Div Pillay knows large numbers of women are witnessing and experiencing sexism and racism at work but are not reporting it to their employers, due to fear of backlash.
She knows this because she’s funded and engaged research on the issue herself and through her business MindTribes, in partnership with the University of Melbourne and CPSU Victoria.
Seventy-six percent of women of colour and 42% of Anglo-European women who witnessed and experienced sexism and racism at work did not report it, due to fear of negative backlash, according to their recent Safer Workplaces for Women of Colour report.
So what can employers that want to actually address this issue, do about it? Especially as more employers will soon need to outline “Duty of Care” requirements, following the passage of the Respect@Work legislation.
Pillay is rolling out a new reporting app to help. After searching the world for solutions to enable safe and anonymous reporting, she’s launched the #NotMe App in Australia, a platform created by US-based employment lawyer and #NotMe Solutions founder Ariel Weindling, giving employees the opportunity to report workplace misconduct and discrimination safely and anonymously. MindTribes is currently running a survey of those in consulting who may wish to report misconduct anonymously, with the option to do so here.
While the reporting team member’s details remain anonymous, and they can determine what details they want to send through, employers that deploy the platform can access a dashboard that scores the severity of incidents, and access early indicators around emerging and problematic trends.
“It’s working beautifully in Europe and the US, and we wanted to bring that innovation to Australia,” Pillay tells Women’s Agenda. “With so many employers, nothing has really changed in terms of the reporting opportunities they offer and how team members can report. The most they will often have is an online form, and you have to identify yourself.”
Where some employers may also offer more robust and purpose-built anonymous reporting platforms, including whistleblowing platforms, it’s understandable that team members would be cautious and hesitant to use them.
Introducing the #NotMe App platform across Australia and New Zealand, MindTribes already has a number of trials running, as well as early launches across the consulting industry. And already they are gathering trend-based data that can help influence the industry to proactively act, rather than waiting and reacting to things happening that ultimately impact employee well-being and safety.
“It gives us lead data, as opposed to lag data,” she says. “It tells us early when something is going wrong.”
Pillay adds that on meeting with larger employers, she comes across a lot of fear within teams regarding the risk of defamation.
“Companies are scared of knowing, which is uncanny. When you look at big businesses that end up in the headlines for all the wrong they have done, you just have to think, why wouldn’t you want to know what’s going on? And if you really think you are going to have wild issues with defamation, then that says something about the culture itself.”
Pillay says from here, she hopes that employers take up the app confidently and with gusto, applying it to their entire workforce. “As a social impact business, that’s the kind of win that we are going for,”
Pillay founded MindTribes with her husband Vick ten years ago following their own experiences being born, raised, and educated under apartheid in South Africa, and migrating to Australia to restart their careers in the early 2000s, often as the first people of colour in their teams.
They know firsthand the experience of exclusion a work. And now ten years into running a business, they know and see some of the exclusions and additional challenges facing founders and business owners in Australia.
Through the ups and downs of the past decade — including the pandemic — they have seen how small businesses are challenged by the lengthy sales cycles when selling to big businesses, cumbersome procurement processes, and pitching for work when you’re up against much larger competitors.
Given the business they run, they have also faced the added challenge of raising the critical need for the services they offer in dealing with gender discrimination and racism at work. So much so that they have funded their own research to help organisations better understand the extent of the problem.
“Ten years ago, there was no data on cultural diversity at all — we started working with the University of Melbourne — investing in covering this area to build the business case. That’s a lot of time from a small team, that we’ve put into this. We have to fund ourselves. If we don’t compete with that evidence base, we won’t win the work.”
Pillay also notes the time challenges that come with researching and applying for government grants and tenders, as well as how non-tech businesses are frequently overlooked when it comes to VC and other investments.
“Early on, we were told by VC firms that we wouldn’t last two years. I’d love to go back and connect with them. Ten years and we are still here! We have built a great business and a great brand And we hire women, and we hire women of colour and we make a big effort to pay them well.”
Seven years ago, Vick left his consulting role to join the business full-time. It was a huge leap to make — and Pillay says that it is only recently that they have stopped having the conversation about whether or not he should return to consulting.
But ultimately over this decade, MindTribes has grown sustainably. They’ve done what they’ve achieved by investing in themselves and taking leaps where they could. “If we had waited for grant or VC funding, then we wouldn’t have been able to achieve the market position that we have now,” Pillay says.
As a small team working remotely, Pillay also notes the efforts they put into hiring and supporting team members.
“We hire women, and we hire women of colour and we make a big effort to pay them well. Personally, as founders, we will take a lesser cut, so we can pay our consultants well — as they should be. We are working at the intersection of sexism and racism,” she says.
This article was first published by Women’s Agenda.
Women’s Agenda is a news and features site for career women, and a sister publication to The Mandarin.
