Please, don’t check on your black employees
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 have been a hot pile of garbage.
Black folks like myself are back to work this week.
We’re dealing with painful conversations brought up by colleagues and leadership in a casual way, or just doing our best to silently getting through Monday. Some Black folks will have to navigate the feelings of white colleagues who have appointed themselves The Official Recounters of All Black News.
It’s exhausting. Traumatizing. The world is on fire. Black people are being murdered.
We still have to go to work.
To managers, supervisors, CEOs, and founders: instead of “checking in” on your black employees, here is what you should do instead:
Take a serious review of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging policies in your organization. Feel free to use this set of questions in your review:
When was this drafted or developed? Aside 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 this policy?
Is this actionable? Is there an implementation plan and internal structures that support this policy and make its actions possible? Do we measure the success of these actions and the overall policy?
Do we fully understand the objectives of this policy? (Just promoting diversity and inclusion doesn’t count. That’s not getting you anywhere.)
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 or existing budget to figure out how you can start financially supporting local organizations that facilitate anti-racist work.
Do you have budget for a staff retreat that no one will be going to during the COVID-19 pandemic? Then you have budget for inclusion work.
When figuring out where to put your money, consider:
What does my community look like in terms of race, newcomers, LGBTQ2I+, and other equity-seeking groups? It’s well and good to donate to an organization that is serving an immediate crisis, but you need to consider ongoing support for local and/or national organizations that exist in the community you work in;
What organizations do your staff hold dear? Which do they have relationships with, volunteer with, actually run themselves? This is a good time to not only support grassroots orgs, but specifically the ones your Black staff are intimately familiar with;
What’s your “forever number” — remember, we’re not talking about a one time we’re-in-crisis donation. What will you give annually?
“f 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 hold space in your organization to process events and tragedy that impact racialized staff, women, your LGBTQ2I+ colleagues?
The world is reminding us, this week, that although we may experience and witness events together, we do not experience them in the same way.
Gather resources about 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-racist”. Being anti-racist is not enough. That’s a baseline human rights assumption. You need to take action.
There are so many resources available online, and absolutely no excuse to ask Black staff to provide this kind of labour. Here are a few to get you started:
Octopus Book Store’s Black Lives Matter Reading List (all Canadian authors)
100 ways white people can make life less frustrating for people of colour
Black organizations and ant-racist groups Canadians can support now
Taking Action at Work Part 1: Bringing Folks In, aka Inclusive Recruitment
Taking Action at Work Part 2: Retaining Your Diverse Team, aka Inclusive Retention
Racism, discrimination, and racial violence did not just sprout into existence this week.
This is not just a moment.
The City of Ottawa and the Ontario Provincial Government publicly recognize 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.
Remember: It’s not the role of your Black employees to help you navigate what might be new terrain for you.
Expecting your Black or POC employees to lead your inclusion work is putting them in a position to advocate for their own right to exist in your workplace. That’s the opposite of inclusion.
I cannot stress this enough: hire someone to do the long term work and planning.
QuakeLab is a full-stack inclusion and communications agency that provides the tools, expertise and methods to take your vision for inclusion from idea to action. We use proven design thinking frameworks and results-based management to position inclusion as a functional and integrated part of your business structure, and not as a fluff piece hidden within your HR policy. This means that we support organizations to not only build inclusion into strategy, but to integrate it into processes, culture, and systems for real, measurable change.