"It's very easy for companies to think, we've delivered on women, on gender, we have parity. But without looking at data intersectionally, looking at groups across signs of difference, we may not see the groups for whom we aren't creating the conditions to thrive. For Black colleagues, the barriers they face to advancement seem to be largely invisible to their white colleagues," says Lanaya Irvin, CEO of Coqual.
"A material gap in perception makes overcoming these retention, development, and advancement hurdles much more difficult for Black employees. It's because the gap between what employees are experiencing and what their peers or managers understand or believe is wide," explains Irvin. "When I spend time with senior leaders in our task force, I think that what we find in being Black in corporate America is hugely instructive for what larger companies should be and should foster at their firms. This sense of trust, a sense of community, lifts the ideas of others and fosters a sense of belonging," she says.
Discrimination is much more likely to occur in a promotion process when leaders do not have clear promotion criteria or they don't apply those criteria consistently.