Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work

by Ruchika T. Malhotra

If we believe in inclusion morally, ethically, and as a way to drive profitability and productivity, then why are we so terrible at it? Because we don’t realize—or don’t want to accept—that inclusion isn’t an inborn trait. It takes awareness, intention, and regular practice.

My 2015 book The Diversity Advantage was intended to help company leaders develop research-based strategies to advance gender equality at every level of the workplace—recruitment, retention, and advancement.4 Since it was published, I’ve found that institutional changes like corporate diversity programs designed for women are only part of the puzzle. Strategies must be intersectional; to be effective, they must prioritize the advancement of women of color, who carry the two largest and most visible marginalized identities in the workplace. Without an intersectional approach, changes to support women’s advancement are incomplete at best, and at worst, inadvertently create cultures where women of color are deeply discriminated against—often while white women ascend.

White supremacy is pervasive. Unequivocally, white people are associated with progress and wealth. Further, in almost all workplaces, white people are at an advantage, no matter where they are in the world, even in countries where there is paltry representation of them. White expats or nonwhite locals who assimilate with or display more proximity to whiteness, such as lighter skin color, Western education, culture, or accents, are typically more likely to advance than comparable peers without this proximity to whiteness.

Anti-Blackness is pervasive. Black people experience discrimination or disadvantage, even in countries where they are in the majority.

The intersection between gender and race/ethnicity uniquely impacts women. While women all over the world are at a disadvantage in society and workplaces compared with men, the intersection between gender and race is a key differentiator between women’s experiences. Taking an intersectional lens to equality becomes paramount because racism deeply compounds the bias women of color experience.

“Diversity” refers to seeking the equal or greater representation of underrepresented, historically marginalized people, especially women of color. I do not use “diverse” as an adjective to describe a person of color as that framing centers white people as the default. Instead, I’ll be specific where possible, such as “we are seeking to hire more Black/Latinx/Indian people,” or “people of color” not “diverse people.”

“Equity,” which must be central to all diversity and inclusion efforts, refers to identifying and dismantling systemic barriers to the representation and inclusion of women, people of color, and people from other historically marginalized communities.

“Inclusion” refers to the actions taken to represent, welcome, and value people from historically underestimated, marginalized communities such as women of color. Inclusive workplaces encourage women of color to bring their whole, authentic selves to work without fear of being excluded or discriminated against.

“Diversity is being invited to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance,” Vernā Myers, vice president of of inclusion strategy at Netflix, is frequently quoted saying. I like to add, “Equity is being part of the planning committee.”

If you are a cis, straight white man reading this, it is not your fault that you are overrepresented in the workplace or that people will not second-guess your abilities. It is your responsibility, though, to understand how people with marginalized identities are often held back at work because they face biases that your privilege has allowed you to be immune from. It is also your responsibility to recognize that just because you have not experienced discrimination, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You have the power to use your privilege to help create more equitable outcomes for those around you.

The impact of systemic racism, classism, xenophobia, and other biases was categorically absent when the concept of imposter syndrome was developed … [which] puts the blame on individuals, without accounting for the historical and cultural contexts that are foundational to how it manifests in both women of color and white women. Imposter syndrome directs our view toward fixing women at work instead of fixing the places where women work.

“Asking you to acknowledge your privilege does not minimize your personal hardship and suffering. It does not make your pain any less legitimate if you acknowledge someone else’s pain, which, by chance or birth, you find yourself free of. When it comes to white privilege, having it does not make your life easy, but understanding it can make you realize why some people’s lives are harder than they should be,” as organizational psychologist John Amaechi explains in the Financial Times.2

“The problem isn’t men, it’s patriarchy. The problem isn’t white people, it’s white supremacy. The problem isn’t straight people, it’s homophobia. Recognize systems of oppression before letting individual defensiveness stop you from dismantling them.”

unequal representation deeply impacts company culture and poses a challenge to inclusive leadership.

It is impossible as a leader to correct what you can’t identify. To make meaningful progress, we must specifically seek out what exclusion looks like, and the experiences of women of color are key to guiding this inquiry.

This is a clear case of why it’s necessary for leaders who are inclusive on purpose to specifically seek out the experience of women of color to gauge how inclusive an environment really is.

