Global study shows high levels of racism at work – and offers several solutions to 'White default'
“It's just a reminder that we can't take our foot off the gas.”
So says Charlene Theodore, chief inclusion officer at McCarthy Tetrault in Toronto, in discussing alarming statistics about racism in the workplace.
In hearing from marginalized racial and ethnic groups in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom and United States, a report found that 66 per cent have experienced racism at work during their career.
In addition, 52 per cent are experiencing racism at their current job, according to the report from Catalyst, an organization dedicated to helping build workplaces that work for women.
“When it comes to racism and discrimination, of course, there is a unique cultural experience in every country. But it is a certainly a national and a global phenomenon... There's no country that is immune from these systemic issues,” says Theodore.
“We have to keep working to create structural changes so that everybody – regardless of race, gender identity, indigeneity – can really thrive at work.”
Racism levels in Canada
For Julie Cafley, the stats aren’t that surprising.
“This is a reality in workplaces everywhere,” says the executive director of Catalyst Canada, admitting people experience this differently in different countries and regions.
For Canada, the numbers are only slightly more encouraging: 54 per cent have experienced racism in their career, while 37 per cent do so in their current job.
But sometimes Canadians can “be a little bit smug,” says Cafley.
“Racism in Canada can potentially be a bit hidden; sometimes [it’s] a bit insidious, and not as apparent. And I think that it's even more important within that context to talk about it and to be raising these issues in workplaces — similar to sexism, frankly.”
While many people feel proud of the advancements that we've made on diversity, and rightly so, she says, “we also just need to be aware that it's so ingrained, this deep bias — every single individual in the workplace has an unconscious bias.”
Harassment and inequities at work
The most common expressions of racism are workplace harassment (48 per cent) — such as racist jokes, slurs, and other derogatory comments, found the Catalyst survey of more than 5,000 women, men, transgender, and nonbinary employees.
That’s followed by employment and professional inequities (32 per cent), where respondents experienced pay gaps, were passed over for promotion or were assigned more or less work than their colleagues based on race.
There is both overt and the covert harassment, says Cafley.
“There’s the racist jokes, the slurs, the derogatory comments. And there's also the microaggressions. And I think we never want to defend racism, but I'd be curious to know what percentage of microaggressions in the workplace [is where] the perpetrator doesn't even realize that they're doing it… because it's so deeply ingrained.”
Spotting this harassment can depend on the power structure in the workplace, and whether people work closely with each other, says Theodore.
“If you are, perhaps, a little bit further removed from the daily interactions of the workplace, or you're an executive or you're doing some high-level planning, it might not be as easy to spot. But the point is it takes everybody to really stop that problem.”
If everyone is trained on racial harassment, they will know what it looks like, she says.
“But what's needed next is really going beyond being able to spot and identify it, but confronting it. And really preventing it, I think, is really where the focus is.”
Instigators of racism in the workplace
So who is actually engaging in this bad behaviour?
Respondents to the Catalyst survey most often named leaders (41 per cent) as the instigators of racism, followed by co-workers (36 per cent) and customers (23 per cent).
Four out of five acts of racism are initiated by White people (78 per cent), while one out of five are instigated by a non-White person (22 per cent).
Women and men are equally likely to initiate acts of racism; however, trans and nonbinary people were never cited as the instigators of racist acts.
And people who are trans or who identify outside the gender binary are more likely to have experienced racism in their current job (69 per cent) compared to women (51 per cent) and men (50 per cent).
“The more layers of intersectionality that an individual has, unfortunately, the more intense the racism is,” says Cafley.
“We just need to be aware of that, we need to talk about it openly. And we really need to ensure that we have systems in place to appreciate the incredible stress that exists for these individuals within a workplace, and how we can work to eliminate that… [such as] training around unconscious bias around psychological safety around empathy in the workplace.”
Having a concrete strategy to address racism
There are several ways that employers and HR can do a better job in combatting racism in the workplace.
And one place to start is going beyond the positive, says Cafley.
“We'll celebrate International Women's Day or we’ll acknowledge Black History Month, and this is great, and it's a great first step, but a lot of the DEI work is really uncomfortable work, and it needs to be intentional… and it needs to be central to strategy; there need to be resources, there need to be metrics and accountability.
“And you really need to ensure that this is not just a strategy that’s focused on good intentions — you really need to be purposeful in how you are building an anti-racism strategy within your organization.”
McCarthy launched a diversity, equity and inclusion strategy back in 2018 called “inclusion now” – and it’s not a diversity program but an enterprise-wide strategy, says Theodore, “really ensuring that we run our business in an inclusive way as possible, and really eliminating barriers for Indigenous People, Black people, people of colour, women, people with disabilities, and people from the LGBTQ+ community.”
