Like many little brown and black girls, I believed there was a place for me within society, a place where my voice would matter. Growing up, I was socially condition, to believe that if I was armed with an education and the willingness to work hard, success would be inevitable. This “recipe” for success was sold as a way for women to take control of their careers, enabling them to drive their own success in a white male dominated world. However, when this “recipe” was created, this theory was never fully “baked”, with a diverse lens and excluded the unique challenges that women of color endure within the workplace. In truth, women of color face a “double jeopardy”, and are subjected to a greater level of discrimination not only for their gender, but race as well. For this reason, I decided to share my story, of what it was like working at Facebook as a woman of color. My story is not unique to just me, but rather is the norm for many women of color. The decision to write from this perspective is not intended to polarize us further as women, rather, to help bring awareness to a group of women, who go unnoticed. Women of color are extremely underrepresented within the workforce, especially in Tech.

Representation & Sponsorship Matter

When I was recruited over from Amazon to Facebook, I shared the news with my friends and family. Many people congratulated me and were genuinely happy and supportive. But surprisingly, there were several people who didn’t say much and gave me cautionary advice. I would hear warnings like, “Tech is a different workforce” or “are you sure you want to do this? Tech is challenging.” and “things operate differently within in the world of Tech.” What I realized, in hindsight, is that I should have heeded their cautionary advice before accepting my role at Facebook within HR.

What stood out to me, during new hire orientation, was a lack diversity specifically, underrepresented minority representation within Facebook. I was surprised given the deceptive optics that Facebook uses to portray diversity. But, despite the lack of representation, I had faith and believed my performance would overcome any systematic barriers of oppression that I would face. Naively, what I failed to realize, is that despite my efforts of compromising my “authentic” self in an effort to fit in, it would never be enough or more importantly I would never be enough. Often times, women of color face a unique set of challenges that other underrepresented groups are not subjected to within the workplace. A 2006 survey, found that women of color are more likely to suffer harassment in the form of macro/microagressions, unrelenting standards, and are presumed less qualified than their white peers.

Even with a master’s degree in Human Resource Management, it was never enough for Facebook. I was forced to consistently prove my subject matter expertise and defend my work, despite building the same program for Amazon. There was no such thing as internal support from anyone especially my manager, rather she did whatever she could to impact and hinder my career. She used her power to keep me oppressed and intentionally withheld and blocked any career advancement opportunities. Not only did she impact my promotional opportunities and my future career trajectory, but she also impacted my financial compensation, present and future earnings. My manager knew I was a single mom and that I was trying to advance my career so that I could pay for college for my daughter. In fact, throughout my 3 years of employment at Facebook, I was never once promoted despite maintaining a stellar performance record, including an exceeds rating. Facebook won disability inclusion awards, in part, because of my accommodations work in 2018 and 2019. The fact that I built and scaled the Global Accommodations program and policy that Facebook still uses today didn’t matter.

My experience, will unequivocally illustrate, that women of color who do not have a level of support and sponsorship miss out on the informal networks that help propel high-potentials forward in their careers. I can honestly say that I am unable to recall anyone who took the time to get to know me and help champion my work to support my efforts to advance my career. Rather, I was punished for simply trying to do my job. I eventually lost my career path within the HR disability space because of this manager. I was replaced, with a white woman, who was brought in to manage the program that I built, at a significant higher level despite lacking the same level of credentials that I possess. In fact, Facebook re-leveled my exact role and work responsibilities to an Accommodations Leader Position, while I was merely a Level 4, Program Manager (I performed these job duties for 2 ½ years).

It’s Not Just About Diversity, but Inclusion Too

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) are buzz words, used interchangeably by Tech companies to highlight D& I efforts. Mistakenly, many companies assume that diversity is synonyms with inclusion, but in truth, you cannot have diversity without inclusion. Representation is just one component, but if the leaders of the organization are not consistently auditing bias and creating an equitable environment for all, then the company will experience natural attrition of underrepresented groups, especially women of color.

Facebook allows bias to go unchecked within the internal culture and I not only witnessed it, but experienced it. A few of my colleagues, who happened to be women of color as well, would confide in me and express great distress. We were all in the same situation and came to the conclusion we all were diversity hires. We would set meetings with each other, so that it would look “official” hoping no one would listen or question us about our conversations. We would discuss and replay conversations that we had throughout our day with other team members and cross-functional partners. Often times, we were paranoid that a comment/response in a meeting would be misconstrued and used against us in the form of negative feedback, especially on our performance reviews. It was not only stressful, but sick! I literally became scared to speak to anyone, and in order to survive, I spoke only when spoken to and with hesitation. “Studies show, that when women receive feedback, it tends to be overly focused on their communication style. Women were more likely to receive feedback that they are unpleasant to work with because they are passionate or direct. In fact, 76% of references and examples of being “too aggressive” happened in women’s reviews, versus 24% in men’s.”

Call to Action

Many Tech companies deflect when it comes to D&I issues within their internal culture. Rather than auditing the culture for bias, unconscious or conscious, it seems that many companies avert the real issue and pump millions of dollars into conferences, internal support groups, and training. I have a very clear message to the CEO’s of these companies, STOP! We rather have internal equity and equality; these strategies do little to improve the internal culture and reflects an inauthentic commitment to D&I efforts within your company.

Rather, it sends a very clear message to women of color job seekers, that we are not valued and D&I is ancillary to your overall business strategy. There are real tangible efforts that you can implement that will not only save money with D&I efforts but will organically assist retention as well.

Diversify hiring practices & fix the broken rung

Many Tech Leaders, believe they are increasing diversity efforts by hiring more women, which is true, to some limited degree. What your women of color employees understand all to well, is that this is company “code speak” for the real truth, the company intends on hiring more white women. I will admit, that all women face representation challenges and this is a good first step in the right direction, but this will not create diversity with your workforce. One of the biggest obstacles, women face, hinders them at the first transitional step from entry level to middle management. By not re-calibrating and fixing the broken rung to include women of color, natural attrition will occur as women are getting stuck at the entry level and fewer women are becoming managers.

Train your managers to start grooming women of color for elevated positions and create a bench for future roles that are due to come open. Help them network and invite them to higher level meetings, start introducing them as your “thought partner” on XYZ matter. Managers should see the intrinsic value with promoting from within as these employees have a cost related advantage to the business and can quickly assimilate to the new role. Not only will this help pave the way for higher executive level positions but will holistically assist in retention and outreach efforts.

Accountability

The other piece to this is actually holding managers/employees accountable for their actions and behaviors with formal discipline, to include termination. When a company knowingly allows a manager to behave like my manager did at Facebook, it creates exposure and risk for the business. Allowing, bias and discriminatory conditions to fester, through inaction, creates a hostile work environment that women of color must endure. The downstream impact is the company will see an uptick in work-related stress claims, leaves, accommodations, and attrition.

Now

I lost everything working at Facebook, my career path, the ability to support myself, and most importantly my mental health, as Facebook almost drove me to suicide. After hearing about an unfortunate event that happened at Facebook, a workplace suicide, shows the company continues to subject their minority workforce to a toxic work environment. Unfortunately, I do not foresee a change as I have yet to find an agency that will hold Facebook accountable for egregious violations of State and Federal employment laws.

Recently, it seems the news is filled with a variety of stories sharing a mix of employment violations from not just Facebook, but collectively by Big Tech. I think we are at interesting cross-roads as it appears that history has repeated itself and“Big Tech” is the new “Railroads” for the 21st Century, powerful and unregulated. As I said, in my 11/26/19, Tweet, this will continue until all Tech workers unite to demand accountability and change from Big Tech.