Who Am I
Hi, my name is Ericka I am a Black woman leading this survey for Black women.
If you don’t know me but want to know before taking this survey, here is a brief summary of who I am and why I am doing this. My day job is as a DEI consultant specializing in helping organizations become more inclusive and equitable, particularly regarding race. And if we ever crossed orbits in real life or online, you would also know that I am a researcher and information curator at heart. I collect info like others collect memes. My friends say they call me before they google. I love good research and know the power of what it can do to move people and organizations.
What am I doing
So, trust me when I tell you that good, deep, rich data on what Black women need to thrive in the workplace is scarce. Trust me, I have looked. Can you believe that? I feel certain that you do. There isn’t much written on how to thrive in the workplace generally, but centering Black women? Nope. When you start your own business, they say you build what you always wanted. One thing I would have wanted is what I needed to thrive in the workplace, not just survive. To feel good, to feel confident, to feel competent.
Please hear me when I say this: you deserve to feel good at work. I want this for you. Can we, as Black women, imagine it for ourselves?
Why this survey.
In order to make the strongest argument to organizations about WHY they need to do more for Black women, my experience taught me that you need to have that data. And it needs to be valid.
This survey takes an academically based research approach. It’s not a 5 question social media survey. It’s a little longer and way more comprehensive. This is a sit-down with coffee, tea, wine, or whisky kind of survey. It’s about 15 mins of your day. I am asking for a small investment of your time to have —hopefully —-a big payoff. You will see that this survey asks us questions that you may have never seen asked before about work, like what makes Black women feel most confident, connected, and accepted in our jobs.
This is built for us, by us. My research team is all Black women. There are Black women helping on the communications end, as well. Our voices are centered. Our life experiences shared and informed this work.
What’s next
I promise you that I’m not going to do this research and then make it hard to understand or inaccessible. When we get the results, we will share them with you! We want you to see them and use them. And we will be doing the same. We are going to offer podcasts, webinars, and summits to share our findings as broadly as possible.
I do this work of challenging organizations every day to be more inclusive and equitable. I have my foot wedged in the door of many places and this data is only going to make our case stronger and more concrete. Right now, the time is ripe.
Doing this work, I have my foot wedged in the door of change, and I am gonna push it to open as wide as I can.
Thank you for reading this. Thank you for taking this survey. Thank you for investing your time. I will steward this forward with all the care and tenacity that I have. And, with your permission, I will do it in partnership with you.
Thriving together,
