Workplaces are diverse spaces with people from different walks of life, collaborating towards a common vision. This diversity often goes beyond gender and includes social identities like age, race, sexual orientation, and socio-economic background among others.
With diversity comes the added importance of awareness and sensitivity.. A workplace that lacks this can also create a threat for employees to be at the receiving end of bullying, microaggressions or insensitive and inappropriate behaviour.
Specifically, employees from underrepresented social groups have an increased risk of being targeted with harassment on the basis of their ethnicity and culture. A 2023 study that surveyed over 5000 employees across the globe found that two-thirds of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups report being harassed for their identity during their careers.
What is cultural and ethnic harassment?
Cultural and ethnic harassment doesn’t just look one way in the workplace. It can take various forms including hurtful comments, slurs, or jokes targeting an individual’s cultural or ethnic identity, among others. It can also take the form of physical harassment like intimidation, assault, or violence directed at someone because of their cultural or ethnic background. Such harassment can also be systemic through discriminatory policies, practices, or structures within institutions that disadvantage certain cultural or ethnic groups.
Let’s look at a few scenarios
Aiysha, an African-American employee is told “Your hair doesn’t look professional, maybe you should consider straightening it. This client meeting is very important for our company.”
Achala, who grew up in Sri Lanka is told “It’s only been a few months but it’s great that you’ve learned to speak English the proper way so quickly!”
Li, who is from China, is told by her co-workers to stop putting her lunch in the common fridge because they felt that it made the whole fridge “stink up”.
Mohammad, a Muslim employee is asked to display his ID card at the front desk every time he comes to work, even though no other employees are stopped. He has been at his job for over a year now.
Coworkers mockingly do native American chants and make gibberish sounds every time Ahanu comes around.
In each of these scenarios, we observe that employees are being targeted for their cultural and ethnic characteristics such as their hair, their food preferences, their appearance and their cultural practices.
Let’s explore why these scenarios were discriminatory
The derogatory remarks about Aiysha’s hair targeted her racial identity, creating a hostile environment and contributing to feelings of discrimination. Black women’s hair is two-and-a-half times more likely to be perceived as “unprofessional”.
The comments against Achala constituted microaggressions, reflecting biases and stereotypes about her ethnicity and English language proficiency. There continue to exist biases about how English should be spoken and people who speak English with an accent face barriers to their career progression.
Asking Li to stop putting her food in the common fridge targets her ethnicity and the practices of her community. Stereotypes regarding Asian food being “unhygienic” or “foreign” impact persons of Asian heritage and their relationship with their cultural food.
The practice of ethnic profiling targeted Mohammad based on his religion, perpetuating stereotypes and undermining his sense of belonging in the workplace.
Mocking Ahanu based on his indigenous identity creates a hostile work environment. Indigenous communities across the world face discrimination in the workplace and beyond, including facing cultural and ethnic harassment.
What is the impact of cultural and ethnic harassment?
Experiences of cultural and ethnic harassment can make employees feel unsafe and excluded in the workplace.
It can have psychological, social, and economic consequences including experiencing emotional distress, anxiety, depression, trauma and experience isolation, exclusion, and a diminished sense of belonging.
Harassment of this nature goes beyond impacting individual employees, studies have found that companies also face economic repercussions as employees who face cultural and ethnic harassment feel disconnected from the organisation and hence, are at higher risk of attrition.
How do we prevent cultural and ethnic harassment?
Incidents of cultural and ethnic harassment often occur from a place of lack of understanding and sensitivity towards the various cultures, ethnicities, races, and cultural practices that are a part of our diverse workplaces.
Awareness and sensitisation can play an essential role in ensuring an understanding of different social identities and how they can co-exist in the workplace.
As individuals, employees can invest in learning and allowing space for various cultures in the workplace.
Here are a few ways for organisations to create opportunities to actively engage with the cultural diversity of the workplace:
- Potlucks: Invite employees to bring food from their culture that they appreciate for a potluck, to create an opportunity to actively engage with each other’s cultural food and in turn, culture.
- Human Library: Human libraries are a great way to engage with everyone’s unique experiences as a human being. Have people speak about their experiences and their culture as a way to create empathetic engagement and understanding among coworkers regarding the impact of cultural and ethnic diversity.
- Empathetic conversations: Creating safe spaces to have meaningful and respectful conversations about culture is a great way for people to learn more about each other and culture. These conversations, when held respectfully, can create space for people to relate to each other’s unique experiences.
- Learning opportunities: An organisation-wide effort towards awareness and learning through training, interactive sessions or building learning circles where people share content recommendations of how they can learn about different cultures can help employees broaden their understanding.