Exploring Ethnic Equality in Tech
It’s well known that investing in diversity pays. Organisations that invest in gender diversity outperform their competitors by up to 21%, and when ethnic diversity is invested in, 35%.
Businesses benefit because diverse teams mean diverse perspectives, richer ideas, more opportunities for innovation. Creating products and services that better meet the needs of wider groups of people, is part of it, and the improvements in communication, teamwork and resilience that marginalised people’s lived experience necessitates.
Beyond the business benefit, the big picture is that when people who traditionally aren’t represented in the workplace have access to the same opportunities, the resulting security leads to wider engagement in communities and the ability to participate in local economies, meaning prosperity proliferates.
This problem is deep and ingrained and needs to be opened up. Software or service companies, the products and services we’re making are for the wider world which is diverse. So if the team who are making them aren’t diverse, then we’re missing a trick.
Kai Ojo, Managing Director @ Planisware UK
In Greater Manchester, where the tech industry investment is resulting in rapid growth, who we recruit and retain into the industry therefore matters. We’re an ethnically diverse region, over-indexing on poverty in part because people of colour are left behind, and so our efforts to address ethnic diversity in tech brings both consequences and opportunity.
At the Responsible Tech Collective — a collective of cross-sector organisations and community representatives working to bring home the humanity to tech — we’ve been working to better understand the cultural norms and personal actions that result in the 2.6% senior representation in the industry and between 4.1% and 10.4% pay gaps for those impacted.
Yet, every time we share our insights, open up conversation or explore investment in a solution to empower organisations to ensure ethnically diverse people feel safe in the industry, predominantly, its people of colour who show up, participate and enable us to progress our understanding of what’s needed to drive change.
So, we brought together a group of senior leaders from across the city region to explore why progress is proving hard to come by for people of colour and the majority white leadership of tech organisations across the region, for the benefit of the wider tech industry and local economy.
It’s about removing the blockages so fairness rules the day. Transparent salary and progression, so everyone gets paid the same, and people’s biases cannot take hold. We’re designed to favour people who look like us so what organisations need to do is to put things in place to ensure fairness rules.
Annette Joseph MBE, Founder and CEO @ Diverse & Equal
White supremacy as a system framed our conversation. The idea that people of colour’s value is defined by their labour, as a result of the years of enslavement and colonial rule, and the issue of those being the only stories of black and brown people’s history being embedded through western education especially.
With negative media narratives around aggression, predatory behaviour, criminality and terrorism further impacting the white majority’s cultural perceptions of people of colour in the U.K., this seeps into how we value ethnically diverse people’s lives. It’s these cultural ideas that have been baked into the structures we create to organise our lives and work.
Policing, as seen in the recent police abuse of Child Q, a black girl in Hackney strip-searched at school. The difference in maternal health care and outcomes for black women. The public outcry to support Ukrainian refugees as opposed to the resounding silence in response to people fleeing Afghanistan.
Beliefs surrounding people of colour’s perceived maturity, strength or civilisation have all influenced the practises, processes and policies of our justice system, healthcare institutions and international aid responses here. So what about the beliefs that influence recruitment, management and retention within our own organisations.
If you’re not letting people be diverse, then you’re not getting the benefit because so much of their mental strain is on fitting in and masking who they are.
Crispin Read, CEO @ The Coder’s Guild
Research from the Responsible Tech Collective’s Ethnic Equality in Tech research in Greater Manchester with Honey Badger, built upon by collective member Diverse & Equal’s Racial Diversity in Digital report, show that the cultural issues underlying the structural indicators in our organisations range from people of colour feeling like they can’t bring their whole selves to work, as well as bullying behaviours.
Underpinned by beliefs around people of colour’s ability, (e.g unqualified), aptitude (e.g. untrustworthy) and attitude (e.g. aggressive), we heard from impacted people within the industry whose ideas went unacknowledged, achievements unrecognised and having to work harder in tech jobs which they largely were made to feel they were lucky to have.
Yet, for change to happen, these issues also have to be acknowledged, people advocated for and action taken that addresses the root causes of these beliefs and behaviours, but with a dearth of black, brown and other ethnically diverse leaders, the burden of proof around racism in the workplace falls on those impacted, if they are listened to at all.
The panel recognised that while it’s not always easy to understand racism when it’s not your lived experience, it was flagged that there is often an aversion to accepting privilege as a white person. Discomfort in having the conversation too, whether through fear of complicity or saying the wrong thing and causing further harm also hinders white people’s ability to face into the issues impacting inclusion.
There’s a difference between listening and understanding. It’s difficult to understand people’s experiences when you haven’t lived them.
Danielle Haudegal-Wilson, Head of Engineering @ Co-op Group
Even for those organisations who are taking steps towards improving inclusion, unless addressing it is seen as business-critical in light of the risk to business performance, the understanding, resource and commitment needed to make a significant difference through day-to-day activity is unlikely to materialise.
What instead happens is that the conversation falls to people of colour to initiate and where feasible, lead, For those people who have managed to overcome barriers and reach senior positions in the tech industry, what became clear was that the value of having or being a role model was incalculable.
Helping young black, brown and Asian people see what’s possible to achieve was a key component, but also, inherently challenging the biases that exist around people of colour’s perceived value in the workplace, simply through working with diverse people, day in and day out.
Yet, the burden of having to unpack racism and how it impacts people of colour is a heavy one, especially for young ethnically diverse people working in the industry, without the power and platform that more senior leaders enjoy.
Conscious and unconscious biases are created and perpetuated through your exposure to diversity. If you are taught something in school, you live alongside people, or you’re having the conversation… if you have that awareness you’re more likely to constantly work against that perception. Role models are one of the most powerful things, in organisations and in my own lived experiences. Seeing role models changes how people perceive these things….visibility challenges your subconscious thinking.
Atif Ahmed, Senior Tech Industry Leader
It’s why the predominantly white leadership within the industry, stepping up with vulnerability and authenticity, is essential. Opening up safe spaces to listen to those impacted and their experiences, as well as unlearn the racist ideas that inform our cultures and shape the structures that impact which opportunities are available to people of colour.
It’s in understanding the root causes and where they’re manifesting in our organisations, as opposed to rushing in with diversity forums that enhance otherness and generic solutions that overlook intersectional experiences. It’s in understanding what good looks like from those impacted, rather than pre-determined ideas of success from existing leadership, that we can make the most difference for people of colour and our organisations.
It’s the first step of our work at the Responsible Tech Collective, and if you’re interested in playing a part in establishing wholly inclusive standards, get in touch at hello@noisycricket.org.uk
