Visibility

The visibility theme encompasses several positive and negative aspects of achieving visibility in the organisation. Interviewees from both groups placed emphasis on striving for visibility in their work roles, highlighting the importance of their work content and type of assignments. However, for the minority-ethnic group, gaining visibility was more complicated: many reported visibility as being difficult to achieve in some instances, depending on their work profile, as well as gaining recognition in their roles. Minority-ethnic interviewees also discussed negative aspects of visibility, such as enhanced scrutiny. Conversely, rather than identifying difficulties in achieving visibility, majority-ethnic interviewees focused on being proactive in enhancing their visibility through building their reputation.

Role Type

Occupational segregation was an a priori code in the template, but whilst several minority-ethnic managers reported experiencing segregation, it was discussed in relation to its effect on visibility in general, such as being in roles that lacked prestige and exposure in the organisation. For example, five of the minority-ethnic

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managers interviewed had worked at some stage during their career in a diversity- related role. Whilst they enjoyed this work, they reported that these roles were problematic for enhancing their visibility and damaged their opportunities for progression:

“Being a black female within the equality arena isn’t sometimes a good thing. You get typecast. I have noticed when applying for other jobs, people can’t see beyond the fact that I am a black woman who has worked in an environment that talks about black issues. So I am now looking to move on, but I am finding it very challenging.”

[Participant 20: Minority-Ethnic, Female]

Whilst some of the minority-ethnic interviewees who had worked in diversity roles reported that it was their own choice, driven by interest in the diversity field, others reported having less choice about the types of roles they were placed in:

“I felt at that time that HR dumped me there partly because of my name. I told them what my preferences were and it just wasn’t taken into account”

[Participant 5, Minority-Ethnic, Male]

Importantly, all minority-ethnic interviewees, whether they had been in ‘segregated’ roles or not, observed an unequal spread of minority-ethnic employees across the organisation. They reported being dissatisfied that there were certain areas where minority-ethnic employees were concentrated in ‘ethnic roles’, such as customer- facing roles, dealing with minority-ethnic communities:

“I wish [the organisation] would show that they value BME1 staff because I don’t see a lot of BME people in [work area], I don’t see them in [other work area]”

[Participant 14, Minority-Ethnic, Male]

Majority-ethnic managers did not discuss the types of roles they, or others, were in as disadvantageous for their visibility in the organisation, or careers, therefore the code ‘role type’ is not included in the majority-ethnic template.

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Work Content

Both groups of managers discussed the content of their work; however, they spoke about it differently. Majority-ethnic interviewees argued that gaining entry into roles that offered them autonomy and job discretion was essential to enhance their visibility and achieve greater levels of career success. They also placed importance on working on high profile projects and assignments. Those who discussed this regarded these projects as important for career success because they provided exposure to senior decision makers and therefore direct routes to important network contacts:

“You have to get the jobs that have got a bit of an edge to them and then prove yourself. You need exposure really.”

[Participant 39: Majority-Ethnic, Male]

However, whilst minority-ethnic managers also acknowledged the role of work content in career success, many reported having a lack of job autonomy, control and discretion, and were less likely to be awarded with high profile work assignments:

“When it comes to putting people forward for special things, or if there is any high profile work to be done, I get put forward when it is skills based, because I am privileged to have education behind me, If it is something that requires a lot of thinking, I could probably get put forward for it, but if it is something that I have to compete with the other managers, I probably will not be. Sometimes I think that it hasn’t been handed out fairly.”

[Participant 1: Minority-Ethnic, Female]

Recognition

The second minority-ethnic level-two code, ‘recognition’, did not appear in any of the majority-ethnic interviewees’ transcripts. However, many minority-ethnic interviewees reported being under more scrutiny than their colleagues and also described putting extra time and effort into work to overcome this and receive credit for work:

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“...I had a series of really hostile line managers. Everything I did was wrong and every little thing was picked up, you know it was nasty.”

[Participant 3: Minority-Ethnic Female]

“..if you stand out from the norm, then by default, it’s human nature that you will be noticed a little bit more, and there is always a greater pressure to essentially follow the rules even more closely than some of the non-BME counterparts, there is more chance that when you get it wrong it will be spotted more quickly, and ultimately your work will get noticed more than others so it just means that, it’s not that anybody has said anything to me, by that very fact, the reality of that fact, I have always worked harder, worked longer hours and maybe just go the extra mile than some of my counterparts.”

[Participant 17: Minority-ethnic, Male]

“another difficulty is not been given credit for the good work you’ve done and seeing someone else doing as much or less than you did and being given a lot of credit for that, so at one point I began to put in 50-60 hour weeks to get noticed”

[Participant 9: Minority-Ethnic, Female]

This suggests, somewhat paradoxically, that although they reported experiencing greater scrutiny, minority-ethnic interviewees also adopted strategies to enhance their visibility in their work units.

Rocking the Boat

The final level-two code under ‘visibility’ related to a fear from several minority- ethnic managers about raising their ethnicity as an issue in organisations. As demonstrated by this quote, it was seen as a definite taboo and something that could potentially affect career success.

“I wear the shoes and I know where they hurt, other people would disagree with me but my perception is that being BME has held me back, based on my experience. That is my perception, whether or not other people agree with me is another matter, but that is a very dangerous thing for anybody to say, once you say it you are in big trouble, you are standing out like a leper, you are then ‘trouble’. You will not make progress anywhere, not just where you were, but any other person will be very wary about taking you on, so it’s a kind of, it’s very career limiting to say things like that.

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Building Reputation

An important difference between the groups was that majority-ethnic, but not minority-ethnic, interviewees discussed the importance of developing a positive reputation in the organisation. Several interviewees reported that building reputation was more important for career success than more formal channels of progression (e.g. assessment centre performance). They discussed actively striving to enhance their reputation and using their reputation as a tool to achieve career success. Furthermore, enhancing reputation was regarded by many as an important step for establishing influential network contacts. Several majority-ethnic interviewees reported taking roles specifically because of their potential benefits for enhancing reputation. However, whilst minority-ethnic interviewees identified the importance of working on high profile projects and being afforded job discretion, they did not discuss taking an active role to build their own reputation.

“I took on that role and a few projects that were outside my remit, I did that because I knew I would get a good name out of that, someone who could be relied on and senior people would hear more about me”

[Participant 28: Majority-Ethnic, Female.]