Workplace mistreatment can have damaging effects on anyone, but for Black employees, the toll is even heavier, a new study reveals.
According to new research, Black employees in toxic work environments suffer significantly more from depression and sleep loss compared to their white counterparts. When Black workers experience mistreatment, they lose an estimated 100 more minutes of sleep per night than white workers or Black individuals who aren’t facing such hostility.
The emotional burden of being mistreated on the job goes beyond just sleep; it also manifests in symptoms of depression, making the situation more dire.
The study reveals that the increased vulnerability of Black employees may be linked to America’s long history of racial prejudice. Researchers found that Black employees who faced mistreatment were nearly eight times more likely to perceive that the mistreatment stemmed from racial prejudice.
In contrast, white employees rarely attributed mistreatment to race and were often able to brush off workplace incidents more easily. This discrepancy highlights the enduring weight of systemic racism on Black employees, even in supposedly neutral work environments.
Erik Gonzalez-Mule, chair of management and entrepreneurship at the Indiana University School of Business and one of the researchers behind the study, emphasizes that the findings are not meant to suggest that Black employees are overly sensitive. Rather, they shine a light on the fact that mistreatment is often experienced through the lens of one’s identity.
“Organizations must strive to create an inclusive workplace for their Black employees and should find ways to reduce workplace mistreatment, for example, by implementing accountability measures or encouraging bystander intervention,” Gonzalez-Mule said in a university news release.
The research was conducted in two phases. In the first, over 3,500 people were studied as part of a broader examination of midlife health by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute on Aging. Participants reported on their experiences with workplace mistreatment, while some wore devices to monitor their sleep patterns or filled out questionnaires to assess depressive symptoms.
For Black employees, there was a clear correlation between mistreatment, sleep loss, and depression, while no such patterns were found for white employees.
In the second phase of the study, researchers asked approximately 500 people to recall a time when they felt mistreated by a coworker or boss. Black participants were much more likely than white participants to attribute this mistreatment to their race.
Published recently in the ‘Journal of Applied Psychology,’ the study makes a powerful case for why companies must go beyond surface-level diversity efforts.
In the study, the team wrote: “Many of them have predominantly focused on the diversity aspect, with most attention paid to simply staffing a more diverse workplace.”
They added: “We encourage managers to heed the oft-quoted line, that ‘Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance.’ Workplace mistreatment is the antithesis of inclusiveness, even if consistently applied across racial lines.”
The study’s findings certainly suggest that companies should take concrete steps to combat workplace mistreatment and its disproportionate effects on Black employees.
Failing to do so may perpetuate a cycle of harm that keeps Black workers more vulnerable to the mental and physical strains that come with toxic work environments.
