By Carmen Van Kerckhove 
 
Think twice before reporting racial discrimination to your company’s human resources department. Why? Because it’s not always the most effective strategy.

Read on for a step-by-step guide on what to do if you believe your supervisor is discriminating against you because of your race.

(Of course, I am not a lawyer so please do not take this opinion as professional legal advice.)

1. Ask Yourself If It’s Truly Racial Discrimination
 
All people of color have an internal racism radar. For some, it’s turned all the way up so that they see racial conspiracy around every corner. For others, it’s turned all the way down so that they are in denial about how racism affects their lives. For most of us, it’s somewhere in-between.

Before you take any action, ask yourself if you are sure that you’re being discriminated against because of your race. Does your supervisor treat other people of your racial or ethnic group poorly too? Or does she only pick on you? Could there be other reasons you’re being passed over for raises or promotions? Are your colleagues better situated in terms of performance, education, experience, or skills? Are they better at cultivating relationships with the boss or making their accomplishments known? Is it a personality issue? Could it be that you’re just not well-liked by your coworkers? » Continue reading “What to Do If You’re the Victim of Racial Discrimination in the Workplace”

By Carmen Van Kerckhove

Figuring out how to react when a co-worker makes a racist joke can be extremely difficult. If you don’t call the person out on her racism, you seem to be condoning the behavior. But if you do say something, you risk alienating him and sabotaging your working relationship.

The best response to a racist joke should accomplish 3 things:

1. Communicate that you find this behavior unacceptable.
2. Demonstrate that the joke is racist.
3. Inflict as little damage as possible to your working relationship with the joker.

Before I explain the response I would recommend, let’s look at some of the other possible reactions available to you and why they are not ideal.

You don’t laugh.

Withholding your laughter is a way to avoid personally colluding in this kind of racist behavior without damaging your relationship with the joker. However, by staying silent, you do not necessarily make it clear that you find this kind of humor unacceptable and that the joke is racist. » Continue reading “How to Respond to a Racist Joke”

By Carmen Van Kerckhove

The first day at a new job can be nerve-wracking. We’re given what looks like three inches of paperwork to fill out. We don’t know how to log in to our computer or check our voicemail. We don’t know about the practices and protocol necessary to be a success in a new work environment.

For people of color entering a workplace that’s lacking in diversity, these feelings of confusion and nervousness can be even more acute than they are for white employees.

If a company committed to attracting top diverse talent focuses exclusively on its recruiting strategy, but then bungles the new employee orientation process, the results can be grave:

• Diverse candidates may feel as though a bait-and-switch tactic has been played on them. Getting them onboard and then expecting then to muddle through as best they can without a well-planned new employee orientation process is not a strategy, it’s a slap in the face.
• New hires of color may spread the word about their unhappy orientation experience. When friends and family ask them how it’s going, as they certainly will, the new employee may spread negative feedback about the firm to the very people the firm hopes to persuade to become future employees.
• In a worst-case scenario, a new employee may even renege on his or her commitment to work at the firm and accept another offer or go back to their former job. » Continue reading “4 Ways to Develop a New Employee Orientation Process that Attracts and Retains Top Diverse Talent”

By Carmen Van Kerckhove

Savvy meeting planners carefully sculpt both their advertising and their agendas to appeal to a culturally diverse population. But far too many planners still don’t understand the fundamentals of culturally-sensitive hosting.

Here, then, are the four biggest mistakes meeting planners should avoid, followed by their more appealing and appropriate counterparts.

Mistake 1: Use diversity as window dressing only

Don’t assume that providing ethnic buffets and displaying stock photos of smiling people of color in a brochure is enough to entice the unconvinced that you have them in mind, too. Especially if you follow up by publishing an agenda and inviting speakers who don’t know very much about the people of color in attendance and can’t speak to their concerns or interests.

The Fix: Step outside your comfort zone and call people of color in your industry to find out what issues are on their mind. Incorporate their concerns into your agenda.  Find knowledgeable speakers of color who have had success dealing with the issues raised and then advertise those who will be tackling and shedding light on the subjects that their constituents most want addressed.

Mistake 2: Wait until the last minute to reach out to people of color » Continue reading “The Top 4 Mistakes Meeting Planners Should Avoid If They Want Diversity and Inclusion At Their Next Conference”

By Carmen Van Kerckhove

Over 90% of Fortune 500 companies have employee affinity groups. These organizations (sometimes referred to as employee networking or resource groups) are made up of volunteers and usually focus on people who have been historically under-represented in the workplace: people of color, gays and lesbians, people with disabilities, and the like.

It isn’t surprising that employee affinity groups are a popular diversity tactic. They are easy to set up and inexpensive to run. And when they work well, they can help companies recruit and retain top diverse talent.

Affinity groups can help increase employee retention by reducing the social isolation of being the only person of color within a department or division. A good employee affinity group can also boost the number of employees of color among a company’s new hires. That’s because under-represented employees are more likely to refer friends to their employer when they know that an infrastructure exists to support and utilize them effectively.

Finally, the social networks created in employee affinity groups can serve as a counterbalance to the “old boy’s network” and help increase diversity among managerial ranks. When a company makes it easier for employees to meet people in other departments and levels of hierarchy, it creates a greater likelihood of career advancement. » Continue reading “How Employee Affinity Groups Can Help You Recruit and Retain a Diverse Workforce”

by Carmen Van Kerckhove, originally published at CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 blog

Just one day after Barack Obama’s historic victory, a giddy New York Times declared that his success at the polls was “sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease.”

With ease? This statement contradicts the tightrope Obama had to walk throughout the election. If he didn’t overtly address race, people of color would have distrusted him and felt he didn’t have their best interests at heart. But had he aligned himself too closely with the race issue, he ran the risk of emphasizing his “otherness” and alienating white voters. There was nothing easy about the delicate balancing act Obama had to perform to win the election.

In the wake of President Obama’s inauguration, more people are starting to question why we still need to talk about race and diversity. After all, our president is black. Isn’t that sufficient proof that racism in America has met its match?

If you find yourself facing this question at work, here are a few talking points you can use to demonstrate that race is not yet an issue we can afford to ignore.

1, There will always be “stand-outs” like Obama who carve a niche for themselves despite institutionalized discrimination.

For example, a black woman named Madame CJ Walker, the daughter of two former slaves, became the first self-made woman millionaire in the United States (black or white) by creating a line of cosmetics and hair care products for black women. She accomplished this feat at a time when blacks were subjected to extreme poverty, segregation, violence, and oppression. Her success during the Jim Crow era did not indicate that discrimination against blacks was nonexistent during this time. Instead, she became successful despite the odds.

Obama, too, is an exception to well-entrenched racism, rather than a symbol of the end of it. Thousands of voters told pollsters outright that they would never vote for a black man. (How many other voters felt the same way but would not go on the record and verbalize it?) Obama won the presidency in spite of racism, not because of its absence.

2. Racial disparities still exist in nearly every aspect of American life.

David Thomas, Harvard Business School professor and author of Breaking Through:The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America, recently told Human Resources Executive magazine that “although the glass ceiling is “no longer impenetrable, talent being equal, the probability of making it to the C-suite is still less if you are a person of color than if you are a white male.”

Indeed, the Working Group on Extreme Inequality has confirmed that the racial economic divide between whites and blacks is a quantifiable reality: » Continue reading “Why We Must Talk About Race Now — More Than Ever Before”