Despite the strides made over the years toward gender and racial equity, Black women in the workplace still face numerous barriers. These include unequal pay, limited career advancement opportunities, and persistent stereotypes.
Based on Census data from 2022, the wage gap for Black women compared to non-Hispanic white men is 67 cents for full-time, year-round workers and 64 cents for all workers (including part-time).
At Praxis Labs, we celebrate Black Women’s Equal Pay Day on July 27 to spread awareness of the ways pay discrimination and occupation segregation have historically harmed (and continue to harm) Black women in the workplace.
Data paves the path forward
That’s why we’ve gathered employee feedback on organizational areas to improve equity and inclusion. We looked across key employee lifecycle milestones from hiring to performance reviews. We analyzed the sentiments of over 12,000 learners, layering on demographic data like gender and race, to better understand the issues that women face — particularly those with intersectional identities.
Across the board, we saw gaps between men and women’s views about whether or not key processes within their organizations were equitable. Women of color, and in particular Black women, showed larger gaps. Here’s what we found:
Hiring
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- 75% of all men and 63% of all women agreed that at their organization, there were systems in place to ensure equity and inclusion in the hiring process.
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- When we break down that number further, we see 67% of Asian women and 65% of white and Latina women agree to this, but only 44% of Black women agree.
Mentorship and sponsorship
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- There is a gap between men (71%) and women (63%) who agree with the statement “My organization provides mentorship and sponsorship.”
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- When we again disaggregate these statistics, 67% of Latina and Asian women agree, 63% of white women agree and only 49% of Black women agree.
Compensation
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- 68% of all men and 62% of all women agree with the statement that they are “adequately and fairly compensated” for their work.
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- Again, reviewing this by race, 67% of white women and 65% Latina women agree, Asian women at 53%, but only 49% of Black women feel the same way.
Performance evaluations
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- 69% of all men and 68% of all women agreed that “there is a clear and defined system for evaluating my performance at work.”
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- A very high 70% of white women and 69% Asian and Latina women see that—but again, there’s a sharp drop for Black women, down to 57%.
So how do we, as workplace education experts, work to solve this?
While traditional diversity training methods have shown limitations in effecting meaningful change, immersive learning offers a solution.
Immersive learning facilitates the translation of knowledge into action by building the memory and muscle required to apply it in real-world situations; ultimately creating a feedback loop that connects learning outcomes and business goals. This approach, which capitalizes on dedicated knowledge and research about how people learn, has proven results, with research showing it can increase knowledge retention by up to 75%.
When you add employee sentiment data into the mix, organizations can use the insights gathered on the challenges faced by their employees to inform more strategic initiatives that focus on creating more equity for all employees, and especially Black women in the workplace.
Many modern training platforms available today are designed to collect and analyze this data, enabling organizations such as ServiceNow, Uber, and Merck to identify potential inequities, track their employees’ pain points, and see their progress over time.
Another useful tool for self-evaluation is conducting a pay audit — or assessing how pay gaps in your organization break across gender and racial lines. This will help you gain insight into the biases that may be unfairly influencing your company’s compensation structures.
Nuance is critical
This data reinforces what many already know to be true: inequities in career advancement, hiring, and pay equity are still gendered, racialized, and nuanced. The data also elevates the importance of intersectionality and the understanding that even among women, experiences in the workplace can vary greatly when you layer on race and other identity factors. As Kimberlé Crenshaw said, “All inequality is not created equal.”
This offers a lesson that organizations must dive deep into their metrics. Only through reviewing data from an intersectional lens can organizations truly understand the most pressing areas of concern and who is most impacted. And in turn, only then can businesses create thoughtful, targeted policies and practices to produce equitable outcome