Don’t check on your black employee
And no, this isn’t a hot take or a ‘gotcha’ title
As someone who works in the diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging spaces — I am fairly accustomed to wearing the weight of my work and its direct relationship to me as a young, black, immigrant, woman. That being said, the last few days has been a hot pile of garbage.
Black folks like myself are back to work this week, and have to deal with painful conversations brought up by colleagues and leadership in a casual way, or silently getting through Monday. Some of them have to navigate the feelings of their white colleagues who have appointed the official recounter of all Black News.
So, my ask of all of you managers, supervisors, CEO’s, Founders etc.: Instead of “checking in” on your black team members and staff, Here are a couple of things you can do:
Take a serious review of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging policies you have. Feel free to use these set of questions in your review:
- When was this drafted/ developed? Apart from nice words, what does it actually imply? How are we creating a workspace that is inclusive and allows black folks, people of colour, and everyone else to thrive?
- Are there accountability measures in place that work side by side with the policy?
- Are they actionable? Is there a set of actions, structures etc. that work hand in hand with this policy? Do we measure the success of these actions and the overall policy? Most importantly, do we fully understand the objective of all these pieces (promoting diversity and inclusion doesn’t count)?
If any of these questions are difficult to answer, hire someone to get you there. Under no circumstances should you place the burden of doing this work on a black team member.
Work with your finance team and/or existing budget to figure out how you can start financially supporting local organizations that facilitate anti-racist work. If you have budget for a staff retreat that no one will be going to during the COVID-19 pandemic, you have budget for this. When figuring out where to put your money consider:
- What does my community look like in terms of race, newcomers, LGBTQ2 community etc. It’s well and good to donate to an organization that is serving an immediate crisis, but you need to have an actual budget for local, national organizations that exist in the community you work in;
- What organizations does your staff hold dear — who do they have relationships to, volunteer with, actually run? This is a good time to not only support grassroots orgs, but specifically the ones your black staff are intimately familiar with;
- Whats your forever number — remember, we’re not talking about a one time were-in-crisis donation.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
You are an organization — you have the ear of your councillor, member of parliament, and other political actors. Read up, let them know what anti-racist legislation and responses you support and why.
All of this has been incredibly hard on your black staff and team members. This is not the time to be obsessed with “ high productivity”. In fact now is a great time to review you HR policies (written and unwritten). How do you support staff dealing with difficult moments in their lives? How do you account for events and tragedy that impacts racialized staff, women? COVD-19 has reminded us that although we may experience and witness events together, we do not experience them in the same way.
Get together resources about racism, anti-black racism and how to be an ally at this moment, and going forward. Share them widely with your team, and attach info about what your organization is doing beyond ‘being anti hate’. There are so many available resources online, and absolutely no excuse to ask black staff to provide this kind of labour. Here are a few to get you started:
Racism, discrimination, racial violence did not just sprout this week. This is not just a moment. The City of Ottawa and the Ontario Provincial Government publicly recognized anti-black racism as a real thing, that negatively impacts Black Canadians through public policies, decision-making and services.
Your work should not end here. I cannot stress this enough: Hire someone to do the long term work and planning. And I DO NOT mean a one time workshop.
QuakeLab provides the tools, expertise and methods to take your vision for inclusion from idea to action. We use tried and tested design thinking frameworks and the QuakeLab Inclusion Method that positions inclusion as a functional part of your business structure, and not a buffer piece hidden within HR policy. This means that we support organizations to build inclusion not just into strategy, but into the way you hire, promote, market, sell, buy and more.
Ready to do the hard work? Contact me: snyangweso@quakelab.ca