Introducing the BRIDGE Framework So where do we begin? I developed a memorable acronym—BRIDGE—to approach cultivating an inclusion mindset. Be uncomfortable Reflect (on what you don’t know) Invite feedback Defensiveness doesn’t help Grow from your mistakes Expect that change takes time

Just because it isn’t your experience, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

Of course, there’s no denying that racism and xenophobia exist globally and in many workplaces. But when you don’t have regular and close contact with different people, it’s more challenging to empathize with experiences unlike your own or even be aware that they exist at all. That’s why inclusion takes intention.

The intersection between gender and racial exclusion may not resonate with everyone, but everyone can remember a time when they were overlooked or felt like they didn’t belong.

Hamilton urges leaders to call people of color “underestimated”—not underrepresented. This shift in nomenclature could be profound. If you consider someone underrepresented, you may rationalize that it is not in your hands to increase representation; they need to shift from being underrepresented to “represented.” But if someone is underestimated, the onus now shifts to you, as the leader, to ensure that they are recognized for their full potential.

When an employee is part of a social demographic comprising less than 15 percent of the overall organization’s makeup, it can have negative consequences on the employee’s well-being and productivity.

A white person may think that they are giving a compliment that they themselves wouldn’t mind receiving. But calling a person of color “articulate” is a microaggression rooted in the racist belief that people of color are not expected to be articulate. The fact that so many are unaware of why this (and other similar “compliments”) constitute a microaggression is only further proof of the need for white as well as other people with privilege to develop awareness and empathy.

“I’ve experienced racism in my life that has scared me.… I remember once I had people yell at me from their car and call me an alien, but I have to admit the times I really think about are those little moments, like where I was walking in a white neighborhood and I had someone say ‘excuse me, are you lost?’ and I think those just stick with you more because … when you think you belong, but very quickly you realize that other people think you don’t belong.”9

We can’t expect empathy to last, and many of the issues we see of racism and inequality in society are not just problems of empathy but rather structural inequality, says Zaki in an interview with NPR. “But one thing that I think we can do is use the empathic momentum we have to make sure that we’re creating policies that put Black and brown voices in positions of leadership and in high-profile positions in our culture, because one way to practice empathy is to hear from people who are different from you on a regular basis.”

“It feels like the sexism that I know you can understand, but it’s compounded in ways that you may not be able to understand, but I hope you can seek to empathize how sexism is compounded for women of color.”

My collaborator Jodi-Ann Burey and I concluded in the previously mentioned well-read Harvard Business Review article that, “Imposter syndrome directs our view toward fixing women at work instead of fixing the places where women work.”3 Suffice to say, when women of color get the credit they deserve, we are much likely to see this narrative desist.

Meritocracy convinces us that like cream, brilliance rises to the top. But in reality, it depends on who delivers the message.

Women of color do not need special accommodations to excel (not even close); what we need is the unwavering belief in our potential to succeed and being offered opportunities to prove our capabilities, like our white counterparts.

CHECKLIST □ Are there a diversity of people represented at this meeting? Are women of color represented? □ Who is presenting at or leading this meeting? Could a woman of color lead or present? □ Does this high-visibility project have at least one woman of color as part of it? If not, who should be part of it? □ Do women of color repeatedly get interrupted or have their ideas repeated by men who get the credit? How can I intervene? □ What proportion of the speakers on this panel or conference are women of color? Can it be higher? □ Are people getting paid (financially or otherwise) to take on a task or extra work? Are women of color getting equally compensated? □ Am I sponsoring any women of color professionally? □ Who do I personally consider role models of leadership? Is there diversity in that—and are women of color represented in my models of leadership? □ Is the office housework being distributed equitably? If not, how could it be? □ If I am involved in hiring or promotion decisions, when have I last advocated for a woman of color?

“The old culture fit model relied on deciding whether to hire someone if you thought you could be stuck in an airport or blizzard with them. It’s a bizarre metric—and riddled with biases, because you would likely choose to be stuck in an airport in a blizzard with someone who looks like you,” she says. But that isn’t the best assessment of who would best perform a job on your team.

During these interactions, she advises her clients to inquire of interviewees, “How will you add to the culture on our team?”

In most cases, the idea of culture fit stems from affinity bias.6 It makes sense that we would believe people with shared identities would be easier and more fun to work with. Unfortunately, this approach to hiring people like us means that we leave people out who don’t share the same affinities as us. Uncomfortable as it is to admit, affinity bias is rampant in our workplaces today.

