A RECENT global poll of over 5,000 employees, including women, men, transgender, and non-binary individuals, found that most workers who identify as members of marginalised racial and ethnic groups had encountered racism at work.
Two thirds, or 66 per cent, of workers from marginalised racial and ethnic groups, according to the consultancy Catalyst, responded in the affirmative when asked if they had ever encountered racism at work.
Additionally, the study revealed that 52 per cent of participants reported having encountered discrimination in their present place of employment.
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States were among the countries represented among the survey’s respondents.
Lorraine Hariton, president, and CEO of Catalyst: “Our findings show that racism in the workplace is deeply embedded, often flying under the radar in the form of offhand comments or other exclusionary behaviours.
“It’s imperative that leaders at every level of an organisation act to combat racism and build antiracist workplaces, address racist and discriminatory incidents, and create environments of physical and psychological safety that enable employees to report racist experiences.”
According to Catalyst, the most prevalent way that racism manifested itself in the workplace was through harassment; 48 per cent of respondents reported having experienced “racist jokes, slurs, and other derogatory comments”.
Nearly one-third reported having encountered “employment and professional inequities,” such as pay gaps or instances when their race prevented them from being promoted or from being given more or less work than their peers.
Furthermore, even though respondents said that leaders were often the ones to start acts of racism, co-workers and clients or customers were also commonly the ones to start racist incidents.
According to Catalyst’s results, acts of racism were started by white individuals in four of the five incidents, and by people of colour in one of the five cases.
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