In corporate New Zealand, minorities are being left behind as the ladder is pulled up from above them. Photo / Supplied
In corporate New Zealand, minorities are being left behind as the ladder is pulled up from above them. Photo / Supplied
OPINION
When we think of the phrase “representation matters” we almost exclusively think of it in a media context. It’s about the importance of showing diverse people and characters on screen, whether that’s in a Netflix show or hosting the news.
Real life representation, however, requires more than silver screen signalling. In corporate New Zealand, minorities are being left behind as the ladder is pulled up from above them.
While what Hollywood is doing is important, isn’t it even more important to see representation in fields a regular person like you or me actually work in?
Television, film, and digital platforms are incredibly powerful in telling us how to see ourselves. Modern media has indeed stepped its game up hugely when it comes to representation of non-white, non-straight, non-male, non-cisgender, non-able-bodied people. You can turn on morning TV, a streaming drama, or venture to TikTok and see someone who looks just like you.
Yet when it comes to power in business and senior management teams, they’re still overwhelmingly straight, white, cis, and able-bodied. While what Hollywood is doing is important, isn’t it even more important to see representation in fields a regular person like you or me actually work in?
Most of our elected officials are straight and white. Most CEOs are too. So are what I call “industries of privilege” – the kind you need at least a middle-class upbringing, tertiary education, and conservative personal presentation – to work in. Think government, the not-for-profit sector, finance, marketing and PR, law, medicine… the list goes on.
Real life representation, however, requires more than silver screen signalling. Photo/File
There are countless fields that claim to promote equal opportunities for all, but the reality of their staff at senior level is, shall we say, pale. They don’t reflect what New Zealand actually looks like.
We often see progress in representation in terms of tokenism, too. You’ll find many corporates out there that will hire one person from a minority background into a senior position, and they’ll pat themselves on the back for it. As if putting a lone brown female in power is enough to say, “job done, we solved the problem!”
But the problem is the system at large. What’s really necessary when it comes to meaningful representation is critical mass. Jabar Wilson of British consulting firm Capco writes, “Representation allows minorities to feel validated and allows us to express their opinions comfortably. This creates a team environment where ideas are diverse, perspectives are varied, and everyone feels valued.”
Representation needs to be done as a group; a team. Elevating people who aren’t from the majority en masse allows for a physical environment of emotional safety. Photo / Mead Norton
This statement gets to the crux of the issue around tokenistic employment of minorities, which can serve to wash one’s hands clean of their own problematic lack of representation in the modern workplace.
Representation needs to be done as a group; a team. Elevating people who aren’t from the majority en masse allows for a physical environment of emotional safety.
If you’re from the majority, you likely don’t realise that minorities don’t have the same voice in the workplace as you. The lived experiences of minorities have taught them not to speak up, not to make a fuss, not to be seen as “difficult”.
So, while a straight white male thinks his workplace is one where everyone can share their opinions freely and comfortably, that is merely a demonstration of his own privilege.
He doesn’t understand the barriers that come with voicing one’s opinions – from being interrupted to gaslighting – that people from minority backgrounds have experienced time and time again throughout their lives.
One way to change that is by ensuring the people in the room are a diverse representation of society, and not laying responsibility on a single person of minority status to carry the full weight of creating that safe space.
The lived experiences of minorities have taught them not to speak up, not to make a fuss, not to be seen as “difficult”. Photo / Getty Images
A colleague and I were recently looking at publicity photos of a gathering of some of the highest-ranking businesspeople in the country. As a group photo op, the problem I’m expressing today couldn’t be better exemplified: there were mostly bald white heads, and even the few women present were white, pretty and acceptably wealthy-looking.
I opined, “I know this is just a photo, but optics are important! Imagine being a little brown girl growing up in New Zealand and seeing this. They would think, ‘success like that just isn’t for me’.” To which my colleague replied that it’s not enough to give one person a seat at the table, either. “Don’t just invite us to the table to eat,” she said, from the position as a woman of colour. “Invite us into the kitchen to help cook, and enable us to pick the damn menu.”
Those in charge of hiring in the modern workplace aren’t doing their job to lift people of colour, queer people, and differently-abled people. And no, a simple gender balance quota isn’t sufficient anymore. It’s almost 2023.
As someone who ticks a couple minority boxes, I can at least say this with some authority: minorities are not being invited into the corporate world as a collective. Only when minority people are included genuinely in organisational conversations will they feel truly welcomed in, and able to represent those outside these glass-fronted, air-conditioned, logo-laden ivory towers.
