How to Hold Your Company Accountable to Its Promise of Racial Justice

After the killing of George Floyd triggered a global conversation about race in America, many companies expressed their solidarity with the Black community and the Black Lives Matter movement, pledged money to fight discrimination, and promised to embrace diversity in their workforces.

Now, as the year is drawing to a close and so much focus is on the coronavirus and the economy, leaders’ commitments toward racial justice are at risk of falling off the list of priorities. How can you use your influence to ensure your organization follows through on its promises? How can you press for changes in hiring and promotion practices? What difficult conversations might you need to have and with whom? How can you push without damaging your career? And what steps can you take personally to help your organization promote inclusiveness?

What the Experts Say 

Companies are ordinarily quiet during times of social unrest but the protests that followed the violent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor marked an inflection point. Organizations recognized that they needed to take a stand, says James Detert, a professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business and the author of the forthcoming book, Choosing Courage: The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at Work. “There was a level of energy, activism, and reckoning that was different from anything that had happened in the past,” he says. “The fact that [the protests] occurred amidst a pandemic that has disproportionately hit minority groups, and that has revealed the effects of systemic racism, made people hopeful that this time would be different.”

Now, though, months after organizations made those public announcements on social media, it’s not necessarily clear that change will happen, according to Tiffany Jana, founder and CEO of TMI Consulting and the co-author of Overcoming Bias: Building Authentic Relationships across Differences. This is where employees —managers, team leaders, and even individual contributors — come in. “You can be a catalyst for change,” says Jana. “You can push your organization to go from inadvertent corporate blackwashing to leadership and accountability.” Here’s how.

Do not expect your colleagues of color to lead this charge.

First things first, know that promoting change inside your organization must not place extra burdens on employees of color. “The emotional tax of being a person of color in the workplace is hard enough and putting yourself in the firing range” of having to educate others and push for structural change is unfair, says Jana. In fact, research shows that women and minorities can be penalized for promoting diversity. Let your Black and brown colleagues engage on their own terms. Some may want to lead; others may choose to be involved in different ways, or not at all. Detert says that white people need to do some introspection and take responsibility for making change. “White allyship matters,” he says.

Find co-conspirators.

To tackle racism and discriminatory policies in your workplace, Jana says you need “co-conspirators” — colleagues who are similarly motivated to make change. Ideally, you want a coalition comprised of “people who love the company, who love the mission, and who want to stand with Black Lives Matter.” Not only is it more powerful when many people are making the same case, it also makes it more difficult for leaders to avoid taking action. “It’s easier to silence one person [than many],” says Jana.

Once you’ve identified your core group, work on generating widespread support. Encourage other like-minded colleagues to outwardly endorse your efforts, says Detert. While direct advocacy would be great, “sometimes it’s enough just to get others to stand with you, and say, ‘I agree.’” The simpler you make it for “those around you to say, ‘I am with you,’ the more likely you are to have others jump on your train,” he says. Be strategic about bringing the right people into the fold, he says, adding that the biggest issue to consider is, “Who has a direct trusting relationship with the person or people you need [to persuade], and how you can enlist them?” In some cases, the person with that relationship will reach out directly to leaders on your behalf, he says. “In others, you’re asking them to make the connection and vouch for you” to lend you credibility.

Identify your goal(s).

Next, you and your group need to sort out what specifically you’re trying to accomplish. “One of the failures of diversity work is nebulous goals,” says Jana. “You need concrete objectives tied to data.” Detert suggests looking at the kinds of promises your organization made over the summer, which may have been a “standard laundry list of agenda items.” Your company may have said it was going to improve its hiring practices or perhaps create a task force to study inclusive office cultures. “What’s often missing are firm, measurable commitments,” he says.

Focusing on one change you’d like to see could help you build momentum. For example, you might push for the company to commit to interviewing X percent of candidates from underrepresented backgrounds for its job openings and bring in Y number of new hires. (Even if your HR department is unwilling to share your company’s current numbers, it ought to “respond to a query about best practices or benchmarks no matter who asks,” says Detert.) Your group’s goal is to devise objective metrics to help your organization gauge progress, or to implore people in power to do the same. Otherwise, there’s no way to hold the company accountable.

