Why are businesses still struggling to stamp out racism?

The issue of racism and discrimination at work is never far from the headlines. Recent news reports suggest that, despite efforts to tackle it, prejudice and discrimination are still rife in the NHS, and getting worse rather than better in the Met Police.

A recent survey from UK-based Youth Futures found that a third of young people with minority ethnic backgrounds had experienced racist remarks, jokes or banter at work. Further evidence from the CIPD’s 2024 Good Work Index highlights discriminatory behaviour as one of the common causes of workplace conflict.

A recent Middlesex University report, Too hot to handle: Why concerns about racism are not heard… or acted on, which investigated racism in the NHS, also makes sobering reading, with 71 per cent of staff surveyed complaining of race discrimination. I recall vividly – from my degree studies in race relations and my community relations activities through the nineties – the pain and anguish expressed by people on the receiving end of racist and discriminatory behaviour from those in positions of power and authority.

In 2001, I started working with organisations to integrate restorative processes such as mediation to underpin their efforts to develop dignity at work and fair treatment processes. Fast forward to the present day and it’s clear that many organisations are trying to turn the tide on this challenging issue. The latest figures from the Race at Work Charter survey are positive, showing that employers are making a considerable effort to tackle systemic inequalities. So why is it that, despite their best efforts, organisations are finding it so difficult to make real progress?

My experience – coupled with the recent evidence from across the UK workforce – suggests two key issues are at play. First, a lack of a coherent and scrutable framework for resolving these problems in our workplaces and the fact that we sub-contract the management of racism and discrimination to a three-step process that is demonstrably unfit for purpose because it is risk averse, reactive and transactional. Second, an insistence on taking a binary and retributive approach to what are highly complex interactions between people. Third, a lack of courage, confidence and competence among HR and managers to have proactive, open, honest dialogue when Black and minority ethnic colleagues are experiencing discriminatory behaviours or when allegations of racism are made in their teams or departments.

Retributive processes

When racism is alleged, the first port of call for organisations is often the traditional disciplinary and grievance or bullying and harassment policy. Unfortunately, in most cases, this approach – of taking people through an escalatory, reductive, adversarial and formal process – only serves to fan the flames of division and discord. People are plunged into a highly divisive and stressful situation, where relationships are damaged beyond restoration and, ultimately, no one wins.

One of the primary problems with these formal approaches is that there is no objective decision-making method built into them; instead they rely on an arbitrary three-step process. There is a lack of a coherent mechanism to help employers make a clear, rational judgement about the most appropriate way to handle a situation. Without this, there is a significant risk that heuristics and bias will creep in, that trust and confidence break down, and that a legalistic, ‘blame and punishment’ mindset takes hold.

There is a better way. Organisations including the BBC, Burberry, Next and Aviva have chosen to adopt a different approach, including restorative solutions such as mediation, facilitated conversations, coaching and team building (as well as formal sanctions, in the rare cases where these are needed). Integral to this is employers assessing how to handle a particular case, taking into account issues such as severity, complexity, duration, the needs of the parties and the risk the situation poses to both the individual and the organisation. Not only is this approach more likely to lead to a restorative solution, it also ensures that any decisions made are transparent and accountable and open to scrutiny.

Quality conversations

This transformative approach to justice at work underpins wider efforts to create fair, just, inclusive and high-performing workplaces. People who experience destructive workplace behaviours naturally find it difficult to have meaningful dialogue when the battle lines have been drawn and conversations are riddled with dogma and polemic. In other words, when the working relationship is epitomised by fear, stress, anxiety and trauma. A kind of toxic sludge gradually takes over, full of unhappy, frustrated, stressed and angry people, who feel that their voices are not being heard and they are unable to express strongly held opinions.

If organisations are serious about getting to the root of racism and discrimination, they need to take three steps:

1. Invite the people embroiled in a racism or discrimination-related issue to talk about what is important to them and what they need as a solution. This is about surfacing people’s individual, very felt, experiences of discrimination and racism – not at the corporate ‘town hall’ convened to discuss the overall issue of racism in the business, but one to one, at the point where they need support from the business.
2. Ask those going through any formal organisational process to provide feedback on how effective that process is. In other words, start treating employees as customers of whatever ‘product’ (ie, your grievance or resolution procedure) you are offering them. Encouraging this dialogue will ensure that information about people’s needs, hopes and motivations is used to inform our understanding of the problems we are facing – as well as our understanding of the relative usefulness or otherwise of the processes we are using to solve them.
3. Equip managers with the skills they need to create spaces in their teams for powerful conversations that give employees the opportunity to speak up, listen up and accept and recognise the consequences of their behaviours. Managers need to be able to facilitate these conversations, and also ask themselves difficult questions such as: ‘Are we being truly inclusive?’, ‘Are there differences in the room that aren’t being discussed?’ and: ‘Have I got the confidence as a manager to have a conversation about the fact a Black person’s experience of work is different to a white person’s?’

Until managers have the skills and support they need to have these challenging conversations, issues of racism and discrimination will continue to be perpetuated in our workplaces and we will continue to rely on binary, confrontational and outdated procedures.

Leaders and people professionals are rightly thinking deeply about how to create an anti-racist organisation and tackling discrimination. But none of that will matter if your decision making is incoherent, your policies are reactive and corrosive, there is a lack of transparency and governance, the conversations are not happening at the sharp end and you are not engaging your employees in the process of dialogue, engagement and inclusion.