Intersectionality, coined by the American Civil Rights Activist Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, was a term defined in law that enabled courts to recognise how people from two or more separate, marginalised groups could face discrimination for both.
At the time discrimination law was single-axis, which meant when opening a discrimination case the plaintiff could only file for discrimination based on their gender or race, but not both. This was particularly concerning to Crenshaw when she reviewed cases of Black women and the conceptual limitations of single-axis discrimination law. So she wanted to create advocacy for a more egalitarian system by considering all forms of representation and discrimination.
Why is this important to hiring in tech?
By understanding intersectionality you can implement more equitable hiring processes and benefits. This will enable you to hire more intersectional people which can have a range of benefits for your business; from enabling you to build a thoughtful and inclusive product or establishing a more inclusive voice with your customers that can enhance your revenue opportunities.
In this article, I’ll highlight some of the client conversations I’ve had recently to help raise-consciousness of the concept of intersectionality in tech, and share some tips on how to implement diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEI&B) across your organisation.
So what does intersectionality mean to talent leaders?
"Although I am a woman and already face biases and am treated differently because of that, as a Black woman I am also going to be treated differently," Daniella Currie, People and Operations Manager at Bitfount, says. Adding, “[m]y experience may not be exactly the same as a white woman’s experience, and there’s pressure to be perfect”.
Intersectionality can help employees realise where they may face additional biases at work, which can force a degree of expectation or pressure onto somebody. For someone in their early career, unaware of the concept of intersectionality and finding their voice in tech, they may be more prone to imposter syndrome or burnout through the pressure to be perfect.
Bitfount’s vision of “making the world’s intractable data interactable” means that people and collaboration sit at the heart of the business. From their inception, they have prioritised D&I to ensure there is cognitive diversity across their product.
Dani puts emphasis on learning through external sources to gain education around topics the business may be less familiar with:
"[With] my role on the People side of things, I have a responsibility to build D&I into our processes, but what I would say to a lot of Black women is that just because you have your experience and [may] understand the field a bit more, doesn’t mean you have to lead sessions, get an expert to aid the company."
Daniella has partnered with The Other Box, and has been inspired by Hustlecrew, to help educate on building more neuro-inclusive hiring practices at Bitfount, which was an area of DEI&B that the business recognised they needed more education on. Neurodiversity describes the differences in which people’s brains work and embraces all neurological differences under its wide umbrella term.
Through Bitfount’s partnerships, they have focused on building a neuro-inclusive interview process. Daniella found that providing all interview questions to candidates ahead of their interview has been a positive change to their holistic recruitment model that has enabled more transparency and trust between them and their candidates.
The team asked themselves “in the job, does this candidate need to be put on the spot?” and “what would the benefit be of having an off-the-cuff response”, as opposed to one where neurodivergent candidates have had time to process, organise and respond thoughtfully?
Daniella also speaks about pressure and expectation around supporting a company’s D&I initiatives as a Black woman in tech. With the annual Tech Talent Charter finding that 5% of tech employees are Black, and that 3 in 4 Black or minority women have experienced racism at work, it is not enough for only Black employees to reflect on this data, but white senior management and C-suite too, otherwise this number will decline.
Rachael Oku, the VP of Brand and Communications at PensionBee, reflects on her early career versus now when we asked her about her relationship with workplace D&I:
"When I was younger, I didn’t want the burden. I was overworked, underpaid and I felt I was expected to be doing something more. I am not exactly sure what or why it happened, but I feel like now this is a responsibility I want to have."
Like Daniella, Rachael recognises that when contributing to a business's D&I, there can be added pressure and there is rarely any (monetary) incentive for an already overworked, entry-level employee.
However, PensionBee has a strong vision to “help people from all backgrounds save for retirement and overcome the barriers that still exist in the Pensions system”, which means that diversity has always sat at the heart of the business. In fact, “love” is one of their main company values!
PensionBee has an employee-led (as opposed to HR-led) DEI&B committee, which has been an effective way of ensuring all levels of the organisation can have their voice heard and input into DEI&B. It is important when building an employee-centric DEI&B committee, however, to enable the team to drive initiatives, invite speakers and hold events, which requires flexibility in budget and incentive.
It’s key to consider where you are at as a business, if your overall DEI&B strategy is lacklustre, disjointed or non-existent, you aren’t going to attract or empower a diverse committee.
For Rachael at PensionBee, she has found that the business has shown real dedication to demonstrate that they’re serious about DEI&B, with the business reporting a 0% gender pay gap, 50% female representation across their board of directors and management, and their philosophy to always promote internally, therefore Rachael has made more of a commitment to DEI&B at committee level.
Part of PensionBee’s DEI&B philosophy, which we advocate for at Otta, is having public salary bands on all of their job adverts, which supports their commitment to their DEI&B strategy— particularly when thinking about the gender and ethnicity pay gaps that still exist in Tech.
Last year, we discovered (through our own candidate data) that Black women were setting their minimum salary expectation 40% lower than white men on Otta. Our data was shared by Forbes, which has raised an interesting conversation around societal expectations, stereotypes and pressures that both Black and Asian women face.
By having transparent salaries on your job cards and clear salary bands internally, you reduce potential disparity in pay and can help you get to a 0% gender pay gap like PensionBee. Then, with regular pay reviews and appraisal cycles, you further reduce pay increase requests which can result in further disparity across your organisation. If you haven’t started your journey toward pay transparency but are interested, you can view our webinar on the power of pay transparency.
People and Talent Manager, Brenda Wong, is a huge advocate for salary transparency at Stotles, an Otta Certified business who were recently recognised as one of our top 10% most loved companies, with a mission of “creating a world where business and Government can work better, together”.
Brenda believes that still too often business leaders end up doing nothing about D&I, saying:
"It’s not that tech companies don’t care, it’s that they can be paralysed with fear about making a mistake, which means that they don’t do anything at all[…] If you don’t take a stance, then you’re never going to make [anywhere] more inclusive."
Brenda, who defines herself as intersectional in a number of ways, also speaks about the burden of being seen as the “be all and end all tool” for knowledge, which from a People & Talent perspective there is a responsibility there, but it can be difficult to navigate at times with a lack of resources or budget.
“Intersectionality also means we need to recognise where we have privilege”, says Brenda. This can help guide where you put your resources. The Tech Talent Charter reported that “[t]rans representation in tech is only a fifth of the national average at 0.17%.” Without representation in a business already, there must still be a responsibility to create a safe working environment, particularly around gender and trans-inclusivity. Furthermore, YouGov research from 2020 has shown that a staggering 1 in 10 BAME LGBTQIA+ employees have been physically attacked by customers or colleagues in the last year.
It is important, then, to be able to evidence where your business has created safe LGBTQIA+ spaces. Do you, for example, encourage employees to add their pronouns on Slack or other communicative platforms? Does your healthcare provider include support to employees who are transitioning, and do you have gender neutral and accessible toilets? What are your policies on LGBTQIA+ harassment, and other than your LGBTQIA+ team members, does your senior leadership feel comfortable spotting and calling out micro-aggressions?
Putting this into practice
First, take some time to reflect on these three themes:
- Transparency
- Flexibility
- Candidate / Employee Experience
Now recognise some key examples across your business where you can say something positive about each of these themes, and then where you could improve.
For transparency, for example, do you have public salaries? Do you include the application / interview process for your jobs? Do you have clear salary bands, a levelling framework and appraisal cycles?
For flexibility, do you have flexible working hours to support lower-socioeconomic parents with their childcare? Do you offer private healthcare that includes employee support for people who are transitioning? Do you have specific benefits for carers and parents?
For candidate / employee experience, do you provide all interview questions ahead of the interview? Do you enable your DE&BI committee to run initiatives by giving them a budget? How do you remove bias from your hiring and performance review / appraisal processes?
Once you’ve gotten a sense of where you are at, start with some research. Sign up to newsletters like Better Allies, attend free webinars by companies like Hustle Crew and partner with companies like FairHQ and The Other Box. Being more confident that you’ve done something about DEI&B will encourage you to speak more confidently about how to attract diverse candidates and commit to a longer term DEI&B strategy.
For more tips on building a more inclusive hiring process, check out our FREE guide: 20 Things You Should Do To Hire More Inclusively (But Probably Aren’t).