Читать книгу Corporations Compassion Culture - Keesa C. Schreane - Страница 32

The 2018 Board Diversity Census of Women and Minorities on Fortune 500 Boards, issued by Harvard Law School in February 2019, noted a critical need for inclusivity in C-suite leadership and company boardrooms. People of color in corporate America are still largely invisible. According to the report, only 16.1% of board seats in the Fortune 500 are held by people of color.²³ See Table 2.1.

Furthermore, the wage gap between White senior-level executives and other groups is significant. On average, Black men earned 87 cents to every dollar earned by a White man in 2019; Black, Latinx, and Native American women earned 75 cents for every dollar; and Asian women earned 93 cents.²⁴ Hispanic men earned 91 cents for every dollar earned by White men and White women earn 81 cents for the White man's dollar. Interestingly, Asian men earned $1.15 for every dollar earned by a White male in 2019.²⁵

Table 2.1 Breakdown of Fortune 500 Total Board Seats by Race/Ethnicity: 2018

Source: Data from DeHaas, D. (2019) Missing Pieces Report: The 2018 Board Diversity Census of Women and Minorities on Fortune 500 Boards, The President and Fellows of Harvard College (February 5, 2019).

Race/Ethnicity	Percentage of Fortune	500 Board Seats
Caucasian/ White	83.9	83.9
Black	8.6	16.1
Latinx	3.8
Asian/ Pacific Islander	3.7
Other	0.1

The lack of diversity at the senior level creates an environment in which people of color must deal with mental gymnastics not required of their White peers at work. They are not represented, they are paid substantially less than their colleagues, and they often feel that managers don't even put forth an effort to understand their points of view. If you think about what it's like to deal with these inequities, combined with such psychological mistreatment as being isolated by colleagues or having your insights and contributions to meetings ignored, it's obvious how an employee's sales and production numbers can be negatively affected.

Looking at the data makes it clear that a compassionate culture where leadership and employees actively promote inclusion is necessary for a firm to keep pace and lead in the new evolving global corporate era. Compassionate culture today is a necessity, not a luxury.