The mission and focus is on constant improvement, she says, “and taking a business strategy approach, so that everything that we do in the business of running a law firm is mindful of all the different people and experiences that make our workplace so great.”
Performative DEI and the ‘emotional tax’
A previous Catalyst study found that many employees felt the racial equity policy of their employer was performative, says Cafley, which raises the question: What are employers doing, beyond speeches about George Floyd, to improve the experience of Black employees?
“What are we actually doing to have a concrete strategy to address workplace harassment, to talk openly about employment or professional inequities?” she says.
“Some organizations aren't even comfortable with the terminology or how to have these discussions. So there's fear around saying the wrong thing, and so they don't go there. And that's such an issue.”
It’s also important to make managers aware of the “emotional tax” on racialized employees when they are asked to be involved in coordinating training or learning or advancing the celebration, says Cafley.
“We put that extra ‘tax’ on them to teach a lot of White people in organizations about so many of these things; well, that's a tax, that's a weight. And it's not necessarily something that that every racialized person wants to do — they don't want to be the token person who's advancing initiatives within in a white organization.”
Creating a safe workplace environment
Most often, it’s the workers in customer service, manufacturing or factories that are having the toughest time, she says.
“So how do employers support those individuals on the front line who, frankly, are probably dealing with the most racism in terms of customers, in terms of workplace realities? How are we able to support them? And how are we able to ensure that there is a more proactive system around the way that individuals are treated?
“It takes a really progressive organization to create that safety for employees at all levels [where] the organization can actually talk openly about these issues or explain their experiences of racism.”
It’s vital that employers create a code of conduct for customers and clients that explicitly states the organization’s expectations regarding civility, respect, common courtesy, and hurtful comments about race, ethnicity, gender, and other personal characteristics, says the Catalyst report.
Having those open conversations and people speaking up as allies, when everybody's opening their eyes to racism and sexism in the workplace, says Cafley, “does take a weight off of those employees, because they don't feel like they're alone, they feel like these issues are understood, and that they don't necessarily have to be the ones to speak up to raise these inequities, but that others are going to help to advance these inequities and ensure that that employees are treated fairly and respectfully.”
Moving away from the ‘White default’
Another big challenge when it comes to confronting racism at work is the “White default,” meaning whiteness is “used as a lens through which employees, organizational policies, and business strategies are judged, assessed, and valued,” says the Catalyst report.
This can involve the way employees dress when they come to work, comments about their hair or how they share what they did on the weekend, says Cafley.
“There's this whiteness that's ingrained in our workplaces that many of us simply just take for granted as a way of being. And the idea of code switching and… needing to act a certain way to test it in a workplace is something that that many of us with privilege don't have to consider on a daily basis,” she says.
“All of our systems, the way that workplaces, so many things have been created, are White default. And, frankly, many of them come with a male default as well, in terms of the way that we view leadership, the way that interactions are done. And so how do we unpack that, how do we understand that, and how do we ensure that people with privilege are unpacking their own biases and understanding of what their team members are experiencing?”
Fixing the systems, not the people, to stop racism
Another important part of the equation? Implementing systems to eliminate racial workplace inequities, according to the Catalyst report. That can mean:
- clarifying how leadership potential is measured and developed
- assessing performance criteria to ensure they don’t demand conformity to White (and male) standards of thinking, behaving, personal presentation, wielding power, dealing with conflict, and comfort
- measuring employees against clear metrics and goals to reduce the opportunity for biases to creep in
- providing specific, constructive feedback so that people know what they have to improve and how
- keeping contemporaneous notes on each employee’s successes so you don’t overlook the accomplishments of people from marginalized racial and ethnic groups
- creating measurement and accountability mechanisms to ensure that no racial or gender group is being promoted at disproportionate rates.
It’s about fixing the system and not fixing the people, says Cafley.
“You think about issues around pay equity – are racialized people treated differently when they negotiate a salary? Are they disadvantaged because they don't negotiate as aggressively as perhaps a White man might do? And so, as opposed to saying, ‘Let's teach them to negotiate better, let's get them more mentors,’ I don't think that many of these individuals need fixing, it's the systems that need fixing.
“So how are we ensuring, as employers, that we have the policies, the procedures, the equity in place, so that a racialized employee doesn't have to be worried that the person next to them with less experience might actually be getting paid more?
As a Black woman in a C-suite role, Theodore says she is encouraged by the work being done.
“I am encouraged that it's not a conversation being had amongst racialized community – everybody's having it. And I truly think that the strategy that we have – which is intentional, it's thoughtful, and it really is looking at the systems, the processes, the policies, and the experience of what it is like to work at our firm – is the way that you shift doing things the regular way when whiteness is the norm.”