Determine your target audience.

Next, you need to figure out who to talk to. Obviously, you want to reach the person or group of people empowered to make change or senior leaders who can convince those people to make these issues a high priority. You’ll also need to consider who controls the money if the changes you suggest have budget implications, says Detert. If your company has a venue in which employees can raise concerns, such as an all-staff meeting or virtual town hall, you and your group can use that avenue to make your case. Or you might consider setting up a meeting directly with the leader or leaders who have authority to make a change.

Here again, it’s important to think about which of your co-conspirators is best positioned to influence that person. It will depend on the context, says Detert. Ask yourself: How much credibility do I have with the ultimate decision-makers? Who among my group is the most influential and persuasive? And whom do we trust to make the case with passion and skill?

Make your case.

With goals in mind and the right target audience, you now need to make your case. Jana suggests coming at the issue from a place of positivity and curiosity, and saying something along the lines of, “We see that the company made a supportive statement on social media, and we are proud to work for a company that took this stand. Our group is wondering, what is to follow? Will there be training? Will there be new practices put in place? And is there a strategy?”

Be helpful and offer to take on work. Let the powers-that-be know that you’re willing to “take it upon yourselves to come up with solutions,” Jana says. Detert suggests asking leadership to consider the economic consequences of “what the company could stand to lose if it doesn’t change its ways” as well as the “cultural stakes of inaction being in violation of who we say we are” as a company. While “having to make an economic argument for basic human rights is gross,” it is an unfortunate necessity at many organizations, says Detert.

Avoid accusations and seek to understand.

Drawing attention to the ways that the organization contributes to inequitable outcomes for POC may make those in charge defensive. Since white men hold the power at the vast majority of companies, you may need to make clear that you’re not accusing them of racism but seeking to involve them in a solution. Detert recommends framing the issue in “we” not “you” terms. Your goal is to use “language that avoids backward-looking statements or blame and instead clearly indicates a presumption of shared cultural aspirations and a desire to work as partners from the same side of the table,” he says.

Try to understand what underlies their resistance to change. “You might hear things like, ‘I want to support this [goal of diversity in hiring], but if we commit to quotas, I worry that we will undermine our culture of meritocracy,” Detert says. Listening to these concerns will give you and your collaborators a deeper understanding of why the organization may have made little progress in the past. Of course, change takes time, but you may uncover other reasons that can spark ideas for how to accomplish your goals.

Get creative.

If, for instance, leadership is hesitant to commit to a company-wide hiring practice, get creative in finding ways to accomplish your goals even if at first, it’s only on a small scale. Perhaps management is open to “making meaningful investments to the pipeline” such as the creation of a mentoring program for employees from underrepresented groups or recruitment events focused on people of color, says Detert. Or maybe your group could identify a team leader or two who will agree on record to strive for certain hiring numbers within their unit. “The question to ask yourself is, ‘Who is willing to make small meaningful public commitments?’” says Detert.

Take courage.

“Getting an agenda on the table, moving sentiment, and making change at an organizational level,” is difficult to do even in the best of times, says Detert. Amidst the coronavirus crisis, when many people are working from home and dealing with pandemic-weary colleagues over Zoom or Slack, “it’s gotten even more challenging,” he says. “These are explosive topics in a thin communication medium.”

Don’t despair. This is hard work — and it’s important. Summon your courage. “You need to decide what kind of ally you want to be,” says Jana. “You have the opportunity to stand up for what is good and right, and you have an opportunity to stand up for people who’ve not had a fraction of the opportunities that you’ve had.”

Principles to Remember

Do:

• Identify concrete goals. Know what you want to accomplish before pushing for change.
• Collaborate with other like-minded colleagues who will help you strategize ways to accomplish your goals of racial justice.
• Push for firm, measurable commitments from your organization to create accountability.

Don’t:

• Place the burden of leadership on social justice on your employees of color. Now is the time for everyone — especially white people — to step up.
• Ignore what underlies resistance to change. Listen to management’s concerns so you can understand how to build your case.
• Be timid. Making change isn’t easy or straightforward, but it’s important to do the right thing.