It’s also important to make your application process as transparent and explicit as possible, and inform the candidates about what every step will look like.

To be inclusive on purpose, be up front about the process. Telling all candidates that “you will have three rounds of interviews with three different managers at the company, and the salary band is as stated in the listing. We expect to make the hire within three weeks” is much fairer than the typical process today where only people who know the rules of the game win.

I also advise employers to prioritize diversity in a candidate pool too. Refuse to review résumés or move to the interview phase unless there is a diverse representation of backgrounds.

Assemble a diverse interview loop to create an inclusive interview experience for a candidate from an underestimated background.

Next I recommend that each interview debrief should begin with the question, “Where could bias be showing up in this decision?” It sounds uncomfortable, and it can be, but naming biases is necessary to practice inclusion on purpose during hiring.

Create more structured interview processes to reduce the subjectivity that often informs hiring decisions.

Create a standard list of questions that each interviewer will ask and decide on a corresponding interview scorecard for each question, ideally with a numerical rating scale. Decide in advance whether each question is weighted equally or are there certain skills that are more necessary to the role. Determining this in advance is crucial because bias could emerge if you end up weighting the factors that candidates in the dominant majority (white male) scored well in more heavily so as to give them the edge.

Interview Recommendations How this can help mitigate bias Have a diverse interview loop and avoid panel interviews. A homogeneity of interviewees can indicate to candidates that diversity is not valued on the team. Panel interviews can reinforce hiring for culture fit over culture add. Create structured interviews, asking each candidate the same questions. Create corresponding interview scorecard for each question, with a rating scale (such as one through five). Determine whether questions will be weighted the same or if some are more important. This mitigates affinity bias. During interviews, ask the same questions in the same order, every time. This mitigates affinity bias or an interview process where the candidates are judged on different criteria. Score interviews right away. By not relying on memory, bias is reduced because we’re more likely to remember feelings and affinity rather than specific answers. Refrain from asking questions or having conversations about culture fit or criteria (both official and in discussions) around culture fit. Seek to bring culture add—people who are different and will add diversity to your team. If you’re seeking to diversify your organization, why hire for sameness? When discussing candidates in a group, start with the question, “Where could there be bias in this decision?” Making a group aware that biases may exist in decision-making is more likely to help draw out the biases and seek to rectify them. Using the interview scorecard, c...

Taking an intersectional lens to the data in the United States presents an even more nuanced picture. For every dollar that a white man earns: Asian women make eighty-five cents White women make seventy-seven cents Black women make sixty-one cents Native American women make fifty-seven cents Latinx women make fifty-four cents2

Many people may assume that an employee who graduated from a top college deserves higher pay than one who graduated from a lesser-known institution, or did not complete or even attend college. Yet given what we now understand about disparities in educational attainment, as I illuminated in previous chapters, it is time to let go of that harmful assumption. Tying pay to the educational institution that a person attended is just another way of perpetuating a racist system where white men are paid more than women of color. In fact, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, Black women earned more degrees than any other racial group.

Until white people, especially white men, transparently share rates, women of color will not know the fair market rate for a role.

The greatest way to advocate for women of color is to share your numbers. If all managers could plainly state numbers, such transparency would create inclusion at scale.

When you are in a position to work with vendors, including speakers or consultants, state your budget up front. And please do not ask professional speakers to speak for free. You would not expect your catering company to provide refreshments for your event for free, nor would you expect the light and sound technicians to supply their services uncompensated. So why expect that of conference speakers?

Essentially, many experts say women don’t ask for more because many are socialized to believe that advocating for themselves would run contrary to societal expectations of being agreeable.

To be inclusive on purpose, you have to lead pay conversations without negotiations.

The staggering gap in opportunities between women of color and their white counterparts in reaching the highest levels of pay is what’s more insidious and underdiscussed.

To begin the global pay analysis, Adobe first defined what it wanted to measure: pay parity, which it defined as “ensuring that employees in the same job and location are paid fairly relative to one another, regardless of their gender or ethnicity.” Then it took the time to clearly define jobs before beginning the comparisons—not an easy task given that employees with different skills and functions were often classified the same by HR.