Posts Tagged ‘#blackwomenintheworkplace’
Fighting Back: Black Women Battle Against Workplace Bullying
Necie Edwards, an empowerment and wellness advocate for women, was lying in the emergency room when she finally realized the workplace bullying she endured was causing her severe mental and physical harm. Formerly a manager in medical education for a pharmaceutical company, she is now an advocate for others who suffer autoimmune issues, often brought on by workplace stress.
“I started getting really bad chest pains. Some days it felt like my chest was going to split wide open.”
A high-performing Black woman with stellar performance reviews, after the company she worked for was purchased and her team changed, Edwards recounts being piled with excessive work and excluded from meetings, colleagues making fun of her through instant messages while in her presence and being humiliated by leadership regarding a software program that even upper management struggled to use. Her work “friends” knew about the abusive treatment Edwards experienced, but they wouldn’t speak out for fear of losing their jobs. They began to isolate from her, which made each day even more unbearable.
Christin Peeples, The Workplace Bullying Coach believes that workplace bullying, especially for Black women is an epidemic. She says that in the beginning, many want to give their abusers the benefit of the doubt, but Peeples advises that we all have an internal GPS that we should listen to when it tells us things are going left.
“Unfortunately, a lot of us, we feel that we can give people that rope, if you will, to be mean to us, but your soul is telling you you’re being mistreated.”
Edwards understands this all too well. As her company continued to ignore her complaints, she went to human resources who blatantly refused to investigate her claims. This prompted Edwards to take matters a step further.
“I got an attorney because I knew the direction it was headed and I made up my mind that I am going to fight this tooth and nail because I’ve always had good reviews, never had an issue and now I’m here.”
Peeples suggests that you may feel like confronting the bullies, but she believes it is best to remain professional and quiet as you document everything, especially when receiving feedback that doesn’t match previous reviews and actual performance. However, once the documentation is solid, depending on the situation and where you are mentally, it can be helpful to professionally attempt to push back on the abuse.
Edwards kept solid documentation and after a while, she felt the pressure rising when a white female colleague summoned her in a conference room and began yelling.
“I told her this is the last day you’re going to mess with me. I’m tired of it. I’m sick of ya’ll.”
After this exchange, the white woman began to cry. Later, Edwards’ manager, a white male told her to apologize to the tearful co-worker. She refused.
Another trip to the emergency room after paramedics were called to her office for a stress-induced attack and Edwards was placed on medical leave. During her medical leave, they continued to harass her, at one point cutting off her medical benefits and disability pay. Edwards decided that playing nice was getting her nowhere, so she threatened to be a whistle-blower for issues regarding an upcoming drug the company was set to release and for the health issues they were causing her due to their toxic environment.
“At that point, what did I have to lose?”
Miraculously, all of her benefits were restored, and her check was sent via FedEx.
Nae’ Clark, licensed cosmetologist and founder of NL Beauty Academy in Michigan was a hair extension specialist with a successful business before deciding to go to cosmetology school to expand her craft and obtain her license.
“I wanted to step outside the box. I wanted to take a step further, I wanted to learn more.”
She says the bullying she experienced from the white women in cosmetology school took the fun out of learning. Clark says despite receiving 100 percent on all tests, the instructor would constantly pull her to the side in an intimidating manner threatening that Clark would not pass the course, citing tardiness as the reason. This was puzzling to Clark because she’d already received approval to arrive late on specific days.
“My son wears cochlear implants, so every Tuesday, I would have to take him to speech therapy, and then drop him off to school. Sometimes I would be late, and they knew this in advance.”
Several incidents occurred where instructors made racist comments about “textured” (Black) hair not being the preference for models because they “don’t do a lot of that hair”.
Clark never told anyone about these incidents. She kept her head down and finished the program on time.
Her performance was so stellar that once Clark graduated, the school invited her to return as an instructor. She put the negativity behind her and looked forward to a new role. She was excited to teach others about her passion, but the enthusiasm was short-lived. She soon found herself in a hostile work environment ripe with bullying and racism from co-workers and management. When she would confront the issues, she was called aggressive, gaslit and ignored.
“They think we are always looking for race problems, but I don’t even want to think about that, I just want to come like everybody else and learn.”
Management retaliated and her colleagues followed their lead.
“It’ll be days I would walk in, and our lead, my boss, she wouldn’t even speak to me.”
It wasn’t until she fought back and contacted human resources, that the harassment toned down. However, the bullies continued to say Clark was the issue and would not take ownership of their toxic behavior.
Peeples says that gaslighting is the biggest complaint she receives from her clients.
“At the end of the day, it’s people telling them what they are feeling is wrong, and I want people to understand that gaslighting is a real thing.”
Although Clark and others were more qualified, a white woman was made the lead for textured hair without minimal experience working with Black hair. Another sign that the culture was not going to improve.
“No matter what you do, no matter how talented you are, they will not accept you. They do not want you to be great. They do not want you to outshine them.”
An incident where Black people were referred to as “those people” in front of a client, pushed Clark to send more formal correspondence to HR and the CEO of the company because complaints to management were laid to the side. Clark noticed that when Black clients came in, their hair wasn’t given the same attention nor the high-level service given to others.
“Every time I went up to her to report something or I would tell them, you know, just how mean and rude they were to me on the floor, nothing. Nothing started happening until I started writing HR and going to HR.”
