Structural racism and employee engagement

Johnny Johnson, brand and communications strategist, TowerStone

I put two things together recently, and I hope that the world will change. The first is a report prepared by Bateleur Brand Planning on employee engagement and the second is an article by Melanie Verwoerd on structural racism.

In the June 2020 National Employee Engagement Survey held in Southern Africa, Bateleur Brand Planning found that employee engagement has improved by 12% during the pandemic – from 46% a year ago to 58% now. They ascribed the improvement to a combination of employees fearing the loss of their job and therefore working hard to keep it, and finding it more productive and less expensive to work from home.

Internet-empowered employee engagement survey

Given that Gallup pegs worldwide employee engagement at a lowly 13% (with South Africa languishing at 9%), a score of 58% is extraordinary. Except that it isn’t, because the Bateleur survey respondents are all internet empowered – so it isn’t an employee engagement survey at all. It’s an internet-empowered employee engagement survey that, by definition, ignores most of the employees in South Africa.

Verwoerd’s article (with the intriguing title of Sometimes White people should really just shut up and listen) tries to get a grip on structural racism by considering the reactions of people such as Pat Symcox and Boeta Dippenaar to Lungi Ngidi’s heartfelt plea that the Proteas need to discuss Black Lives Matter. Symcox and Dippenaar argue that all lives matter. While this is obviously true, they miss the point, which is that for all lives to matter, Black lives have to matter. And right now, around the world, they matter less.

How these two things come together in my way of thinking is that the Bateleur report is an example of structural racism because according to Stats SA, 90% of semi-skilled and 98% of low-skilled employees are Black people. It is exactly these categories of employees that are not predominantly internet empowered.

National Income Dynamic Study report

Consider another piece of research published recently: the National Income Dynamic Study. It reveals inequalities along the usual lines of race, gender, occupation, earnings, location and education. According to this research, three million people have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic, which pushes the total unemployment in South Africa to close to 50% given the already unacceptably high levels of employment before the pandemic. One in three income earners did not earn an income during April. Before the pandemic, 21% of households reported running out of money before month-end. During lockdown, this shot up to 47%. You can’t possibly feel more engaged if you’ve lost your job, haven’t been paid, and can’t feed your family, or if you see this happening to neighbours.

Not that there aren’t some important learnings to be found in the Bateleur research that point out the way to improving employee engagement – there are, as can be expected from a respected research house. What is concerning though is that the manner in which the research is reported is feeding into a narrative that perpetuates structural racism.

More thoughtful communication needed

What I would like to see change in this world is an increase in more thoughtful communication that is sensitive to structural racism and works purposefully at dismantling this structure and building a fairer society in its place.

Paying attention to what we say before we say it is something that all of us can do, all the time; and every time we do so, we make things a little bit better. When this translates into what we do – the inclusive actions that we take with a true consideration of everyone’s realities – true change can happen. Employee engagement should not be a strategy that only speaks to one strata of employees, it needs to be inclusive of all employees.