Black workers experience higher unemployment rates, get paid lower wages, and generally have worse prospects than other workers, according to a 2021 study.
It goes without saying that Black individuals have suffered disproportionate setbacks and unfair barriers impeding their success; they are still shamefully underrepresented in leadership and executive positions.
It’s critical that businesses and organizations recognize this, and work to bring about much-needed change.
This article contains everything you need to know to create a comprehensive employee career development plan. It offers steps and resources to support Black employees effectively and equitably using a well-rounded approach.
Rather than utilizing a one-size-fits-all method, these guidelines will help provide Black employees with the growth opportunities they need most based on their professional goals and overall career aspirations.
1. Evaluate Your Current Status
While overhauling current practices may seem daunting, it’s not as tricky as it sounds.
The best place to start is to assess your company’s current state. This will help provide a clearer picture of what you must address to move forward.
When conducting your evaluation, here are some areas to explore:
How Do You Currently Support Your Black Employees?
By reviewing your organization’s current representation — including the hiring, promotion, and retention rate data for Black employees — you will get a better overall picture of your current position.
This is important to know, as it provides valuable insight into:
- Where you stand in relation to other organizations like yours
- How your company represents the current demographics of your area or industry
- Areas that you could improve upon
What Needs to Change?
Once you’ve analyzed the current picture, you have a much better idea of what needs to change.
You may also realize that certain metrics aren’t currently being tracked; you can’t find any data that relates to them.
This is the perfect opportunity to create a system that keeps track of everything related to each employee, from recruitment on.
What Does Employee Professional Development Look Like?
Examine your organization’s current career advancement trajectory and development opportunities.
You want to make sure everyone is encouraged equally. Black employees know that they are encouraged to promote, and are aware of the steps to take to do so.
As you analyze employee development, look for potential barriers that could disproportionately affect Black employees. For example, as stated in this study,
“Black employees are 23 percent less likely to receive ‘a lot’ or ‘quite a bit’ of support to advance.”
If asked, how do you think your Black employees would rate the support they’re given at your organization?
Ask For Feedback
Another excellent means of assessing how supported your Black employees feel and what needs to change is to simply ask them.
Create an anonymous survey or another way to gain honest feedback, ensuring everyone understands participation is optional.
We’ll get into this in more detail further on.
2. Gain Leadership Support
The only way to affect real company-wide change is to get buy-in and support at each level of the organization.
Management, leadership, and other key decision-makers should be aware of what they need to do to help create a career development plan for Black employees.
Each should actively find ways to contribute within the scope of their level of influence, including creating examples of how they’re currently able to support Black team members.
Set Diversity Goals
It’s encouraging for Black workers to see Black people represented throughout the organization.
Establish diversity goals that showcase people of all genders, ages, and ethnicities in leadership positions. Gear recruitment efforts to include diverse, underrepresented groups.
Document
Make sure promotion and retention rates are recorded.
Documenting who gets promoted — including how and why — can provide valuable insight into the whole process.
Analyzing employee growth and creating a metric that demonstrates the support the employees received along the way can help:
- Clarify what employee support currently looks like
- Determine if it’s fair
- Highlight what needs to change
Provide Necessary Training
Ensure your organization’s management and leadership undergo DEI training on topics such as unconscious bias, principles for inclusive leadership, inclusive communication, and more.
Managers and leadership must understand their responsibility to support Black employees and be there to encourage and assist them as needed in furthering their career development goals.
3. Establish a Career Development Plan Process
The career development plan should clearly outline the steps to career progression, including what criteria and other metrics will be considered for team members keen on seizing growth opportunities.
The development plan should be able to address a variety of career advancement goals by generating an individual roadmap for each Black employee.
Succession planning should be available to all employees interested in pursuing career development opportunities.
Creating a template or an all-encompassing process is an excellent way to ensure resources are available at every step.
It also highlights where support is missing so it can be remedied.
Map Out Career Trajectory Paths
The career advancement path for each Black employee should be clear and comprehensive.
Be sure to include things like hands-on experiences gained through mentorships and employee shadowing opportunities.
Encourage upskilling by offering training programs and continuous learning.
Create resources or find ways to address skill gaps.
Management and leadership need to understand the importance of supporting Black employees. They need to be forthcoming about all available resources and conduct regular check-ins to understand and assist each employee’s goals.
Make Growth Opportunities Part of Company Culture
Organizations that have a reputation for prioritizing employee growth and hiring from within are desirable places to work.
Fostering a positive company culture includes building a rapport with all team members and celebrating their successes. Maintain a supportive work environment that boosts employee retention and engagement.
Strive to maintain plenty of training opportunities that address a variety of specific skills and career development opportunities on the calendar.
Highlight Your DEI Commitment
Clearly outline the company’s commitment to diversity, and show examples of how you’re actively providing Black employees with advancement opportunities and professional growth training programs.
