Ten years ago a company called Rent-A-Minority based in the US posted on the internet offering organisations minority ethnic people for hire whenever they needed to boost their image. You want to enhance your DEIcredentials for your annual report we can supply photogenic black and brown individuals plus smiling Muslim women. The company wasn’t real it was a joke intended to satirise the superficial and patronising way in which many organisations were approaching DEI.
Unfortunately a lot of well intentioned and serious DEI initiatives since have proved equally as superficial and illusionary. Numerous studies have shown that awareness and unconscious bias training, Black Workers support groups, and BME management training schemes, as well as recruitment quotas and targets increase resentment in the workplace.
Too often in the past EDI training has been delivered in a scolding manner irritating and often alienating participants. So the backlash should not surprise HR/organisations but should make them review strategies and focus on making structure changes that will ensure people are treated fairly and able to fulfil their potential.
To this end in my experience organisations need to nurture a compassionate management culture. Introduce development /training opportunities for prospective managers. And encourage a safe working environment where employees and managers are able to talk about DEI issues openly, without fear of recriminations but also with a willingness to be challenged.
A compassionate management culture involves treating employees as individuals responding flexibility to their concerns, circumstances and issues rather than in an arbitrary and ridged manner. The complete opposite of the , “3 Strikes and you’re out “ approach.
Rather than a managers training scheme for BME employees I developed a short course for prospective managers open to all. The idea was to improve people’s understanding of the mangers role, in some cases demystify it, and so encourage people who otherwise might have been hesitant to go for it. Access to the course was by self referral, no entry requirements. The course was consistently over subscribed and the majority of attendees were women often part time workers.
Finally organisations need to stop ignoring the negative feedback and comments. This is the way some employees feel and promoting self censorship won’t change that. Managers starting with senior managers need to allow people to say what they are really thinking without fear of being punished or labelled (racist, sexist or homophobic) and have the confidence , knowledge and language to challenge negative stereotypes, myths and ignorance. They may need some help from HR to do this.
