The Workplace Isn’t Equal for Black Women. Here’s How Companies Can Change That

by Raena Saddler and Rachel Thomas

Corporate America isn’t doing nearly enough to support black women. That’s a major injustice and a missed opportunity. And there are relatively simple things companies can do right now to begin to fix it.

RAENA SADDLER is the Vice President of People & Managing Director of The Sheryl Sandberg & Dave Goldberg Family Foundation

FFOR FIVE YEARS, Lean In has conducted the Women in the Workplace survey, the largest study on the state of women in corporate America. 1 To our knowledge, it’s also the largest study on the experiences of women of color at work. All statistics in this article are from this report unless otherwise noted.

Year after year, the data tell the same story: despite being highly ambitious, black women face far more barriers to advancement and receive notably less support than women as a whole. RACHEL THOMAS is Founder & Board Member of Lean In

Black women are more likely to want to lead; 41 percent of black women are interested in becoming top executives, compared with 29 percent of white women. And they don’t want power only for power’s sake: black women with leadership ambitions are particularly interested in paving the way for others and having a positive impact on their company’s culture. They know firsthand how hard the road can be, especially for women of color, and they want to help change that.

At a time when companies say they want to recruit, promote, and cultivate more women leaders, it would seem evident that investing in black women – who both want to lead and to help develop the next generation of diverse leaders – is a smart thing to do.

But that’s not happening. In fact, the opposite is.

It starts with a lack of support from managers. Black women are less likely than white women to say that their managers advocate for new opportunities for them, give them chances to manage people and projects, provide opportunities to showcase their work, help them manage their career paths, or help them navigate organizational politics. These are the keyways that managers use to help employees grow, stretch, and get the experience they need to move to the next level –and black women get less of this help than nearly everyone else.

They also get fewer opportunities to build relationships with managers off the clock: only about a third of black women socialize with their manager outside of work, compared to about half of white women.

Additionally, black women receive less sponsorship—the informal support that senior employees give promising junior employees. A sponsor might introduce you to influential connections, highlight your work to senior leaders, or recommend you for jobs and promotions. Only 24 percent of black women say they get the sponsorship they need to advance their careers, compared with 31 percent of white women. And 59 percent of black women say that they have never – not once –had an informal interaction with a senior leader at work. 2

This inequality can be deeply frustrating and discouraging. The workplace should be a place where everyone gets an equal shot at proving themselves and equal access to support to help them grow. For years, black communities lament that they must be twice as good or work twice as hard as their white peers to succeed. The data tells us that they’re right. As one black woman surveyed for Women in the Workplace put it, “I don’t feel I have the same opportunities as others. If you look like the people making the decisions, it’s easier to advance. And I don’t look like any of the people making decisions here.”

The numbers confirm that. Black women are underrepresented at every level of corporate America. The gap is largest at the top: only 21 percent of C-suite leaders are women, only four percent are women of color, and only one percent are black women. Among Fortune 500 CEOs, only 25 are women and zero are black women. 3

This is not just a problem at the top. Lean In has learned from years of studying the data that gender and race gaps begin widening early in the pipeline. We’ve identified the “broken rung” on the corporate ladder: the first step up to manager from the entry level. That’s where we start to

see inequality in terms of which workers advance and which do not. For every 100 entry-level men promoted to manager, only 58 black women are. None of these workers have built long track records yet, they were all strong enough to be hired in the first place, and black women are asking for raises and promotions at the same rates as men. It doesn’t make sense that so many of those promotions are going to men instead of women—and that black women are badly outnumbered. Either men are simply more talented –which we know is not the case or black women are being held back by gender and racial bias.

From the time when black women encounter that broken rung on the corporate ladder, it’s numerically impossible for them to climb fast enough to catch up. At every subsequent level – senior manager, vice president, senior vice president, all the way to CEO – their representation becomes increasingly more and more lopsided.

A powerful consequence of this underrepresentation is that many black women are having an “Only” experience. Our research finds that 54 percent of black women are the only, or one of the only, people of color on their teams at work. And we know that so-called “Onlys” are having a more negative experience at work than people who aren’t “the only one in the room.” Women who are “Onlys” for their gender and race are more likely to experience everyday discrimination, also known as microaggressions. They are less likely to recommend their company as a great place to work and less likely to feel like they have equal opportunities for growth and advancement.

Black women having the “Only” experience are significantly more likely to feel closely watched and to think that their actions reflect positively or negatively on other people like them. As one black woman described it, “I feel like I have to represent the entire race. I need to come across as more than proficient, more than competent, more than capable. I must be on all the time. Because in the back of someone’s mind, they could be judging the entire race based on me.” 4

All these factors add up to a workplace where black women often deal with isolation, heightened scrutiny, and disrespect. Many black women report dealing with microaggressions. Compared to workers of other races and ethnicities, black women are the most likely to have their judgment questioned in their area of expertise. They’re almost three times more likely than white men to feel that they need to provide evidence of their competence. And they’re more likely than other women to hear people express surprise at their language skills or other abilities.

