The Power and Limitations of Racial Equity Audits: How to Uncover Organizational Weaknesses and Address Inequities
Having done several racial equity audits in the past few years, I have learned they are both powerful and limited at the same time.
I have done these kinds of assessments for several years. Recently, I have noticed a meaningful uptick in requests for equity audits. A typical equity audit service from Stamey Street includes a review of critical documents, a staff survey, and a report. The intent of the service is to provide actionable data that guides the organization's equity path moving forward.
While every nonprofit, business, and philanthropy is different, most audits reveal two consistent findings — gaps between how leaders view their organization and staff experiences and inadequate systems to support existing policies, processes, and procedures. Having done several racial equity audits in the past few years, I have learned they are both powerful and limited at the same time. When my firm does a racial equity audit, we organize our work into three parts:
Data collection (via staff surveys or focus groups).
Data Analysis (a review of what we find in the data collection)
Recommendations (suggestions for corrective actions)
Identity often shapes staff experiences.
Organizational experiences are rarely the same, even when there is a shared appreciation for the mission and values. Sometimes it is hard for leaders to accept this finding from their own organization’s data. For example, two people can have the same manager and vastly different experiences with their temperment and management style. Factors like power, privilege, role, and longevity within the organization feed into this disconnect. Racial equity audits can help unpack some of these complicated team dynamics.
More often than not, identity shapes staff experiences. In order for an organization to move its external equity work forward, it is critical to address the underlying causes that lead to differencial experiences. The disconnect only goes away with intentionality and structural change, but leaders have to accept that these differences are real and be willing to do something about them. As I have grown in this work, I don’t expect that racial equity audits will result in an equal experience across staff members. People within an organization are situated differently as they come to work everyday. However, I do expect leaders to offer an equitable experience, meaning a comparable experience across identity — not rooted in opppression.
Most organizations have insufficent systems.
For example, when a nonprofit grows to between 10-13 people, you need to build intentional systems. Here’s why: Information asymmetry. Once you get to close to ten people, your nonprofit is no longer small enough to function informally. No longer can everyone know everything about everything. And, staff need access to information at different times. Often the inability to access needed information contributes to differential staff experiences. Leaders can take decisive steps to create (or strengthen) organizational (or company) systems.
How to Think About Systems.
Systems are made up of steps, tasks, and processes. Anywhere you don’t have clearly documented processes are places biases will thrive.
Inspired by the work of Rikki Payne
Here are two critical questions:
>>Where do you have established, written, clearly defined systems in your organization (or company)? Are they followed by everyone? Think about that for a second.
>>Note, where are the places where you don’t have documented, consistently followed policies with supportive systems? By supportive systems, I mean the processes (and tools) that enable a policy to be implemented. These are the areas where bias lives.
Let’s get really concrete
So, lets say you have a policy that requires staff to request leave two weeks in advance of the leave date, what is the system that enables them to do that?
Is it a Google spreadsheet?
Is it an online benefits manager?
Is it the company payroll system?
Does everyone follow it?
Does this process live in a public place where it is easily accessible?
How often is it updated?
The power of racial equity audits lies in the opportunity to identify where policies or systems need to be more equitable -- with one caveat. An equity audit or policy review is only a tool. Think about it like this: I like do audits at the beginning of an engagement because the data from the process can shape the direction of the work. Once I know the specific pain points in an organization, I can direct particular solutions to help. Now, we are no longer guessing. But it is up to an organization’s leadership to make the changes in practice.
“The one caveat to equity audits lies in the decision-making about what to do with the findings. When leaders do nothing with the findings, it is worse than not doing the equity audit at all.
Here’s why: the staff knows, the leaders know, and data affirms where the problems are. Taking no action is incredibly demoralizing to staff with a difficult to near-impossible recovery.”
All of that said, my advice for organizational (company) leaders is if you're working with a consultant to perform an equity audit, only do so if you're prepared to implement the recommendations.
For Helpful Tools:
Chek out my podcast episode:
You can search the Race in the Workplace blog archive by topic
