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Diversity

Glenys

Perspectives welcome

A potential customer asked over the phone what our cultural mix was and elaborated, two other organisations they were also looking at were predominately, Muslim ethnicity. I replied I didn’t really know, on their insistence, I said I could only hazard a guess, but they were welcome to make an appointment to visit and see if they like our environment. They continued probing and I asked if they would like to hold whilst I asked senior staff.  I asked the question to a group of approx. 3 SLT staff one said we wouldn’t want that type of person here, if they are asking such questions.  I replied I can understand the question as I have been in a minority myself and can understand if someone would feel uncomfortable and asked if I replied 10% would that be approx.

An hour later I was confronted by my manager and told that I may be disciplined for racism.  The reason was and I struggle to understand, SLT say that there is no minority and I shouldn’t recognise minority.

Thanking you.

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  • I think your manager is mistaken and displaying a rather odd judgement on what is racism.

    Counting where people come from or their race or religion if it is to answer a simple question (yours or someone elses) I can't think is racist. (of course their motives for asking may be for racist reasons, but like you've explained for inocuous reasons). Even if as in this case, you may or may not know the answer doesn't mean you are racist and nor does giving them your answer.

    I really can't understand the reasoning behind your manager's response - if as you were told 'approximately 10% of staff are a minority in terms of either race, religion etc., etc., You were expressing a matter of fact and not expressing any value judgements etc.,
  • in reply to David Perry

    Thank you David, the SLT are saying its because I said "I empathise with her and said I knew what it is like to be in the minority and its not nice".

    Background my previous post was with a charity, a colleague asked me what it was like to be the minority, I didn't know what he meant and he said look around your the only woman, white non Muslim. I hadn't looked at it like that and we found it amusing, in a team in UK of 20 staff we had mainly Muslim's from all around the world it was interesting times and perspectives. We worked closely with the Middle East remotely. I left the charity to join my new org, because initially it was only a 12month FTC, to set up a HR dept., which I did and introduced an online system for free for them to continue to manage themselves, I knew there wouldn't be enough there for me longer than 12mths and I wanted to help their cause. They made my role permanent, the CEO resigned and we were moving to new premises they had purchased and I was asked to project manage the renovations and ended staying 3 yrs. The new CEO changed the culture, we had a high staff turnover for approx. 12 mths due to moving and CEO new staff were speaking in their own language more and more and I would be in a meeting with 2 others and they would switch back and forth, I found this difficult as it became the norm. This was when attending external meetings too and with other English only speaking staff not just me. The building project was 90% completed successful it wouldn't be 100% because it was a very old building. There wasn't enough work for me and so I felt it was time to go back to the education sector.

    I think the SLT are assuming I left just because I said I didn't like the language being used etc. It wasn't the only factor and I knew it wouldn't change, I had tried a few tactics.

    The point I was making about the incident with the wheelchair user was if she wasn't in the minority at that event, she wouldn't have been in such an awful situation and my reason for saying if you are the minority, its not nice. Facilities are usually for the majority, DDA regs have taken a long time to kick in even NHS properties, don't always have full access for wheelchairs. The new monument in Manchester Town Centre (celebrating history of Grt Mcr) has steps and no ramp, neglecting wheel chair users access they cant access the whole display. They are looking to rectify!

  • in reply to Glenys

    The difficulty for me in part with your justification is that making buildings and services accessible to disabled people is a legal (and moral) requirement. Linking that to people wanting to select services based on the ethic or religious make up of their workforce (and your organisation potentially facilitating this) is for me a totally inappropriate comparison and is starting with the wrong mindset. Its that I personally would be reflecting on.

    But nevertheless I still think I would be using this as a learning opportunity for the whole organisation to review how it approached D&I issues and to create a dialogue to take you all forward to an inclusive culture. Good luck

  • in reply to Keith
    Hi Keith
    Its difficult to explain fully its not just race, religion its the facilities that come with a bespoke environment (that's why I made the comparison) and about people making choices that suit their emotion and physical needs. It doesn't mean that person only wants to be with the same ethnicity, its just in this situation.
  • in reply to Glenys
    I think you are missing my point that the comparison you made is totally inappropriate for me and that's part of the issue for me. But I will leave you to reflect or not rather than going round in circles.
  • in reply to Keith
    Glenys, I fail to see how facilitating a customer's desire to work in a white, non-Muslim environment could ever be appropriate. I'd be concerned if I felt like a manager in my organisation was doing this. If it was an HR professional, I would be having a discussion about suitability for the role if they didn't show some insight into what they had done.
  • in reply to Emily
    Hi Emily
    Thank you for your interest, just to clarify, the customer didn't want to be the only mixed race person, they asked for the ethnicity of the environment because they didn't want to be in the minority.
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