Giving Compass' Take:

• According to new research highlighted at Futurity, black workers’ position in an organization—top, middle, or bottom—informs and shapes their impressions of workplace racial discrimination.

• How can strong diversity and inclusion practices play a role in addressing racial issues within the workplace?

• Here's why cross-sector collaboration is necessary to address structural racism. 

“Our paper argues that black workers’ perceptions of racial discrimination derive not just from being in the minority, but also from their position in the organizational structure,” says coauthor Adia Harvey Wingfield, professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Research shows that black individuals encounter an enormous amount of racial discrimination in the workplace, including exclusion from critical social networks, wage disparities, and hiring disadvantages,” says Harvey Wingfield. “But we don’t know how to explain what kinds of discrimination seem most salient to black workers themselves, or why perceptions of discrimination vary within this racial group.

“HIGHER STATUS IN AN ORGANIZATION MEANS MORE EXPOSURE TO HOW POLICIES AND RULES ARE MADE—AND THE IMPACT THOSE CAN HAVE ON A WIDE CROSS-SECTION OF BLACK EMPLOYEES.”

“This study breaks new ground by showing that black workers who are highly positioned in an organization see different kinds of racial discrimination than those closer to the bottom,” she says.

Harvey Wingfield and coauthor Koji Chavez of Indiana University argue that the variation in how black workers perceive racial discrimination is linked to organizational processes that inform where and how black employees observe racial discrimination.

Read the full article about how black employees see racism by Neil Schoenherr at Futurity.