The later racial equality comes, the further the world will be from racial justice, and the stronger the racial anger will be. Racial injustice in the United States attracts particular attention, as well as criticism, both within the United States of America and outside of this country. Newly elected US President Joe Biden portrays racial justice promotion as one of his four priorities. According to a recent article in the American weekly Time, the new president will have to indulge in “national reflections on racial justice” (Livingston, 2020). Racial discrimination has long been a widespread and systematic phenomenon in the US. The challenges brought by the novel coronavirus epidemic dealt an additional blow to ethnic minorities in the United States, reflecting the inequity among representatives of different nationalities in the economic and social resources field. This inevitably impacts the corporate world, employment regulations, and individual workers.
Today, companies usually consider stakeholders’ interests when making business decisions. Thus, racism in the walls of corporations might represent a severe threat to their financial prosperity. However, there are other crucial ways in which racial injustice hinders effective human resource management and competitiveness. For instance, it is proven that diversity boosts creative ideas and innovations. Moreover, businesses that fail to do diversity and inclusion policies in their offices are reported to be almost 30% likely to underperform in terms of financial gains (Dixon-Fyle et al., 2021). Therefore, candidates for a particular role already in a CV screening stage often are asked to declare whether they are non-White (Dixon-Fyle et al., 2021). The racial diversity policy definitely influences the whole recruitment process, granting Hispanic and Black candidates an opportunity to be selected based on their objective professional skills. This also prevents biases that are established when managers are guided by stereotypes when recruiting an employee.
Structural racism also harms people’s well-being and salaries, thus, provoking a more significant income gap. In the US, Black employees and paid less and, as a result, have less access to healthcare and other social benefits (World Economic Forum, 2021). In general, discrimination in the workplace may be a reason for stress and lower motivation. This reduces trust levels among coworkers and impedes effective ethic collaboration. Eventually, this leads to a poor company image, loss of income, and litigation (World Economic Forum, 2021). Not only would investors hesitate to finance racially unjust business, but also qualified jobseekers would likely opt for another placement.
As a company executive or regulator, I have introduced a number of measures to prevent racial discrimination. First of all, I would use fair and objective recruitment procedures. In particular, it must be ensured that recruitment and selection criteria focus on the experience, qualifications, and competencies needed for the job. Governments should develop, implement and fund national strategies and public policies to eliminate racial discrimination and harassment in employment and ensure equal participation of those most vulnerable to discrimination in employment (Livingston, 2020). These strategies should include the following:
- Availability of legal remedies available in practice;
- Effective, proportionate, and dissuasive sanctions for unlawful discrimination;
- Adoption and implementation of effective anti-discrimination practices and standards of equality and diversity in all areas of employment to end institutional discrimination in employment.
References
Dixon-Fyle, S., Dolan, K., Hunt, V., & Prince, S. (2021). Diversity wins: How inclusion matters. McKinsey & Company. Web.
Livingston, R. (2020). How to Promote Racial Equity in the Workplace. Harvard Business Review. Web.
World Economic Forum. (2021). 5 ways racism is bad for business. Web.