Ritz job applicant informed of afro hair ban says hotel apology ‘disingenuous’

Hotel claimed Jerelle Jules was sent out-of-date and incorrect grooming policy banning ‘unusual hairstyles’

A black job applicant who was told his hair was against the employee grooming policy of the Ritz has said an apology he subsequently received from the hotel was “disingenuous and lacklustre”.

Jerelle Jules, 30, from Hammersmith, West London, had made it to the final round of interviews for a position as a dining reservations supervisor at the exclusive London hotel, when he was sent the company’s employee grooming policy.

The policy, dated 2021, said “unusual hairstyles” such as “spiky hair, afro style” were not allowed. Jules said he was “shocked and disappointed” that his hairstyle was not suitable.

In a statement the Ritz said Jules was sent an out-of-date and incorrect grooming policyadding that it had offered an “unreserved apology for this error”. But according to Jules, the apology was “disingenuous and lacklustre”.

Jules, who works in corporate housing, said it was the first time he had been told he could not have afro hair for a job. He added that he declined the final interview, and that the grooming policy was an example of “corporate ignorance”.

“I want to make sure that things like this don’t happen again,” he said. “It’s about inclusivity and black professionalism.”

Speaking to Metro, Jules added: “The word afro itself is obviously indicative of Africans and after reading that I don’t feel comfortable going to the interview.

“The policy was updated in June 2021 so this is not something that was written 10 or 20 years ago. It’s a recent policy that shows a lack of awareness about being inclusive to people of colour.”

Jules said he had invited the Ritz to talk about diversity and being “open to all candidates”.

Speaking to the BBC, Andy Slaughter, the Labour MP for Hammersmith, said the hair policy was “blatant discrimination”.

“The response by the Ritz on being challenged is wholly inadequate,” he said. “They have not explained how this racist and demeaning policy came about or what they now intend to do to address its legacy,” Slaughter said.

“Mr Jules has offered to help them improve their recruitment process, which is a generous offer and one they should take up. There is no room for this type of attitude from employers.”

A spokesperson for the five-star hotel said: “The Ritz London does not condone discrimination of any form and we are genuinely committed to fostering an inclusive and non-discriminatory environment for all of our colleagues and guests.”

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Company asking for 'only white' candidates sparks outrage

AVirginia-based tech company has sparked outrage online after allegedly posting a job application that stated that the business was only looking for white candidates for the role.

Arthur Grand Technologies, a company founded in 2012 and focused on developing or modifying computer software and packaging, advertised a job on Tuesday for a business analyst in its Salesforce and insurance claims team in Dallas, Texas, on the hiring platform Indeed.

A note in bold in the job offer said: "Only Born US Citizens [White] who are local within 60 miles from Dallas, TX [Don't share with candidates]. The company has apologized and said the ad was posted by a new hire at the company.

The listing was picked up by Reddit users, who tore it apart on the platform, criticizing the company for discriminating against candidates based on race or ethnicity.

"This is illegal and nauseating," read a post that reshared the job listing on Reddit. "...Hope they drown under the weight of their racist pebble-sized convictions," wrote another Reddit user.

"If a PR crisis could be described in one picture, it would be this," commented another.

Arthur Grand Technologies has since removed the job listing from Indeed. In screenshots seen of the company's comments, the tech firm has issued an apology on LinkedIn and accused a "new junior recruiter" of adding discriminatory language to the job description when it was not present in the company's original text.

"We conducted an internal investigation and discovered that a new junior recruiter at our firm was responsible for the offending job post. We have taken immediate action and terminated their employment for violating our policy. Moving forward, we will take measures to ensure that such incidents do not occur again," the company wrote in response to a user condemning their job listing.

The job listing was archived before being deleted and can still be accessed through this page. Many on social media have noted that among the flood of negative comments from members of the public, Arthur Grand Technologies' Facebook profile went down. As of early Wednesday, it was still inactive, as was the company's official website and its Twitter account.

In a later statement on LinkedIn, Arthur Grand Technologies said: "This job posting was neither authorized nor posted by Arthur Grand or its employees. A former employee took an existing posting and added discriminatory language, then reposted it through his own account. The moment this was brought to our attention, we worked with the job portal to remove this offensive job posting. Necessary legal action has been initiated against the job poster."

"Arthur Grand is a minority-owned company that has been offering IT and staffing services since 2012 and we pride ourselves on the diversity of our staff and leadership. It is the policy of Arthur Grand that all employees and applicants for employment are afforded equal opportunity without regard to race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, religion, or non-job-related disability. All employment decisions are based on the individual's qualifications."

The company asked the public not to "raise any of the assumption comments or questions further."

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Six steps to DEI talent in traditionally non-diverse industries

While much progress has been made in technology or emerging sectors such as renewable energy, there is still much work to be done. Women, people of color and those with disabilities are underrepresented in leadership positions in all industries and organizations. Some sectors, particularly those that are traditionally ‘male-dominated’, such as agriculture, manufacturing, and industrial, suffer from a serious lack of diversity amongst the executive leadership.

