Our Humans at Work series spotlights important life changes and struggles employees face in their personal lives, with the aim to give insight to how managers can sensitively approach in conversation and support. The video accounts are all anecdotal and subjective to the people interviewed.
The recent race riots in the UK are just the latest confirmation that we have a long way to go when it comes to fighting the hostile environment and building a genuinely tolerant society.
How managers show up for team members during particularly difficult periods like this matters. But so does how they show up day in, day out. If you’re a leader committed to allyship, then building capacity for conversations about race and identity is key.
A crucial starting point is understanding that your team members will all have a different experience of the world - and of your organisation - based on their background, identity and culture, as Craig highlights in the video below.
Less than half of managers currently feel prepared to have conversations about race.
Recent research highlights that 48% of employees have experienced one or more discriminatory or exclusionary acts from their manager in the past 6 months.
The same study paints a stark picture of the impact of feeling marginalised in the workplace. 1 in 7 employees considered quitting their job as a result of their experience.
Having meaningful conversations about race and other aspects of identity is important on two fronts.
On an individual level, being able to speak about these differences in experience ensures that your team members feel seen and heard and understood at work.
In the words of Taslim Tharani, an organisational psychologist and inclusion practitioner “supporting team members who are minoritised is a critical responsibility - and it starts with knowing your people. Understanding the unique experiences, identities, and challenges that different team members face is foundational to inclusive leadership.”
On a more macro level, dialogue about identity is crucial to address systemic inequities in your company's policies and practices.
Whilst conversations about race can be transformative if handled with compassion and sensitivity, it’s important to approach them with intention.
Taslim advises starting with some self-reflection about our own identity markers “we must be honest with ourselves about the privileges and biases we hold - owning our advantages as well as where we might ourselves experience oppression. This self-awareness opens us up to learning from others' lived experiences, which is essential when navigating sensitive topics like race and identity in the workplace.”
These conversations often feel high stakes because of the emotion involved. Members of majority groups in workplaces don’t want to say the wrong thing, and as a result can be hesitant to engage or move into defensiveness - as Craig’s manager did when he questioned his organisation’s lack of response in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests.
Hanna Naima McCloskey, CEO of Fearless Futures offers some useful framing for us to consider to avoid this reaction:
“Racism was created before you existed - but we are all socialised into it. This means that while you aren't to blame for its existence, you are responsible for how you show up in relation to it, and to what extent you are motivated to remove the barriers that people of colour experience. This lens is useful because it can move us from defensiveness to proactivity.”
It’s also important to remember that for folks that are minoritised within the workplace, the stakes for these conversations are much higher. For a start, talking about difficult experiences, such as the regular microaggressions Craig references can be emotionally draining. Then there’s the additional fear of being misunderstood or suffering career-related consequences.
All this means that managers need to focus on creating psychological safety and building trust on a day to day basis to make raising concerns feel like less of a risk to minoritised team members.
Do:
Commit to ongoing learning
A huge part of allyship is being able to stay open, curious about others and their different life experiences - without relying on people in marginalised identities to educate you about systems of oppression.
This can feel like a fine line to tread, but there are plenty of resources and reading lists out there to help you understand more about different identities and the structural challenges the people in them experience. Seek these out yourself - and focus 1:1 conversations on your team members own experiences to identify what you can do to support them and create change within your organisation. Here are some prompts you could use within your 1:1’s:
How has your identity impacted your experience here at [Company]?
How have the recent riots and the conversation around them impacted you?
What would you like to see us do more of to further inclusion in our organisation?
Validate your team members experience
If a team member trusts you enough to raise concerns about their treatment in the workplace or ask for greater support - it’s imperative that you acknowledge the reality of the discrimination they’re facing.
It can be tempting to jump to defending your own or someone else's intention when harmful behaviour is brought to your attention. Instead, understand that what matters is the impact on your team members - and use this as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Be your team members’ biggest cheerleader
As Craig mentioned, it’s all too common for Black or Brown employees to feel pressured to prove themselves or go above and beyond in order to progress. As a manager, it’s important to know this - and work to counteract it. As Taslim says:
“It’s important to understand that work doesn't always speak for itself, especially in environments where bias—conscious or unconscious—exists. As a manager, your responsibility extends beyond mentorship...
You must actively advocate for your team members when they aren’t in the room, raising their profile within the organisation and ensuring their contributions are recognised. This kind of sponsorship can make a significant difference in their career progression.”
Don't turn away from injustice
It’s important to be attuned to the fact that local and global events can hit differently for people occupying different identities. As Hanna says:
“It's hard for many of us to know what to say when challenging things happen in the world often because we care about getting it right and we aren't taught how to hold space for tough emotions. In these situations, it’s important to remember that trust is built up in small moments, rather than big ones.
Building your attunement and coupling it with micro-actions ordinarily is a powerful way to contribute to your trust bucket with colleagues in order to support them through despairing injustice.”
In other words - showing solidarity and support on a day to day basis, will help to create the space your team member needs to express - rather than mask feelings of rage and grief when injustices occur.
Don’t forget that identity is complex
Race is not the only marker of identity that might impact your team members' experience of the workplace.
As Hanna reminds us “recognising how racism interacts with other inequities might seem daunting, but it's also a real need. For example, women of colour and disabled folks of colour will have experiences that can't be flattened into a single lens.”
Don’t give in to fear
The advice we’ve shared in this article - which is really just an introduction to conversations about race and identity - can feel a little daunting to put into practice.
But it’s important to remind yourself that building capacity for these conversations is a skill to be learnt like anything else. Tools like this widely-circulated diagram on becoming anti-racist remind us to see the building of this skill as a journey that happens over time and with practice. Moreover, they also remove the pressure to find the ‘perfect’ thing to say the first time we start these conversations. You can also check out the BRAVE model to structure your approach to conversations about race and identity.
Holding space for conversations about race and other aspects of identity is an essential skill for managers. As Craig says, progress starts with being curious and taking your responsibility to get to know your people seriously. Doing so creates a better working environment for everyone.
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