Clark says she is traumatized and has had to start therapy for the daily taunts she endures but will continue to advocate for herself. The treatment she receives in the workplace takes it’s toll, but she she remains confident in her abilities.
“I know who I am, I respect the company. I am thinking they would be happy to have me, but they weren’t.”
The Co-Parenting Tightrope: Its Impact on Your Career
Navigating co-parenting as a single or newly separated/divorced parent may not initially seem like a workplace issue. Still, its ripple effects permeate every part of life—positive and negative—and can affect job performance. For some, a dysfunctional parental relationship can include constant arguing, refusing to communicate or unpredictable visitation, which can result in missed meetings, late arrivals, having to leave early, calling in at the last minute, court dates and being distracted with phone calls.
Alysha Price, founder of The Price Dynamic, a professional family coaching and engagement consulting firm, sees this behavior often with her clients, including single and co-parenting families, struggling to create a functional structure that allows each person to flourish. A product of a co-parenting single-parent household, Price found herself in a difficult co-parenting relationship and used what she learned to create a better environment for her son.
“In my process of parenting, I realized how much I was repeating things that I had grown up around, things that happened in my household. I realized how much I wanted to change some of those things and improve.”
When it comes to the effects of co-parenting on job performance, Price says many are unprepared for the toll it can take on their careers.
“You’re present, but you’re not mentally present. You’re spending a lot of work time contacting attorneys, navigating school and those types of transitions that happen.”
Price says that aligning what happens after school and who picks up or drops off the kids to their extracurricular activities can be stressful for parents trying to deal with their emotions from the relationship breakdown.
The stress can also fuel illnesses for the adults and their children, causing more missed days at work.
“You’re being somewhat of an executive assistant to your new family dynamic, and attendance is severely affected by illness. When your child is moving back and forth from one household to the next, things are affected, like their sleep and stability, which, of course, adds to their not being well.”
Marissa Johnson understands the effects of parental relationships on a family’s ecosystem. As a licensed clinical social worker, she works with adults and children to help them work through issues that impact every facet of their lives, including co-parenting, which can tremendously impact the workplace. When she found herself in a dysfunctional relationship while pregnant, she had to take stock and change course.
“I tried to keep the relationship going, and then when I was about seven months pregnant, I was just like, ‘nah, I’m not going to do this.’”
Johnson had a difficult co-parenting relationship when her daughter was born, which spurred her to start grad school so she could eventually find employment that paid enough to support a single-parent household. In the second year of grad school, she quit her job to focus on school alone and survived solely off student loans.
“When we were going through the courts, I was doing my internship in grad school. We had to do a practicum, and I remember I was so emotional because we had court the day before, and I had to explain to them why I couldn’t even get through a sentence.”
The stress took a toll on her mental health.
“It impacted how I was showing up in my classes and at work. I wasn’t able to give my full self.”
Johnson says her supervisor, a Black woman, also a single mom, helped her through the situation and didn’t make her feel embarrassed when she shared her situation.
Price explains that it is important for supervisors to be empathetic, but worrying about their employees with co-parenting issues can take a toll on the company. She developed “Family Meeting Cards” to help families make better decisions that can reduce the negative impact on their careers.
“We give our clients tools that put the onus back on the employee to deal with their family dynamics, but in the same sense, teach effective communication skills and skills to discern what is appropriate to share at work.”
TaShara Caldwell knows all too well how family dynamics can impact career paths. A paraprofessional completing her internship for her master’s, she has to give 600 hours of free labor on top of her current job, which has prolonged completing the requirements.
“It’s hard to do that when you’re trying to also work and work around someone’s schedule.”
She and her ex-husband, a firefighter with an unpredictable schedule, often barter and negotiate who will take off work when their child has a doctor’s appointment, is sick or has a school function. Caldwell says early in their separation, communication was rocky.
“We would get in these battles of who is going to take off work, kind of whose time is more valuable than the others.”
Caldwell looked to couples counseling, even though divorce was eminent, to figure out how to navigate their new dynamic.
“His schedule is going to be his schedule and I am going to be a mom forever, so even though we are not together, we share a Google Calendar.”
She says even with the shared calendar, when she has to take off work unplanned, it impacts her job even though it is common practice for moms to leave work to take care of their children.
“Schools automatically call mom, even though they have both numbers, they just call mom.”
Sometimes Caldwell’s supervisor will ask if her ex-husband can go instead, often followed by personal questions she does not want to answer.
“It’s frustrating because you don’t want to tell everybody your business.”
According to Price, when the co-parenting relationship begins affecting job performance, employees should keep their chats with managers “brief to minimum” while communicating their needs and leave out details that are not necessary to share. She recommends talking with human resources to ensure a documented paper trail.
When the parents cannot work together constructively, parallel parenting may be an option. This method allows each person to parent separately in all aspects of their child’s life, including doctor’s appointments, sports games and birthday parties. Text-only communication or using apps, such as Talking Parent, may stop parents from disruptive, negative communication yet allow them to keep abreast of schedules that include work trips, conferences or shift changes.
Johnson says text-only communication worked the best for her and her co-parent. Their relationship and her career improved when she took her emotions out of the situation and focused on herself.
“It’s very possible for you to have everything you want career-wise and still be a good mother. When things like this happen that set us back, like having to co-parent with people who aren’t easy to co-parent with, you start to develop these beliefs that it’s not possible or it’s too hard. You can’t do it.”