Are You a Token Worker?
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by Olivet Jones
One possible downside of a corporate focus on recruiting people from ethnic minorities is the inadvertent creation of a "token," someone who is viewed more as a representative icon than as an individual.
When differences are highly visible, as with a person's race, token employees may feel the fate of a people rests on their shoulders. "I often felt I was carrying the whole black race around with me," says one lawyer describing her experience in a firm where she was one of three black associates in a firm of 200 attorneys. "If I failed, it might shut the door on opportunity for people like me forever."
Often socially isolated and evaluated more on qualities unrelated to job performance, those employees perceived as tokens suffer as a result. According to Dr. Rossabeth Moss Kanter's research published in Men and Women of the Corporation, tokens experience added workplace pressures.
Sometimes coworkers and bosses engaged in sophomoric tests of loyalty. "I was the top salesperson in my company," says William Jones, now a private entrepreneur. "At the company Christmas party, my boss gave me a shoe shine kit right there in front of the entire staff. He did it because he thought he could get away with it. It was his way of slapping me down a notch, or so he thought. When we should have been celebrating my team's financial success for the year, he made it personal."
