Scott, who is white, is troubled by the racism of some of his past actions. During the mid-1980s, when he was in new construction, he and his partner were building a custom home for a banker on a lot adjacent to a home that was for sale. A black couple bid on the existing house, and when the banker found out, he cancelled the contract and put his lot up for sale.
Some time later, a man of Korean descent came to Scott looking for a sales job. “I really liked him,” Scott says, but, tainted by the previous experience, he was hesitant. “I was afraid,” he adds. “Subtle racism kept me from hiring him.” The man eventually found another job, but the experience still haunts Scott. “That’s always bothered me,” he says. “I wouldn’t make the same decision if it happened again.”
What to Do Although overt racism is rare, it does happen, and how you handle it when your employees are discriminated against has a lot to do with your company culture and the employees themselves.
When Scott’s clients requested that the black super be taken off the job, Scott called a special company meeting to explain the situation and to get feedback from his employees about what course of action to take. “We were seriously discussing walking away from the job,” Scott says. He made sure to show the super in question that the company supported him. And, as a group, the company ultimately decided to switch supers and keep the job moving forward.
It was a mistake. The clients, as Scott feared, turned out to be extremely difficult.
Lee, for one, isn’t surprised to hear that. He advises that if a client shows any signs of prejudice — such as specifically asking that their work crew not include members of certain ethnic groups — the contractor should cut the cord as quickly as possible. “These are unhappy people,” Lee says. “They build themselves up by putting others down. My suggestion is to avoid them like the plague.” When he was a contractor, Lee — a fifth-generation Chinese-American — recalls homeowners who, instead of requesting a work crew of a certain ethnicity, would ask thinly veiled questions such as, “What type of people work for you?” One homeowner actually asked, “If there were five of them, would they be a decent basketball team?” Generally, he passed on those jobs.
Webb, on the other hand, handles these situations a different way. At The Real Gutter Protector, he has three crews of Mexican workers, but if a client specifically requests that Mexicans not work on their house, Webb will send a Caucasian crew. “This is America,” Webb says. “If that’s what they want, that’s what we’ll do.”
Webb also doesn’t advertise that his company is owned by a black man. He doesn’t go out of his way to hide it, but he only tells callers if they ask. As a result, he estimates that 99% of his clients don’t know that the company is minority-owned. Webb is confident that this is good for business. “We’d have less sales if every one of our customers knew I owned the company.”
Cultural Competence Times are changing, if slowly. Minorities now make up the fastest-growing segment of homeowners, as well as an increasing portion of the labor pool. To thrive in this era of new demographics, it’s important that your company be what Lee terms “culturally competent.” And company owners and key personnel need to lead by example.
Even those remodelers who consider themselves enlightened individuals may inadvertently say or do things to show that they are not. For instance, people still use the term “Oriental,” but it’s considered derogatory; “Asian” is preferred. And while “Jew” is a perfectly acceptable word when referring to an adherent of Judaism, using phrases such as “Jewing down the price” is offensive and racist.
Even if the person who hears these and other such comments isn’t a member of the ethnic group in question, they may still be offended or feel uncomfortable. “Mentally, I just disassociate from people who use inappropriate words to refer to people,” says Jerry Liu, of D.G. Liu Contractor, Dickerson, Md. “I look ethnic,” Liu continues. “If they are going to talk that way about black people in front of me, what are they saying about Chinese people behind my back?”
Liu is also Jewish, which few, if any, people suspect. Because his features and his surname clearly indicate that he’s of Eastern descent, he rarely hears derogatory remarks about Asians. However, people will make disparaging remarks about Jews in his presence without a second thought.
Lee points out that if you say things like, “I have no problem with those people” in reference to a specific ethnic group, you’re actually indicating “that you feel they are different somehow, and possibly not equal.”
A particularly burdensome byproduct of America’s history is the tendency that many Americans have to expect people from other cultures to adapt to their customs and language. In an effort to find a Spanish-speaking employee to help his company relate to the growing Hispanic population in his area, Liu heard some employees grumbling that “they’d better learn English first.” Liu put a stop to that immediately. “I told them, ‘Let’s knock that off. This country was built on the backs of people from other countries.’” Lee points out that some Asian and Middle Eastern cultures have been around for 5,000 years, far longer than American culture.
Another potential sticking point is the tendency of people — particularly men — to joke about one another’s ethnicity. Remodelers’ opinions vary on whether this locker room-type humor is acceptable, and how much is too much. Scott, for one, doesn’t want to hear it at all, and told his employees to stop the first time he heard such talk. For his part, Liu considers the friendly joking to be bonding, explaining that “in the doing, there’s some understanding.”
Ultimately, it’s up to you to consider your comfort level and the personalities of the employees involved, and to then decide to what extent this type of banter is acceptable. However, you should make it clear to your employees that such talk must stop when clients or subcontractors are present.