As one black woman put it, “At work I’m under a microscope. I feel an immense pressure to perform.” Few would say that they can consistently bring their authentic selves to work under those circumstances—much less do the quality work they can and want to do.

To some degree, women of all backgrounds report similar workplace experiences. But black women face compounding biases because they are women and because they are black, and as a result, their experiences are distinct and by and large more negative than the experiences of white women. As one black woman said, “A lot of black women think that many gender initiatives are really tailored toward white women. Are they targeting women of color, too? It often doesn’t feel like it.” Women can also experience biases due to sexual orientation, a disability, their religious beliefs, or other aspects of their identity – and the compounded discrimination can be significantly greater than the sum of its parts. Research shows people with three or more marginalized identities often feel like they don’t belong anywhere. 5 Not surprisingly, black women are far less likely than women overall to feel they have an equal opportunity to grow and advance, and they are far less likely to think the best opportunities go to the most deserving employees. They are also less happy at work than women overall and more likely to think about leaving their company.

Moreover, there’s a pay gap. In 2019, for every dollar that white men earned, black women earned just 62 cents. 6 Over a lifetime, those lost wages total close to $1 million. 7 Even when you control for factors like education, experience, industry, role, and hours worked, the pay gap still exists. 8 And it exists despite the fact that women are asking for raises at about the same rates as men. More than 50 years after the U.S. Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, it’s unacceptable that millions of women are still paid less than men in similar roles—and that black women and other women of color have to deal with the double blow of both the gender pay gap and the racial pay gap. This is so fundamental. We won’t see real, lasting progress for black women unless we pay them fairly for their work.

It’s worth taking a moment to remember why companies should make diversity and inclusion a priority. It’s the right thing to do—full stop. And beyond that, it’s the smart thing to do. Diverse companies are more profitable. 9 They’re more innovative. 10 When companies promote more women into leadership roles, workplace policies become more family friendly, which benefits everyone. 11 And Lean In’s data shows

that opportunity and fairness are together the strongest predictors of employee satisfaction. This is true across genders, races, and ethnicities. Whether you’re a black woman or a white man, when you believe that you have an equal chance to advance and—this is key—that your coworkers do too, you plan to stay longer at your company and are more likely to recommend it to others.

Therefore, the data about black women’s experiences at work should ring alarm bells for every C-suite leader and manager. Gender diversity efforts need to be designed to advance all women, and right now, in too many workplaces, that’s not happening. When so many black women aren’t getting an equal shot at opportunity or equal access to support, it’s powerful evidence that companies are falling short – with implications for their employees’ happiness and their own bottom line.

The reality of the gender and racial disparities that persist in our workplaces is sobering. But the good news is that there are steps companies can take to swiftly reduce bias and help create a workplace where everyone can thrive. Here are a few. Set targets and track progress—by gender and race. It’s hard to know how your company is doing on representation if you don’t measure it, and it’s hard to achieve goals that you don’t set. That’s why setting targets and tracking progress are key. Today, only seven percent of companies set diversity targets based on both gender and race. That number needs to grow, because it’s not enough to set and track targets only by gender or only by race. Both must be taken into account. Otherwise, black women and other women of color become at least somewhat invisible – which is exactly the problem companies should be trying to solve. Expect more from leaders. Leaders – managers, senior managers, vice presidents, up to the C-suite – have a major role to play in determining whether black women are treated like equal and valuable employees. There’s a lot that leaders can do, starting with making it a priority to mentor and sponsor black women. Right now, black women are far less likely to get that kind of support, with significant ramifications for their careers. Leaders should also get bias training and make sure that their teams do the same. That bias training must address gender and racial bias and the compounding effects of both, because black women deal with both every day. More broadly,

leaders need to show that they get it. They should explicitly say that advancing black women is a priority—and they should back their words with real commitment. We know what it looks like when something is a true priority for a company. Leaders should show through their actions that doing more to support women of color matters.

Take the bias out of hiring and promotions.

Who you hire and promote are the two most powerful levers for changing representation at your company. Bias is often inherent in those choices. One study found that changing the name on a resume from a woman’s name to a man’s name increases a candidate’s hire ability by 61 percent. 12 Another study found that replacing a stereotypical black name with a stereotypical white name was the equivalent of adding eight years of work experience to a candidate’s resume. 13

Companies should do everything they can to remove bias from hiring decisions. For example, make it a rule to assemble a diverse slate of qualified candidates for every open position. Make sure evaluators receive bias training on a semi-regular basis. Establish clear and specific criteria before employee reviews to make it less likely that reviewers will make decisions based on subjective feelings. You can learn more about these and other ways to reduce bias from Lean In’s 50 Ways to Fight Bias program. And remember to focus on the broken rung – the first step up to manager – where gender and racial gaps significantly begin to widen.

