Why Is Corporate America Failing Black Women?
Episode 309 | Author: Emilie AriesIn recent years, we’ve seen a growing shift in the global business community away from models that emphasize customer satisfaction above all else (think “the customer is always right” ethos of yesteryear) towards businesses that pride themselves on fostering employee growth and unleashing the full potential of all our human capital.
In 2018, the World Economic Forum proclaimed that companies who put employees first perform better. A year later the Business Roundtable made headlines when over 180 CEOs committed to redefining the purpose of a corporation to serve “all stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers, communities and shareholders.” These sentiments echoed the business case for gender inclusion that Sheryl Sandberg made in Lean In years earlier, and over the past decade, we’ve seen countless organizations invest more in diversity and inclusion efforts as a standard practice for employee retention and overall talent development.
So why, then, is corporate America still failing Black women?
A 2006 survey found that women of color are most likely to experience workplace harassment among all groups of workers.
A 2012 study found Black women are held to a much higher standard than their white and male peers and presumed to be less qualified despite their credentials, work product or business results.
A 2019 study by McKinsey and LeanIn.org found that women of color receive less support from their managers, and are less likely to have bosses who promote their work contributions to others, help them navigate organizational politics, or socialize with them outside of work.
The 2020 version of the McKinsey / LeanIn.org report, shared that “Many employees don’t realize that Black women are having a markedly worse experience at work. But for six years, this study has shown this to be true: Compared with women of other races and ethnicities, Black women face more systemic barriers, receive less support from managers, and experience more acute discrimination.”
Study after study shows that despite Black women’s extraordinary drive and ambition, they are often systematically left out of the networks that propel high-potential workers forward in their careers.
In fact, that same McKinsey and LeanIn.org study found that Black women are some of the most ambitious workers in our workforce:
64% of Black women in the United States agree their goal is to make it to the top of their profession; that’s nearly double the percentage of non-Hispanic white women with the same goal.
83% of Asian women, 80% of Black women, and 76% of Latinas say they want to be promoted, compared to 75% of men and 68% of White women.
So why are women of color still so few and far between when it comes to the uppermost echelons of power?
As Zuhairah Washington and Laura Morgan Roberts write in the Harvard Business Review:
“...despite representing about 18% of the U.S. population, women of color represented only 4% of C-Level positions in 2018, falling far below white men (68%) and white women (19%). Even graduating from a prestigious business or law school doesn’t help much. Of the 532 African-American women who earned their MBAs at Harvard Business School between 1977 and 2015, only 67 (13%) have achieved the highest-ranking executive positions, compared to 161 (19%) of African-American men and 40% of a matched sample of 150 non-African-American HBS alumni.”
Are all of these proclamations and commitments from corporate leadership simply not extending to women of color? Does this belief in unlocking the full potential of our workforce not apply to Black women? Are all the dollars we’ve collectively invested in diversity and inclusion efforts not producing any results?
Unfortunately, based on my experience as a speaker, who’s often brought into organizations to help further diversity efforts, I think the answer is a resounding yes. You need not look any further than the many examples of optical allyship on display across corporate America during Black history month.
For example, I was recently contacted by a large multinational corporation to moderate a panel for their Black employee resource group. Me, a white woman, was being asked to moderate a discussion about mentorship in the workplace.
The person reaching out to me was actually an external marketing consultant, and had found me via my LinkedIn Learning course on the same topic. She said she appreciated how I discussed the role that unconscious bias plays in perpetuating systemic racism and sexism in mentorship. Too often, the mostly-white mostly-male folks in positions of power, end up mentoring people who remind them of a younger version of themselves.
When asked who would be on the panel, which was slated for less than two weeks out, I was told they had not yet decided which higher-ups within the corporate hierarchy would be invited. When I asked why this event was being pulled together at the last minute, I was told they were simply trying to respond to their Black employee’s ERG. A week into Black history month, this company’s third-party advertising consultant was being asked to try to quickly throw together an event that was technically not about race at work, but designed to placate Black employees.
Needless to say, this was not an opportunity I was interested in playing any part in. While I absolutely want to contribute to genuine diversity and inclusion efforts on behalf of organizations who show real commitment to communities of color, I am not here to simply check a box in a superficial conversation that can actually do more harm than good. More than anything, this entire exchange left me disheartened and a bit disgusted.
If I am tired of the half-baked superficiality of corporate America’s “diversity and inclusion” campaigns, I can only imagine the exhaustion Black women experience when even the supposed “support” that companies offer up feels like yet another form of microaggression and daily degradation.
So what do American companies actually need to do to address systemic bias in hiring, advancement, and overall corporate culture?
Conduct an annual organization-wide structural analysis.
Human resource departments and diversity officers must work hand-in-hand to analyze the advancement opportunities and speed of promotion for employees across racial and gender groups, at a minimum, with a focus on employees at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities. This racial equity impact analysis resource from RaceMattersInstitute.org can be a helpful place to start.
Report on exit interview analysis.
Many Black women are leaving corporate America altogether to strike out on their own, with Black women business owners growing by more than 600% between 1997 and 2017. Author Minda Hart sees that as directly related to the fact that many simply aren’t having the same kind of success as their white or male counterparts. “This mass exodus is taking place,” says Minda, “because we can no longer take being invisible in the workplace and manage microaggressions and bias. If leadership doesn’t fix their leaky pipeline, I fear the future of work won’t have many of us around those tables.”
Cultivate a culture of diverse mentorship.
Yes, mentorship matters. But not simply among women mentoring women or people of color mentoring other people of color. We need to openly challenge our white, male colleagues to take on the emotional labor of mentoring, sponsoring, and actively including and supporting colleagues who don’t look like a younger version of themselves. Whether this is achieved through formal mentorship programs or structurally considered as a part of middle managers’ and senior executive’s performance evaluations, a culture of fostering diverse mentorship relationships can certainly help.
Actively promote women of color.
I recently spoke with Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility, all about dismantling white supremacy, and it became increasingly clear that white folks must become more involved in implementing solutions to the very systemic inequities we benefit from. We cannot put the burden on Black employee resource groups alone to solve the problems created by white supremacy. That’s why white colleagues must do more - especially for women of color at work - to reverse the recent findings in that McKinsey / LeanIn.org study: managers must do more to offer support to Black women at work, promote their work contributions to others, and take an active role in helping colleagues navigate organizational politics or socialize with key power players. Get to know the long-term ambitions of women of color at work and do your part to further them, lifting as you climb.
Let me make one thing abundantly clear: it’s not just women of color who are missing out when women of color are systematically not supported at work. When we fail to create equal opportunities for talented people with drive, ambition, and a will to lead, we miss out on the next generation of problem-solvers, innovators, and leaders whose contributions we all will benefit from.
So this Black history month, and every month, let’s all ask ourselves what more we can do to further the ambitions of the Black women who we work alongside.
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