In a country as diverse as the United States, it’s surprising to see that African-Americans are still underrepresented in executive positions in corporate work environments. In this article we will focus on trying to understand why this is happening, and what needs to be done to put an end to such a retrograde problem.
I think one main reason this is still a problem today is because some politicians believe that minorities and immigrants caused the middle-class to decline instead of globalization and technology. This political persuasion has caused a public uproar because of the media coverage.
Decades ago, US automakers partnered with Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to prepare black engineers for technical careers in the auto industry. The automakers hired all levels, which played a significant role in transitioning people from the lower class to middle class. This was a deliberate plan by auto manufacturers to improve diversity. One would think as years passed, corporations would have followed the auto manufactures diversity blueprint and the rest of the world would have caught on and a focus on minority hiring would be a common practice in every company’s advocacy group. Unfortunately, this is not the case because there is still a lack of African-Americans in white-collar jobs.
Another reason diversity programs in corporations and universities have slowed down is because of the phenomenon called “reverse discrimination”; when dominant groups receive unfair treatment for their efforts to help minority groups. White males are the dominant group and many believe that diversity programs (affirmative action) put them at a disadvantage by creating an uneven playing field. For example, James Damore a former Google engineer who wrote the famous “Google memo” which described how he thought Google’s diversity policies discriminate against conservative white males because of the active focus by Google to hire women and other minorities. Google fired Damore for writing the memo and he and his lawyer filed a lawsuit in January of 2018 alleging reverse discrimination. This has significantly impeded Google’s diversity hiring efforts.
Now, let us try to be objective by using data from the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) database. The EEOC shows the unequal opportunities between majority and minority groups. They categorize their database on employment by race, gender, and job classification and it demonstrates significant gaps when it comes to salaries and positions. The data we will focus on are:
- Black employment numbers
- Black promotion numbers
- Blacks in executive and management positions
Overall, the EEOC is a great reference although, it doesn’t show companies that have fewer than 100 employees.
The 2015 data shows:
- Black Women and Men represent less than 8% of the white-collar workforce.
- African-American median household income was 55% of whites in 1967 and 61% of whites in 2016; only a 6% increase in 49 years which is small.
- White men make up 61.3% of executive positions nationally.
The Executive Parity Index (EPI) gives us a clear view of how African-Americans have progressed in the management area and see if time has successfully accomplished a more diverse workforce. We can acknowledge that white men are the most represented in the management area; Executive Parity Index numbers are disadvantageous for African-Americans as well as other minority groups such as Asians and Hispanics.
Another important factor to consider and analyze in regards to measuring progress in black employees obtaining executive and management positions is their location; the city or state they live in since the EEOC keeps track of how diversity is reflected in work environments. Statistics show that black employment is minimum in high-tech regions in the United States.
On the positive side, there are some exceptions throughout many companies around the US about black employees achieving “white-collar” jobs and succeeding in their careers. Some of them made that happen by accepting challenging glass-cliff opportunities, taking on a large amount of risk, being exceptionally smart, adopting a leader’s attitude, making changes in their day-to-day lifestyle or by walking the extra mile to get where they wanted to be. I am an example of this and I know many others. I have neighbors and a significant network of African-American males and females who have white-collar jobs and are doing exceptionally well in their careers. Shot out to my Georgia Tech brown round brothers and sisters!
In order to make a definite and permanent change that helps and benefits black employees, we need companies to make employer data public. This way we can determine the companies that are truly focusing on diversity. Wow, I think I have suggested a great business opportunity.
BH Nugget
I have spoken to many white-collar black male and females over the course of my professional career. When we speak about what they are doing at their companies to increase diversity some say they are mentoring, deliberately hiring, joining networks, doing speaking and recruiting engagements, etc. I feel that every black professional should be deliberate about their attempt to hire other black candidates when they have hiring authority. I am not saying choose only black candidates at all, but what I am saying is they should search for qualified black candidates in their pool of open candidates. Other groups do the same. But many have also said that they feel hiring other black employees put them at risk. Why do they feel like this? Why doesn’t hiring any other person outside the black race put them at the same risk? I will make a podcast to discuss this.
Sources:
Michael Glee, (28, February 2018), “Why Aren’t Black Employees Getting More White-Collar Jobs?”, https://hbr.org/2018/02/why-arent-black-employees-getting-more-white-collar-jobs , HBR, Accessed 10/19/2018
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