How do we adequately address societal prejudice? This question, and its various derivatives, has become recurrent on the agendas of management meetings throughout corporate SA. For many within their structures, however, this question is actually stripped of the weight of its required efforts and presents more like, how do we avoid being the next entity to appear in the headlines over a prejudice-based scandal?
In truth, we are not where we could be with the transformative efforts of corporates in SA. We agree that it may be harsh to completely dismiss the efforts of those corporates that have implemented well-meaning polices to address transformation and representation within their structures. A number of corporates have already come to accept the research that reveals that a diverse workforce provides more value-add for a company than a homogeneous group could.
However, “well-meaning” policies do not equate to effective policies. Those policies, which, admittedly, may have led to a degree of prescribed transformation and representation within these entities, may no longer be sufficient when we consider the pace of societal progression on these issues against an honest internal analysis of culture, development and retention patterns.
The wealth of diversity within a corporation only reveals itself when there is diversity of ideas, skills, approaches to practice and general experience within a corporation.
The truth is that a company that carries out this box-ticking exercise can’t easily be considered a space that allows for a worthwhile degree of variation to flourish, uninhibited by lingering, silent prejudices.
How, then, do we address the lingering prejudice even within the most well-meaning of corporate entities? We would be brazen to assume that we present the complete answer to this question. However, what we may present is a thought path through which corporates may begin answering that question for themselves.
Representation without authority will always fall short of occupying spaces where it could have been heard.
We begin, quite bluntly, with the suggestion to make an increased effort to filter younger, more diverse groups of employees not just into the employee body but into its existing leadership structures.
Historically, the view has been taken by corporates that good recruitment statistics enable an entity to brag about doing enough to transform, or consider that employee list to be interchangeable with one’s experience of an entity. This ignores the reality that we are dealing with a larger, more invisible issue.
Employee quotas may appear to be a direct fix to boosting representation within the entity, but it does nothing to adjust a corporate’s culture in a way that aids the removal of barriers, prejudices and micro- or macro-aggressions that less-represented groups tend to experience. We are in need of a broader, more comprehensive approach that moves attention away from infographics and stats and directs scrutiny towards a corporation’s internal culture.
The unintended consequences of box-ticking exercises, such as quotas or spoon-fed diversity training, is that the employee body will be unable to resist seeing these efforts merely as a compliance-fueled excise.
This attitude may reduce further employee engagement and support towards transformation initiatives. Effective business management requires that, to avoid a performative culture, we accept that cultural change arrives through a repeated experience of micro-behaviours as employees are better at monitoring or adjusting their own individual biases when there is no room for it within the company culture.
This shines a light on a neglected requirement that corporates, when looking at day-to-day management, must allocate more focus towards understanding every employee group and ensuring they feel they contribute in their role to the company culture in a sufficiently convincing way.
By having young members in leadership forums, corporates will not suddenly be saved from the possibility of being tripped up by prejudices, but having those voices can broaden the views to encompass issues that might otherwise be missed. As with democracy, what is important is the plurality of views to better inform the decisions taken and garnish the already present conventional wisdom at senior level.
This is not a radically novel position. Corporates are aware of this but due to reluctance to change drastically, as well as the critical eye towards youthfulness, corporates often seek to keep views relating to the management of their corporation strictly in the hands of the select “experienced” members. Often this results in a young leader’s forum or some similar new and externalised platform that is touted as giving a voice to young members.
When difficult decisions need to be taken the rate of worker backlash is reduced as they were part of the conversation from the start.
These forums tend to lose relevance with the passing over of each issue over time before effecting any real structural change. Representation without authority will always fall short of occupying spaces where it could have been heard.
Another note to be wary of is tokenism — having one young member there to represent the collective views of the progression of our society. To place this burden on the shoulders of one person is an inordinate responsibility. It also defeats the objectives of having young members in leadership structures as the purpose is to have a plurality of views and young people are not homogeneous. It is easy to unknowingly intimidate and silence one divergent voice, whereas if there are multiple voices this becomes less likely, but even if it does occur their collective strength is more likely to see them continuing to make attempts to engage.
Rather, let us consider the principle of co-determination as practised in Germany (mitbestimmung). Here, the requirement of German law that companies of a certain size have a third to a half of the supervisory board comprising workers has seen relationships between shareholders, upper management and workers become one of the best the world over, as the workers’ input allows them to meaningfully engage in how the companies operate. When difficult decisions need to be taken the rate of worker backlash is reduced as they were part of the conversation from the start. It is this filtering in of views that are not normally represented at a leadership level that makes the difference.
British journalist and author Yomi Adegoke writes that “diversity itself is only one part of the puzzle — inclusion is the bigger, most integral piece. If the culture of a workplace doesn’t genuinely embrace diversity of thought, the backgrounds of its staff mean nothing”. A considered and relevant corporate culture will recognise the strengths and talents of individual employees, and foster an environment in which each employee, in full acknowledgment of their identity, is able to provide their best contribution to a company that creates a healthy environment for them.
We can be presumptuous and suggest here that the real desire of an entity ought not to be how best to “respond” to an issue raised either directly to the entity or by a stakeholder society, but rather how to remain abreast of the continued conversation on the ground. By filtering in management structures that allow for this constant update to the necessary representative bodies of what tone our ever-evolving society takes at each turn, our corporations may then pick up the correct vocabulary and approach to each issue organically, rather than reacting to whatever lands on the table.
At present, the pace at which our institutions become wise to these necessary nuances can no longer easily be excused. We argue that the present transformative efforts corporations are familiar with may bear faster fruit with management structures in place that do not require that years of service be a prerequisite to feed into the earpiece of an entity’s culture, but uses these diverse hires to the company’s benefit even sooner.
The intentional decision to give birth to a structure through which an organisation would be able to draw inspiration or remain relevant about the softer running issues from their full arsenal of talent, is good for business.
• The authors are attorneys with Norton Rose Fulbright.
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