Some statistics make for challenging reading:

Globally, 30% of manufacturing employees are women, yet only 2.7% of manufacturing companies are led by women. They are an even greater rarity in heavy manufacturing, at only 1.3%

There are 1.3 billion people globally living with some form of disability, which is 17% of the population, the largest minority group worldwide. And while 90% of companies claim to prioritize diversity, only 4% of businesses consider disability in those initiatives

The proportion of women in leadership roles within financial services firms is only 24%, and 83% of financial advisors in the US are white.

Researchers such as Richard Florida and Katherine W. Phillips have established that diversity makes us smarter, more creative, and gives companies a competitive edge over their peers. Although individual companies are slowly moving the dial, many traditional industries have missed the mark on large-scale success due to a number of factors.

A lack of suitable mentors and training, unconscious bias and little to no expansion of recruiting channels have all contributed to the problem. Hiring managers in these industries often rely too heavily on their own networks to fill roles, which are typically limited in diversity. Concurrently, with little historical diversity, there are few role models available to provide guidance, advice and support.

Our focus is on providing strategic input to our CEO and Chief People Officer clients in tackling this issue.

Below are six strategies for finding and attracting diverse talent in non-diverse industries:

Step 1: Overtly Align Organizational Culture and Business Strategy with Search and Recruitment Practices
This is the necessary foundational step, particularly for organizations that struggle to identify diversity hires. The crucial early phase is about refining both the business and cultural need for a diverse workforce, and ensuring both executive and departmental alignment.

Setting an effective and measurable plan for attracting diverse talent is not ‘just a HR problem’. It is important to engage all staff in the conversation, and to canvas ideas and approaches from across the organization. Imperatives for shifting the dial in diversity talent include discussions around the nature of the workforce that will meet the company’s emerging needs, the steps that need to take place, timeframes, what success looks like, and how to evaluate that success.

Following discussion and consultation, the senior leadership team needs to be accountable for a formal diversity and inclusion policy, with clearly defined strategic diversity targets and measures, along with clarity around accountability for delivery.

Step 2: Re-Evaluate Your Search and Recruitment Processes
Once there is a degree of clarity and cohesion around diversity targets and metrics, it’s important for HR leaders to take a look at their current search and recruitment processes. This will include identifying any potential biases that may be preventing diverse candidates from applying or advancing. What are the proactive approaches in place that address the policies? How have these changed, in, say, the past five or six years to recognize different expectations?

An effective analysis could include reviewing and re-writing role descriptions to avoid poor practices. This includes avoiding masculine language, and using more inclusive images and language on your career website.

To what extent is it clear that you welcome a diverse range of candidates, and provide appropriate arrangements and support for candidates with disabilities? To what extent does each role description indicate your approach to diversity and inclusion? For example, one of our university clients has the following statement on all role descriptions used in recruitment at all levels:

Equal Employment Statement
We are committed to all aspects of equal opportunity, diversity and inclusion in the workplace and to providing all staff, students, contractors and visitors with a safe, respectful and rewarding and flexible environment free from all forms of unlawful discrimination, harassment, bullying, vilification and victimization. We make decisions on employment, promotion, and reward based on merit.

Step 3: Increase Your Outreach
There are many ways to increase outreach to source a greater range of diverse candidates, even in industries that sometimes have more narrowly based representations of different groups. For example, in the mining industry, the estimates are that only between 8 and 17% of the sector’s global workforce are women).

Ideas include:

Utilizing different talent pools: Look for candidates with transferable skills from other industries
If advertising a position, reach out to a wide variety of job sites to post positions
Ensuring you have deliberate and supportive return-to-work programs. It can be difficult for women or others who have taken a break from the workforce to re-enter it. Return-to-work programs can be an excellent resource both for attracting candidates and providing some extra support
Supporting a diversity networking group. Help out by backing initiatives and events, offering exposure to your senior organizational leaders
At the entry level to the organization, start a diverse internship program. Make sure your program exposes participants to senior executive talent, so they can connect with the firm’s leaders. Follow this up with mentoring programs
Make a point of being well-connected to leading business and advocacy groups that represent a range of diverse populations
Consider how you might benefit from collaborations with community refugee or recent migrant groups, whose professional qualifications might not be recognized in your country. We are aware of a major construction company who addressed a shortage of technical talent by attracting engineers whose qualifications were not recognized. They employed them in technical support roles, and then supported them through the process of having their qualifications recognized. It was a ‘win – win’ situation.

Step 4: Practice Inclusive Hiring
Inclusive hiring means that you are actively looking for candidates who might be different from the existing workforce. It means you have mechanisms in place that prevent or minimize recruitment biases, both conscious and unconscious.

Ideas include:

Broadening your referral pool: ask for referrals from external networking associations and diversity groups
Reduce unconscious bias by anonymizing resumes. Eliminate unconscious bias by deleting an applicant’s name, gender, age and other personal characteristics
Use data-driven assessments: ensure an objective set of criteria is used to minimize personal biases. We suggest you check your ‘objective criteria’ with diversity and inclusion experts
Use behavioral event interview guides: check interview guides to ensure that they are seeking a range of examples that enable candidates to draw broadly on their experiences
Provide interview coaching: make sure all those involved in bringing new staff into the organization are well trained in how to interview and good decision-making practices.

