Tips to help eliminate racial discrimination in Texas’s federal workplaces

Federal employees in Texas can help root out racial discrimination in the workplace. Leading the charge for change can help implement the right change.

Recently, you elevated your racial discrimination case from your federal employer’s HR division to a legal advocate in Texas. Even if you win your case, that may not eliminate the circumstances that led to you feeling discriminated against. To help your employer understand the basis of your complaint, you may want to learn how you can help your employer eliminate racial discrimination. You may not feel that you have any responsibility to solve someone else’s issue, but you could help your coworkers of color while helping yourself to a more peaceful work environment.

Look over the hiring policy

Discrimination could start before potential employees submit an application. Your federal employer should try to expand its hiring pool to reach more diverse candidates, and all job descriptions need neutral phrasing that only addresses position skills and requirements. Applicant tracking systems are a good way to narrow down applicants to only those with the right qualifications, which can reduce racial bias that hiring managers may harbor regarding an applicant’s name.

Implement training solutions

While racial discrimination may make employees uncomfortable, that sense of discomfort is the exact reason to have proper training. Employees and managers alike need to confront any unconscious racial discrimination they may harbor, which racial bias training solutions help with. Hearing about racial discrimination directly from employees of color may open eyes and minds about how other workers may unconsciously contribute to creating a hostile work environment.

Create space for difficult conversations

How difficult was it for you to come to HR with your racial discrimination concerns? If your workplace does not try to create a safe space for employees to have difficult conversations like those concerning race, then it may bungle in resolving the issue in a way that makes employees of color feel seen and heard. When companies fail to create necessary space for vital conversations, employees may feel that they potentially risk their jobs by speaking out about discrimination, which can lead those employees to experience further discrimination and the psychological toll that may accompany it.

Enforce non-discrimination standards

Employers have to do much more than just create non-discrimination standards, shift their hiring practices and build spaces in which employees feel safe to raise their concerns, they also need to hold employees and managers accountable. Doing so sends a clear message and makes employees and managers rethink any words or actions that may come across as insensitive or biased.

You likely have your hands full working with a Texas legal advocate concerning your racial discrimination case. Rather than feel that you must quit your federal position after wrapping up your case, understand how you can help to eliminate racial discrimination.