This is an excellent way of attracting diverse candidates and ensuring Black employees understand all the opportunities available to them.
Maintain Transparency
Be transparent about promotions; ensure employees have access to the:
- Criteria that are used in performance reviews
- Metrics used to monitor employee performance
- Components used to determine growth and advancement within the company
Additionally, ensure that the promotion criteria measure different competencies and that the skillset requirements listed in advancement opportunities aren’t overly one-dimensional.
Have Regular Check-Ins
Regular check-ins between leadership and Black employees are excellent for establishing career goals, charting progress, and helping employees feel supported each step of the way.
Once the goals are outlined, chart possible advancement routes based on the career development plan you created earlier. Ensure the goals consider the employee’s current role and how it relates to their career aspirations.
Include both short-term and long-term goals. Then, use subsequent meetings to monitor progress.
Celebrate each milestone and update as necessary when progress is made.
Make sure employees have access to leadership development programs and skill training. Fund continuous education through certifications and other programs.
All of this demonstrates support, and helps shape your employees into the type of leaders you need them to be.
Maximize Networking, Community, and Support Resources
Employee engagement and retention rates soar when they feel valued and seen.
Encourage employees to form resource groups if they don’t already exist within the company. Seek to partner with other companies that support diverse groups of people.
For example, Obsidi® is a resource that assists Black professionals in tech. Obsidi® provides our members with networking opportunities, education, and an annual conference packed with the biggest names in the tech sphere.
Companies who partner with Obsidi® get to platform their organization in front of almost 100,000 Black professionals. They are able to share job openings within the network and much more.
Encourage Your Employees to Participate in Industry Events
From conferences to training, all industries typically host events to discuss what’s hot and new. This gives employees a chance to network with others in the industry. Typically, people leave these events feeling inspired and reenergized.
Encourage your employees to participate as part of their development plan—perhaps offering to reimburse any travel-related expenses and conference-related costs. This is an excellent way to show that you value them and are happy to let them represent your business.
Create A Positive Employee Experience
It is important to treat your employees as the people they are by respecting their lives and obligations outside of working hours.
Offer resources to help them with their work-life balance integration and general well-being.
This can include gym memberships, an outdoor workspace, flexible scheduling, remote or hybrid work opportunities, and more. Let your Black team members know these resources exist and are here for them to benefit from.
Foster a safe space conducive to collaboration and open conversations between team members. Black employees must know that they can discuss workplace challenges openly without fear of retaliation.
Do Not Tolerate Discrimination
Establish a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination and a protocol for reporting and addressing discrimination should it occur.
All employees need to understand both the policy itself and the consequences of acting discriminatory.
4. Utilize Career Development Metric Tracking and Evaluation
Once the necessary changes to support Black employees’ career development goals are in place, it’s important to track progress.
Keep an eye on things like retention statistics and promotion rates.
Chances are you’ll need to make modifications and adjustments — it’s rare that anyone gets it right the first time. But continuously monitoring various metrics gives you a much better idea of what’s working and what’s not.
Track Program Participation, Career Growth, and Success
Quite a few software programs exist that track employee engagement and career goals. Check with human resources — your HR professionals may already use an employee development software system that can provide data on the metrics you wish to monitor.
Conduct Regular Equity Analysis
Tracking and regularly monitoring every aspect of the employee lifecycle — recruitment, hiring, performance reviews, compensation, promotion, etc. — yields a ton of valuable data.
Along with the employee lifecycle, it’s also important to track age, gender, and race to ensure that there’s no unconscious bias at play or other unfair discrimination.
Continuously Monitor Employee Satisfaction
As touched upon briefly before, monitoring employee satisfaction via a survey or focus group can offer valuable insight.
Let your Black employees know they don’t have to participate if they don’t want to, and they’re free to bring up any concerns without retaliation.
The surveys are for informational purposes only. They are intended to ensure that Black employees feel supported throughout the process.
The questions asked don’t have to be overly complex. Rather, they should address how each Black employee feels supported and areas that could be improved.
Use the feedback given to modify the program accordingly.
Treat Employees As Individuals
Finally, it’s important to remember that each employee is unique, and rigid initiatives that attempt a one-size-fits-all approach will not work.
When meeting with your Black employees to discuss their career-related aspirational pursuits, make sure your support meets each of them where they are.
While it’s crucial that each person is aware of all the resources available to them, including promotion opportunities, be mindful that some people prefer more autonomy than others, and that should be respected.
This doesn’t mean you don’t check in with them regularly; rather, you’re there for them how they need you to be.
Conclusion
Building a career development plan to support Black employees involves transparency, a clear path forward, and an encouraging and inclusive environment with plenty of chances to learn and grow.
Speaking of inclusive environments:
