The past year has been filled with company-wide meetings and communications about race, public commitments to racial justice, and aspirational goals for equality. But communications and statements aren’t enough: Companies need to hold themselves accountable for action so they don’t simply maintain historical structures and cultures of racism. Indeed, some of the statements from last summer have already been met with skepticism from employees who claim that company proclamations of racial justice are hypocritical given the way they’re actually treated in the workplace.
Businesses Must Be Accountable for Their Promises on Racial Justice
Five strategies to ensure good intentions yield meaningful outcomes.
June 01, 2021
David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
Summary.
A year after the murder of George Floyd and a summer in which businesses declared themselves to stand for racial justice, many of those promises remain unfulfilled. Companies fail to hold themselves accountable for a number of reasons, ranging from a disbelief in the fundamental problem of racial inequity to realities about how hard it can be to pinpoint certain inequitable behaviors. To establish accountability, companies should: be transparent about current levels of racial representation, future goals, and progress; develop incentives for leaders to practice inclusive leadership and penalties for when they don’t meet those goals; and pay close attention to the language used to discuss equity in the workplace.
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