On March 23, 2012, then-President Barack Obama made a statement about the killing of an unarmed, 17-year-old Black teenager, Travyon Martin, by a neighborhood watch volunteer. “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon Martin,” he said. “When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids.” Tim Cook, the openly gay CEO of Apple, shed tears during a moment of silence at a developer conference in 2016 to honor the 49 victims of a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. In 2019, Latinx individuals in the U.S. described feeling “hunted” after 22 people, almost all of whom were immigrants of Latinx descent, were killed in a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.
Supporting Employees After Violence Against Their Community
Research sheds light on what organizations can do when employees feel threatened because of their identity.
October 05, 2022
HBR Staff/deepart386/Spiderstock/WhataWin/Getty Images
Summary.
“Mega-threats” — defined as incidents that are negative, receive intense media attention, and are intrinsically linked to the victim(s) identities’ (their race, gender, sexuality, immigrant status, etc.) — not only make employees with similar identities feel threatened. They can also impact their ability to work, resulting in a high avoidance of tasks and colleagues. Recent research explores why this occurs and outlines how organizations can better create an environment where underrepresented employees don’t have to manage the stress of asking, “Am I next?” alone.