Black women in majority white teams experience worse job outcomes than those in diverse teams.

A new study from Harvard University is showing how companies that focus on diversifying their workforce are having a positive impact on Black women's work outcomes. Emma Bloomberg, associate professor for public policy and management, Elizabeth Linos and colleagues Sanaz Mobasseri from Boston University and Nina Roussille from Massachusetts Institute of Technology analyzed the turnover and promotion of new hires in a large, professional service elite firm from 2014 to 2020.

The results of the study revealed that the largest turnover gap was between Black and White women. Furthermore, Forbes reported that turnover measures how many workers leave a place of employment over a certain period of time. Additional analysis of the Harvard Study showed that the racial makeup of Black women's co-workers also affected turnover and promotion. It was found that a 14 percent increase in the share among White workers was correlated with a 10.6 percent increase in turnover for Black women.

Researchers noted that Black women in the workplace often face barriers to participation. As a result, they reported numerous ways in which interacting with their majority White coworkers negatively influenced their participation and identified challenges related to their task assignments and performance evaluations. Black women assigned to teams with more White workers also logged fewer working hours and a high number of training hours.

On the other hand, turnover decreased when other Black coworkers surrounded Black women. This finding is in line with a common finding in the literature that having more similar peers can have a positive effect on retention. The same effects were not apparent in other gender or racial groups.

Overall, researchers concluded that there needs to be an emphasis on recruiting and retaining diverse employees. This will ensure that Black women are given the same opportunities as their White counterparts and that they are not subject to unfair and unjust treatment in the workplace.

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