CEOs need to listen down the corporate ladder

OPINION:

Today’s corporate leaders seem to have forgotten one of the most effective management techniques: Management by walking around.

The concept, which was adopted by many highly successful companies, urged managers to learn what was going on in their company by actually talking to employees at all levels, not just the corporate elite. In turn, employees at all levels felt heard and appreciated.

Today CEOs, however, seem to spend more time listening to the advice of top-dollar H.R. consultants than they do hearing from their employees. How else could you explain why the workplace has become a place where discussions of race and privilege are more common than learning skills and improving productivity?

My organization, Color Us United, conducted polling that revealed that more than 90% of workers had been required to attend training on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). DEI training far surpassed that of any other type of training, including sexual harassment, management, or professional development. 

But a quick walk throughout the company would quickly show these managers that these issues are based on a myth that American workplaces are full of racism. Moreover, they are creating more problems than they are solving. 

To prove this point, Color Us United has begun collecting stories from workers throughout the country. We are learning many are fed up with the endless drumbeat of DEI flooding the workplace. Despite widespread concerns about losing one’s job and then being blackballed for speaking out, folks have had enough. 

The DEI trainings are causing division, not solving it. Real problems in the workplace are being ignored while an emphasis is placed on discussions of race or sexual orientation. One Macy’s employee put it concisely: “Their woke trash causes resentment,” they wrote. “Macy’s cannot fix the air conditioning or get simple problems solved because all their time, money and resources go to shoving woke-ism down our throats.” 

Other employees echoed that sentiment, writing, “[Management] encouraged a disruptive and victimology mentality that leads to co-workers complaining and acting against the company, encouraging the creation and exacerbation of problems rather than solutions.”  

Instead of knowing they can rely on hard work and loyalty to thrive at the company, employees are left to wonder if they’ll be denied opportunities because of the color of their skin. Someone at a university noted, “This is Orwellian; some people are ‘more equal’ than others.”

Is this the type of workplace we want in America? One where skin color is valued over merit?

Most Americans would say no. So why do CEOs continue to publicly support such policies?

The fact is CEOs get lots of positive press from promoting woke policies. The noise of woke activists praising a company’s divisive policies drowns out the concerns of those who should matter most: The employees. 

CEOs are listening to everyone but their own employees. This must end. 

This year, the Labor Day Listen Down is calling on employers to tune out the consultants and start listening down the corporate ladder. Employees know what they need to thrive in their position. And endless lectures on diversity, equity, and inclusion are not what they need. Employers will hear that if only they take the time to listen.