I can hardly believe that April is already here! Are you feeling like me that 2023 is moving too quickly?! Happy April to you. 

As you may know, we released a new report last month The State of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in Canadian Workplaces 2023 and it has been great to see the conversations it has started.

Because Q1 of this year was so fast-paced, I decided to have a tranquil and restful weekend. The need to rest and recharge is very real! Over the weekend, I read an informative article published by Harvard Business Review that discussed diversity, equity, and inclusion in workplaces and outlined reasons why employees might resist making the changes needed to move forward on achieving organizational DEI goals. The authors, Eric Shuman, Eric Knowles, and Amit Goldenberg, use psychology to explain why employees are resistive: status threat, merit threat, and moral threat. 

Employees from privileged communities experience status threat if they understand DEI initiatives as threatening their status within the workplace. The authors explained that these persons viewed DEI as a “zero-sum” gain, where they could lose status such as pay, job, promotions, etc. when persons from equity-deserving groups have access to these resources. Other employees might experience merit threat when they feel that by acknowledging the existence of systemic inequities, then they must also accept the fact that they have advanced in their careers and workplaces because of their privilege and not as a result of their own efforts. The third threat was moral threat and this occurred when workers who considered themselves progressive felt that their identities as being supportive of DEI were threatened because they benefited from their racial, level of ability, sexual, gender, and other privileges.

The authors outlined how workers could be defensive and thus resist the changes required by DEI employer programs in three ways: by defending the current system, denying the existence of inequity, or by distancing themselves from inequities. The authors suggested ways to overcome each of these barriers including changing the perception that DEI is a zero-sum game, using self-affirmation by creating space for persons to consider their values and beliefs and how these connect to the goals of DEI. Doing so will allow persons to move away from defensiveness and be willing to engage in the deeper problems and solutions required to create equitable and anti-racist workplaces. To address distancing, the authors suggested that self-affirmation can be helpful by connecting DEI efforts to shared values and not simply regarding DEI as a moral or legal obligation.

I found the authors' discussion of threats and resistance to DEI programs to be very informative. I know from my many years of facilitating equity and anti-racist training and processes that some individuals want to shut out what they are learning. I like for them to share what they are thinking and feeling so I can help them unpack it, but that doesn’t always happen. I recall a community training years ago where folks were not interested in discussing safety and equity issues affecting their community. Although the community experienced number of issues they felt we were outsiders telling them what to do, which was understandable because many of us from equity-deserving groups experience this. After almost an hour of resistance, I simply said “I understand you are not finding this information helpful, so we are going to leave.” Myself and two staff members went home. 

Considering the insights from this article, we started that training session, and most sessions, barraging people with statistics explaining how horrible the issues were in the city as a means to convince people of the need to work together as a community to address the issue. Perhaps we could have used psychology to approach the topic instead and allowed people to connect with the issues personally first by affirming their values and beliefs and reframing equity from a zero-sum perspective where if someone wins then everyone else loses. As facilitators, we could then encourage persons to understand equity as providing everyone with opportunities to create fair and just outcomes. Leading a process of redefining power from the concept of hierarchy that only benefits privileged groups to understanding power as collective empowerment and shared responsibility would have been a much more useful approach and still allow persons to do the difficult work, but perhaps feel more supported to do so. Unpacking power and privilege is difficult, but a necessary part of equity work.

Are you experiencing the same challenges in your workplace to DEI efforts? Will a psychological approach be more effective than a statistical one? Please share your feedback with me.

Thank you for reading this blog. And let me know what you think about DEI in Canadian workplaces.

Michelle

michelle@mvdconsulting.ca