Advice in Practice

Case Study #1: Commit to hard work and keep the conversation going by holding leaders accountable.

For Charis Marquez, vice president for sales effectiveness at Levi Strauss & Co, 2020 has been an “emotional rollercoaster.”

The social unrest over racial injustice, the surge of protests over police killings of Black Americans, and the pandemic’s inequitable impact on the Black community has felt overwhelming at times. “It’s all very heavy,” she says. “For me, and I think for many of my Black colleagues, there was no time to process everything that was going on. And yet, the business was still moving, and we had to keep coming to work.”

Charis, who works closely with Project Onyx, Levi Strauss & Co’s Black Employee Resource Group, says that the company has long been committed to action around racial equity — both in society and within the organization itself — but that there is more work to be done.

Currently, she says, she is focused on making sure that the conversation around social justice is ongoing. She is part of a group that meets regularly with senior executives, including the company’s CHRO and CMO, about Levi Strauss & Co’s efforts around racial injustice. “Our leadership is well intended,” she says. “It’s not they don’t care or that they don’t want to have these conversations, it’s that they don’t always know what to say. So, we help them understand. They want to do the right thing.”

Prior to the spring, the company already had diversity imperatives around its hiring policies. Charis and her group want to make sure that managers are holding recruiters accountable. “We want to empower them to say, ‘I need more Black and brown talent on this hiring slate.’”

She and her group are committed to expanding the membership of Project Onyx and increasing allies within the group, as well. “We have the same intentions — but we don’t always agree on the best ways to go about it,” she says. “We do know that if we want change, it’s going to have to feel a little uncomfortable at times. In order for us to grow, it’s not always comfortable.”

Case Study #2: Clarify your intent and be creative in how you accomplish your goals.

This spring’s social upheaval had a deep impact on Caroline Caselli, a sales manager at Box, the cloud computing business.

She felt that her company “met the moment in a genuine and authentic” way. “We are a values-driven company, and we have a progressive culture,” she says. “We don’t shy away from talking about what’s going on in the world.”

The company’s CEO made significant donations to social justice causes selected by Box employees’ Black Excellence Network, and the company vowed to match employee contributions to similar philanthropic efforts. Meanwhile, hundreds of employees engaged in internal discussions focused on issues of systemic racism and allyship.

Later in the summer, Box dedicated time at its annual hackathon event to generate ideas on how the company can increase its employees of color in sales. “We came up with a sales internship that we are pitching to historically Black colleges and universities for the summer of 2021, including a partnership with Spelman,” she says.

Caroline, who is white and has been at the company for seven years, is proud of Box’s response, but she also knows that as a manager of a small, diverse team, she has a special obligation to make sure her company continues to keep diversity and equity as a top priority.

She has some experience with corporate social activism. A few years ago — at the height of the #MeToo movement, when Christine Blasey Ford, the professor who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee — Caroline was moved to action. As the head of Box’s employee resource community (ERC) supporting women at Box, she helped coordinate global conversations with employees. She also worked with management to update its policies and training on bullying and harassment in the workplace.

Along the way, she learned some lessons about how to get things done. “A piece of feedback I received during that experience was to clarify my intent,” she says.

When talking to senior managers about problems she and other like-minded colleagues wanted to see addressed, for instance, she learned to frame her statements around why they were broaching the issues in the first place. “When I said, ‘[I am talking about X issue because] I care about Box. I want Box to be a leader in this space,’ it led to productive conversations,” she says.

Today Caroline uses that framework in her efforts to urge Box to delve into its demographic data around employee hiring and promotions. “I like to ask the hard questions,” she says. “Right now, I’m pushing our company to look at what the data on [hiring and promotion] outcomes is telling us.”

Caroline says she also regularly engages her peers in conversations about Box’s hiring practices. “And I spend a lot of time talking with other managers about the ways our company could increase its numbers of underrepresented groups,” she says.

Getting others on board and raising awareness of the issue has been relatively straightforward but it’s an ongoing process, she says. “One of the reasons this stuff is so hard is that people don’t have the vocabulary for it,” she says. “But if you can identify those actionable, bite-sized items that could create changes, it can make a difference.”