking for new responsibilities or opportunities. If so, why not? Is it because they didn’t see any-one like them higher up in the organisation and thoughts they wouldn’t be the first? Are they receiving the feedback and support they need to grow in skills and confidence?
Part of our responsibility is to ask the questions and keep asking.
Is It As Simple as Addressing Cultural Competence?
The go-term in the UK currently is ‘cultural competence.’ But as with many terms it means very little unless we are engaging with its definition which is different depending on who you ask. However, its broad concept is that it promotes a greater understanding of different cultures. In the workplace it enables effective work in cross-cultural situations.
The wonderful Meera Spillett and The Staff College have lots to say on the subject of cultural competency which it describes as:
“A uniting concept, that when effectively applied, can become a powerful tool for whole organisational and individual change, potentially creating the context for increased equity in the workplace and ultimately leading to improved service provision for diverse communities.”
Here’s the full article: https://thestaffcollege.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Cultural-Competence-by-Meera-Spillett.pdf