Audit compensation data. Do you know if you’re paying black women less than their colleagues in the same roles? Find out and, if you are, correct the imbalance. And if your company asks job candidates about their current compensation, consider dropping that practice. It’s already illegal in some states, and it can perpetuate pay disparities. Make the “Only” experience rare for black women. Companies should take steps to reduce the number of black women who are the only person of their race and gender in the room. That means moving beyond the mindset of “one and done”; real diversity requires real numbers. Additionally, companies should be thoughtful about how they move women through their organization. One approach is to hire and promote black women in cohorts; another is to cluster black women on teams. Looking for opportunities to staff groups of women in a variety of functions across the organization can reduce the isolation these

women feel – which frees them to do their best work. Creating employee resource groups specifically for black women can also help make them feel more supported and less alone.

The good news, companies are becoming more serious about making the workplace better for women. In 2019, 87 percent of companies said they were highly committed to gender diversity, compared to 56 percent in 2012. And 77 percent of companies now say they are highly committed to racial diversity. 14 Now companies need to do more to put that commitment into practice.

In particular, they need to make a serious commitment to their black women employees. These women are doing their part. They’re working hard. They’re setting bold goals for themselves. They want to grow, succeed, and lead. Right now, for too many black women, it’s far more difficult to achieve those goals than it should be. That’s unjust, and it’s bad for business. Companies that take steps to make their workplaces fair will see the results. And black women will finally get the equal chance they’ve always deserved.

Notes:

1 – LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company, Women in the Workplace 2019 (October 2019), https://womenintheworkplace.com/. All statistics are from this report unless otherwise noted. 2 – LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company, Women in the Workplace 2018 (October 2018), https://leanin.org/ women-in-the-workplace. 3 – Fortune, “Fortune 500” (2019), https://fortune.com/fortune500/. 4 – LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company, Women in the Workplace 2018 (October 2018), https://leanin.org/ women-in-the-workplace. 5 – Nina A. Nabors, Ruth L. Hall, Marie L. Miville, et al., “Multiple Minority Group Oppression: Divided We Stand?” Journal of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association 5, no. 3 (2001): 101–5, https://link.springer. com/article/10.1023/A:1011652808415. 6 – Ariane Hegewisch and Adiam Tesfaselassie, “The Gender Wage Gap: 2018; Earnings Differences by Gender, Race, and Ethnicity.” Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Accessed August 20, 2019. https://iwpr. org/publications/annual-gender-wage-gap-2018/. 7 – National Women’s Law Center. “The Lifetime Wage Gap, State by State.” March 2019, https://nwlc.org/ resources/the-lifetime-wage-gap-state-by-state/. 8 – Valerie Wilson, Janelle Jones, Kayla Blado, and Elise Gould, “Black Women Have to Work 7 Months into 2017 to Be Paid the Same as White Men in 2016,” Economic Policy Institute (2017), https://www.epi.org/ blog/black-women-have-to-work-7-months-into-2017-to-be-paid-the-same-as-white-men-in-2016/. 9 – Sangeeta Badal, “The Business Benefits of Gender Diversity,” Gallup (January 20, 2014), https://www. gallup.com/workplace/236543/business-benefits-gender-diversity.aspx; Sara Ellison and Wallace P. Mullin, “Diversity, Social Goods Provision, and Performance in the Firm,” Journal of Economics and Management Strategy 23, no. 2 (Summer 2014): 465–81, https://economics.mit.edu/files/8851; Vivian Hunt, Lareina Yee, Sara Prince, and Sundiatu Dixon-Fyle, Delivering Through Diversity, McKinsey & Company (2018), https:// www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/delivering-through-diversity. 10 – Katherine W. Phillips, “How Diversity Makes Us Smarter,” Scientific American, October 1, 2014, https:// www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-diversity-makes-us-smarter. 11 – Paul Ingram and Tal Simons, “Institutional and Resource Dependence Determinants of Responsiveness to Work-Family Issues,” The Academy of Management Journal 38, no. 5 (1995): 1466–82, http://www.jstor. org/stable/256866?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents. 12 – Rhea E. Steinpreis, Katie A. Anders, and Dawn Ritzke, “The Impact of Gender on the Review of Curricula Vitae of Job Applicants and Tenure Candidates: A National Empirical Study,” Sex Roles 41, nos. 7–8 (1999): 509–28. 13 – Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, “Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination,” The American Economic Review 94.4 (, 2004): 991–1013. 14 – LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company, Women in the Workplace 2019 (October 2019), https://womenintheworkplace.com/.