Ever felt uneasy about a project at work? Something that didn’t sit well with you? You’re not alone. Competing pressures and incentives in the workplace can cause good people to do ethically questionable things. Worried you might be in that boat? We’re here to help with ethical issues in the workplace.
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In the United States, women earn 80 cents per every dollar earned by a man. Equal Pay Day is held on April 10th, because it marks just how far into the year on average women must work to earn what men earned in the previous calendar year. Women Who Code conducted a survey on Equal Pay Day last year that revealed a quarter of women in tech have left a job because they were not being paid the same as men in equal positions. This pay inequity expands beyond tech, and across demographics. Learn more about what you can do to close the wage gap.
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Imposter Syndrome is the feeling that you haven’t earned your success, you simply got lucky, and you’re a fraud or “imposter” around people who actually earned it and know what they’re doing. It makes one feel that they do not have the skills or expertise to hold their current job, but instead made it there “by chance;” they think if anyone found out how little they know about their job, they’d be fired immediately. Imposter Syndrome can cause people to doubt themselves and their ideas at work. This can lead people to avoid sharing their work, leading initiatives, or pursuing challenging tasks for fear of being discovered as an “imposter.”
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Microaggressions are harmful small, everyday phrases or actions that are targeted at a person based on their membership in a marginalized group. These actions are often not explicitly about someone’s identity, but implicitly insult and other someone’s race, gender, sexual orientation or disability status. At work, they can make people feel alienated, unsupported, vulnerable, disrespected, uncomfortable, and hurt. Microaggressions often reinforce a message to people from underrepresented groups of, “You are not one of us. You do not belong.”
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Shannon Lubetich talks about committing microaggression, an action that does not necessarily reflect malicious intent but can nevertheless inflict insult or injury, typically to members of marginalized groups and often related to someone’s race, gender, sexual orientation or disability status. They repeatedly send a message to people from underrepresented groups of, “You are not one of us. You do not belong.”
Read about strategies for if you experience a microaggression in the workplace, witness a microaggression, or even commit a microaggression yourself.
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Shannon Lubetich’s story about Snap highlights not just problems with culture and diversity, but the lack of resources available for employees. People face myriad toxic workplace situations across a broad spectrum including, but by no means limited to, bullying, microaggressions, power imbalances, harassment, unethical practices, gaslighting, and discrimination, to name a small subset. These situations are so prevalent, employees will almost certainly face at least one, if not a combination, while they’re in the workforce. What’s not certain is whether they’ll get the support they need to address these situations as they arise. Empower Work is here to provide that workplace support.
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We’re excited to announce a partnership with Omidyar Network to reach more people across the tech industry with our immediate, anonymous text support for challenging work situations.
Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives. Tech and Society Solutions Lab is a new effort that draws on the organization’s long-standing belief in both the promise of technology to create opportunity and social good, as well as concern about negative outcomes that can result from this innovation.
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