Over the course of two decades working for and with nonprofits and small businesses, Rachel Kacenjar found it “astounding” that many mission-driven organizations don’t have HR policies or resources—and those that do, don’t center them around equity.
“There’s such a huge gap and a huge need for equity-centered and values-aligned HR and operations practices,” she told HR Brew.
So Kacenjar, managing director at Work In Progress Consulting, an HR, finance, and operations consulting firm for small businesses and nonprofits, teamed up with Bryce Celotto, founder and head of strategy at Swarm Strategy. Established in the summer of 2020, Celotto’s DE&I consultancy designs inclusion strategies and trainings for companies, making him the perfect person to work with Kacenjar to create the Anti-Racist HR Guidebook, which provides a framework for HR at a time when many companies are looking to address racial equity.
“One of the things I found really quickly when I started working with more corporate clients…was that a lot of organizational leaders had great intentions around racial justice, but didn’t necessarily have the historical understanding for why and how systemic racism is baked into so much of the policies and practices in workplaces,” Celotto told HR Brew. “I have these lived experiences as a Black, queer, trans person. I have this background in education, facilitation, and being a trainer. I have this unusually unique understanding of systems of oppression from a historical perspective…How can I use that to make this better?”
The pair assembled a team of more than a dozen collaborators to help shape and write the handbook, which outlines an anti-racist framework for workplace policies along with a step-by-step guide for HR pros to write their own.
Why anti-racist? The goal of anti-racist work is to examine and address the ways racism shows up in society, culture, and organizations. Policies shouldn’t just not be racist, the authors suggest; they should actively lift up and support marginalized people in the workplace.
“Anti-racism is about taking an active role and responsibility in dismantling harmful systems, policies, and actions that disproportionately target BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and people of color] communities,” Celotto said. “Not being racist is exactly just that…you’re not doing anything harmful, but you’re also not doing anything to solve the problem.”
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He suggested HR leaders develop policies centered around the most marginalized people in the workplace as a means of ensuring inclusivity. This strategy may also guard against companies having to double-back later if a thorny issue arises, he said.
“People don’t oftentimes think about the small ways that racism shows up or plays out in the workplace, particularly through policies,” he said, pointing to dress and appearance policies as an example.
What does an anti-racist policy look like? The guidebook provides a number of policy guidelines organized by topic, as well as sample language and examples of how they could look in practice. Kacenjar and Celotto cautioned that they will look different in different workplaces.
Kacenjar pointed to the section on crafting organizational values statements. They shouldn’t be “fluff,” the guide suggests, but rather a document that holds the company and its employees accountable to a set of anti-racist principles.
“People need to understand that [values statements] are the bones of your organization, and you can’t not have bones,” Kacenjar said. “That’s really important and ends up being a starting place.”
Kacenjar also suggested HR pros rethink disciplinary policies so that they focus on understanding the issues underlying an employee’s performance and working with them to meet the requirements of their job.
“People should read that section and challenge what they see as discipline and whether or not that is actually helpful to their workforce, to the people in it, and even to themselves as administrators,” she said.
The handbook tackles inclusive language for job postings, how to review résumés, and implement interviews without bias. It also outlines retention strategies that can support diverse workforces, including ways to build out internal mentorship and leadership development programs.
“It’s disingenuous, at best, to hire people from marginalized communities without the support systems in place,” he said. “At worst, you’re perpetuating trauma on people.”—AD