Money Talks: Why Companies Should Compensate Anti-Racist Educators
By: Ashish Kaushal and Janice Gassam Asare, Ph.D.
It took a pandemic to amplify existing racial disparities in our healthcare system and our economy. It took the untimely deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and so many others to spark worldwide protests against racial injustice. Given the current social unrest, companies are now feeling the heat from consumers and employees alike to take a stand. Big businesses from Apple to Google to Amazon are stepping up with public displays of support for the Black Lives Matter Movement, and are donating to nonprofits advancing racial justice.
As diversity and inclusion consultants who offer corporate training programs on topics ranging from retaining under-represented talent to managing unconscious bias, we’ve seen the demand for our services skyrocket in the last two months. Company after company is reaching out as they realize they might have some work to do when it comes to creating cultures of true belonging.
All of this is a big step in the right direction. We’re thrilled to see increased awareness among businesses about systemic and institutional racism. We’re thrilled to witness companies publicly donating to organizations doing the work to dismantle it. We’re thrilled to hear from leaders who want us to facilitate conversations about race and inequity in the workplace, and ignite action steps.
Yet we’re also finding that while some of these companies who are willing to donate big bucks to anti-racism organizations, aren’t always so willing to invest their dollars in training programs that will help them do the anti-racism work inside their own company cultures.
We have both been approached by companies who have told us that, while diversity and inclusion were top priorities for them, they didn’t have a budget to allocate for training. We’ve both been asked to do our workshops for free, which we’ve done for non-profits.
After one multi-billion dollar global company (who shall remain nameless) reached out to Dr. Gassam Asare about conducting a workshop for Black History Month, she was told that her rate was “outside of their budget,” and subsequently, they asked her to facilitate the workshop for a fraction of her normal rate. In a separate incident, Dr. Gassam Asare was told by a different company that their budget was not large enough to compensate her, and she was then asked if she “had any friends to recommend who do racial equity workshops for cheaper rates?” We wonder if the same organization would ask their executive coaches if they had friends who charged less for their services.
This leads us to ask the question: Are companies motivated to make these moves mostly for positive PR, or because they want real change to happen?
In order for companies to truly evolve their culture and become anti-racist organizations, they can’t just check the box on DEI initiatives. Change won’t happen if the leaders are reacting only because they feel social pressure to do so. Performative allyship is not only not enough, it will backfire as we’re seeing employees speak out against companies’ public support for Black Lives Matter when they aren’t investing in their own Black employees.
To the companies who say they care about diversity, equity and inclusion but that don’t have a budget to dedicate to it, we say you must find the budget in order to show that you truly value building a workplace of belonging.
It is not enough to have a town hall where you ask your under-represented Black employees to educate and facilitate conversations while not compensating them for their emotional labor. Black people spent 400 years building the United States for free, and we should not ask Black people to continue to perform free labor inside our organizations.
Likewise, diversity and inclusion training consultants are doing the hard work of driving internal conversations about race, sparking insights, and cultivating the behavior change necessary to begin dismantling racism inside your company culture. Rather than asking us to do the work for free or a deeply-discounted rate, we should be paid for the value we’re bringing. This is not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because the very success of your organization depends on it. Here are just a few of the reasons why:
· Minorities will soon become the majority. In the next 20 years, whites will make up less than half of the American population for the first time in history. What this means is that there will no longer be one ethnic majority in this country. If your leadership remains predominantly white, you’ll be missing out on important talent pools.
· You’ll fail to attract the younger workforce. Gen Zers value racial equity, and if your company isn’t living and breathing this value, you won’t be able to attract the leaders of tomorrow.
· Diverse teams drive innovation and profits. If your company is failing to do anti-racism training and work now, you won’t be able to retain the diverse talent in the long run that’s been shown to increase innovation revenue, according to the Boston Consulting Group.
Money talks. The areas in which companies choose to invest signal what they value. If you value Black talent, compensate them fairly. If you value anti-racist educators, pay us what we’re worth. Fairly compensating diversity and inclusion facilitators who are performing the work that will help make your company stronger, your teams more cohesive, and your bottom line bigger, is not only the right move but the smart move; the payoff is large.