Step 5: Build a Diverse Hiring Committee and Interview Panel
It’s crucial to have both a diverse hiring committee and interview panel, including people on the committee or panel that reflect a good level of diversity. This can also bring different perspectives and experiences to the table which can help to identify potential biases and ensure that the hiring process is fair and inclusive. This not only helps to ensure that diverse candidates are evaluated fairly, but also helps to create a more inclusive culture within the organization, and offers a holistic candidate experience. In many of our clients today, there is a requirement that all short lists reflect a 40:40:20 balance. That is, at least 40% male, 40% female, and 20% addressing other diversity factors.

Step 6: Measure and Report on Your Progress
Diversifying your workforce is an ongoing process, and it’s important to measure and report on your progress. This could include tracking the diversity of your applicant pool, the diversity of new hires, and the retention rates of diverse employees. This not only holds the organization to account but also helps to identify areas that need improvement. It will also serve as an important communication and reinforcement piece to both employees and the broader stakeholder group (investors, shareholders, suppliers, etc.) regarding your organization’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Diversity and Inclusion
We also need to recognize that recruiting diverse talent is just the tip of the iceberg. The real challenge then is the ‘inclusion’ part of ‘diversity and inclusion’. Whilst diversity and inclusion are two different things, they are two sides of the same coin, by which long-term, measurable success in one won’t be achieved without the other.

The ongoing challenge, therefore, is the nature of a welcoming or supportive culture – or the absence of this – that is about the long-term sustainability of diversity and inclusion approaches.

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Black employees can’t wait 95 years to reach talent parity at managerial levels

Rosanna Durruthy is the global head of diversity, inclusion, and belonging at LinkedIn.

Despite progress in diversifying the talent pool, the level of representation of Black talent in leadership positions remains astoundingly low. Today, only six Black professionals hold CEO positions at Fortune 500 companies–and only four percent of senior leaders at large companies are Black. In fact, McKinsey estimates that it will take 95 years for Black employees to reach talent parity across managerial levels in the private sector.

Ample research has also shown that companies with diverse leadership teams perform better both with talent and financials.

This Black History Month we must be aware of the barriers faced by Black professionals–and the solutions for their lack of representation in senior leadership positions.

Why Black professionals are leaving the workplace

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a greater representation of Black executives leading organizations big and small. At the same time, we’ve also seen Black professionals–women in particular–at the edge of a “glass cliff,” a concept in which professionals are promoted into high-profile roles but, despite their merit, skills, experience, and knowledge, aren’t given the resources they need to succeed.

While promoting Black professionals might seem like a great retention and diversifying tool, companies often don’t set them up for success. Adequate support systems, such as mentorship, sponsorship, and learning and development are lacking.

We are seeing Black professionals leave the workforce for lack of competitive wages (46%), lack of professional development (25%), and lack of investment in DEI (17%). This is really where companies are left with the work that they need to do to fundamentally understand that without professional development, and true meaningful career growth, it will be very difficult for companies to retain the Black talent that they have.

Lack of access to mentorship and sponsorship

At the start of my professional journey, there were very few executives who shared my background or looked like me. Those who made it to the C-suite were near demigods and their shared experiences made it clear that the journey to the executive suite required more than mere talent to break through the “concrete ceiling.”

I’ve broken through the “concrete ceiling” in my career–and sat at the edge of the “glass cliff” in corporate America, wishing I had the support and resources to do my job well. I also struggled to break through the glass ceiling of middle management. The journey is never easy, but with support, inclusive spaces, and community, we can advance more and more Black professionals to senior ranks.

Our LinkedIn data analysis found that access to mentorship is a barrier to success, with over a third of Black professionals feeling they’ve missed out on career opportunities because of a lack of mentorship. This challenge is compounded by the fact that 33% of Black professionals reported having a hard time finding a mentor who truly understands them.

How companies can invest in Black talent

Acknowledging and understanding the current state, organizations should set out to spotlight the importance of Black leadership representation in corporate spaces and beyond.

This month, I encourage you to join me in celebrating the incredible Black talent in the workforce so that we can pave pathways and inspire change for the next generation of Black leaders.

Together, we can create a more inclusive and equitable future for all professionals in the corporate world and beyond.

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“Gig economy helps everyone” says TaskRabbit’s CEO

Gallup estimates gig work to be the primary job for 29% of American workers.

However, according to the National Institute for Workers' Rights, 54% of gig workers lack employee benefits, such as social security, health insurance, paid medical leave, overtime pay, and occupational safety protections, and they aren’t earning minimum wage, disproportionately affecting Black and Latinx workers who sit within those with the lowest wages and fewest protections.

Ania Smith, CEO of TaskRabbit, who built a career working for corporations at the center of the new gig economy such as Uber and Airbnb argues that the pandemic drew more attention to the vital role independent contractors play in society saying "the gig economy helps everyone".

But companies like Uber and Lyft have faced a lot of scrutiny for not providing full-time benefits for their contract workers.

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