Championing Black and South Asian Women Throughout Their Careers: An Interview

At our recent In-house Recruitment Diversity & Inclusion Conference, we were fortunate to have Tinashe Verhaeghe from The Diversity Trust & Amber Ramzan from Totaljobs who shared exclusive research from Totaljobs’ latest report, ‘An Equal Path to Progression: An Employer’s Guide to Uplifting Black and South Asian Women in the Workplace’. Below are the live Q&A questions asked during their session.

Q. How would a company overcome the lack of diversity in the leadership – if even at the lower level the makeup of Black and South Asian women is scarce. You can’t promote people that don’t exist?

One place to start is to look at the talent you are bringing into the business. Are your talent pools diverse, and is this also reflected in your final interviewee line ups? If not, what actions can you take to broaden your talent pools and bring opportunities to people from underrepresented backgrounds who often face greater barriers to accessing quality work? Recruitment solutions like Equality Boost can help here. As for the talent you already have, tailored leadership training, community spaces and wellbeing support are just some of the actions you can take to improve opportunity for your staff, as well as retention. For more details and advice embedded in our research, and the views of Black and South Asian women, read the report.

Q. How would you go about encouraging salary transparency within an organisation – especially when this seems to be a battle with more senior management?

Getting buy-in from senior management or “executive sponsorship” holds a lot of sway, of course. If you are struggling to get management onboard, approach this the way you’d approach building any business case.Your approach could start with encouraging your business to commit to publishing an Ethnicity Pay Gap, in the same way they do with the Gender Pay Gap if your company employs over 250+ people.

When it comes to salary transparency, it could be the case that your business lacks the demographic data to be able to draw conclusions about salary equity and reward, which could be a reason why they are resistant to this commitment. If this is the case, your approach should go wider than pay – it needs to be a data capture exercise, one that is clearly communicated to every employee in your business, so they understand why they are being asked to share personal data – while also having the option to opt-out of this.

Q. How do you deal with allegations of racism/ discrimination because they can be subtle? Blatant racism/ discrimination is relatively easier to deal with.

From an employer perspective, the more education driven throughout the business, the more allies, or people who have the potential to be allies, will be aware of common microaggressions and feel empowered when it comes to calling out inappropriate behaviour, attitudes or language that may otherwise go under the radar. Only then can you create a culture that calls out more “subtle” incidents that can undermine a person’s sense of identity, confidence and comfort at work. When it comes to supporting a member of staff who reports an incident of discrimination, a common thread when speaking to the women in our focus groups as part of this research was feeling gaslit. This may involve a person reporting an incident of discrimination and feeling that the employer or HR response has been to diminish it or deny it, as they do not understand the impact of more “subtle” cases of discrimination.

One of the most important things you can do as an employer is to believe the victim and validate their feelings and experiences, no matter how small it may appear to you on the surface. One recommendation within our report is to create wellbeing programmes which are intersectional in their approach, where the relationship between ethnicity, discrimination and wellbeing is understood so Black and South Asian women and people who are underrepresented or minoritised have access to services that inherently understand their experiences of discrimination and the long-term impact this can have. 

Q. How does the well-being at work stats (62% well-being suffered at work from Black and South Asian women) compare to white groups (to put in perspective)

Black and South Asian women are more likely to report poor wellbeing at work than their white peers, according to our research.  62% of Black and South Asian women reported their wellbeing has suffered at work whilst 49% of white men reported suffering with their wellbeing at work at some stage in their careers, while 52% of white women report the same. Only 34% of South Asian women and 31% of Black women report their wellbeing has never suffered at work. Meanwhile, 41% of white men their wellbeing has never suffered at work, compared to 39% of white women.

Q. What was the total number of women in the research? And which sectors?

The research was in field in May 2022. This research included a survey of 1,006 women of Black, South Asian, or mixed or multiple heritage including Black and/or South Asian. We also spoke to 20 women of these heritages as part of in-depth focus groups. A range of sectors (40) were represented in the survey, with the highest number of respondents from the survey of Black and South Asian women coming from the education, administration, healthcare and retail sectors. In our focus groups, a range of private, public and third-sector was represented, including education, law and pharma.

Q. What was the total number of women in the research? And which sectors?

The research was in field in May 2022. This research included a survey of 1,006 women of Black, South Asian, or mixed or multiple heritage including Black and/or South Asian. We also spoke to 20 women of these heritages as part of in-depth focus groups. A range of sectors (40) were represented in the survey, with the highest number of respondents from the survey of Black and South Asian women coming from the education, administration, healthcare and retail sectors. In our focus groups, a range of private, public and third-sector was represented, including education, law and pharma.